Many people have asked me how I came up with my popular new routine we call Smoothies with a Movie at our home. Here is the journey I took to change habits and embrace a new ritual.
Why is it we do things that are detrimental to our health? I have been fascinated by my inability to stop myself from eating food that is not good for me or from stopping eating before I finish that big bag of potato chips. What is it about us that we are losing the battle of the every increasing bulge?
The biggest challenge we all have in life is embracing change, particularly when it comes to our eating habits. Old habits do diehard. Creating new, healthier and more desirable habits is the key to our success. When we are tired or need to retreat to comfort those new habits need to be the ones we do automatically, not the old, detrimental habits. How do we do that? Deliberately and repeatedly. New habits need to become routine and ritualized. That is how we succeed in embracing change. Through constructing new habits, routines and traditions (rituals) that support our desired change we will succeed in living a healthier lifestyle.
Surveying the times and places I tend to go “AWOL” with food I decided to see how I might change my eating habits around those occasions. The first one I wanted to work on was the way I eat when I watch movies. It is always the same; we buy a big bucket of popcorn, the super-sized drink and 2 boxes of candy. I shutter at the amount of calories we consume while watching one movie. It is at least 2500 calories. Half of that is 1200 calories, basically the calories for one day’s worth of food for me. And that is only if I eat half of what we buy. Truthfully, I probably eat more. At home I typically grab whatever bag of snacks is around to sit in front of the TV and eat anything from chips to cookies to a snack mix.
For years I have tried to eat less without success. It was too easy to go back to the larger sizes. I realized I needed to change up the whole habit. Since we watch more movies at home on the weekends, I decided to tackle creating a new habit at home.
The State of Slim Mile-High Protein Smoothie has become a true treat for me. It is so satisfying and it doesn’t trigger my need for more munchies. We now enjoy the new habit, which has become a “look forward to” routine of “Smoothies with a Movie”. Everyone likes the fun of it. You can now hear somebody asking “Hey, can we have Smoothies and a Movie tonight?” That is the sign we are headed towards a new great, healthy and repeatable tradition.
Here is our favorite Smoothie recipe for watching movies:
PB2 Chocolate Hazelnut Smoothie
Ingredients-
1 cup chilled fat-free milk
1 scoop chocolate protein powder
2 tablespoons chocolate PB2
2 teaspoons sugar-free hazelnut syrup (like Torani)
1 cup ice (cubes or crushed)
Directions-
1. Pour the milk into a blender.
2. Add the protein powder, PB2 and syrup to the milk. Blend completely.
3. Add ice and blend to the consistency you prefer.
4. Pour into a tall glass.
Tip: Make sure to add a straw so you can sip instead of gulp the smoothie, allowing you to enjoy it longer while watching the movie.
For a fruit-based smoothie, try out this recipe from my blog- Fruit Smoothie.
Enjoy! And Live Vibrant!
