Drink a smoothie and stay healthy

I have always been health-conscious but my desire for a healthier body, not only for me but for my kids, intensified after my father had a stroke and after I suffered from hypertension. I am off  my hypertension meds for a month now and my blood pressure has never been better.

Last week I was in SM Lanang to visit a food expo exhibition. One exhibitor was selling a heavy-duty, multi-function blender. It can blend beans and rice, can crush ice in seconds and can be used hot or cold! The seller demonstrated the use of the blender and produced for the audience a very smoothly blended concoction of fruits and vegetables, so delicious and so healthy! I was so impressed that I almost bought the blender, almost! If it was not for the price, I would already have owned one, haha. Okay, it was sold for P12,000, hmmm, expensive. I know it's a good investment but I held off and searched for a similar blender online. Luckily, I found a cheaper blender that has the same functions for only P4,500. I am so excited! It will arrive this week.

Ok, going back to my effort for a healthier body, I realized that my good old Kyowa 10-speed blender can also process green smoothies. The smoothie is not as smooth as the one I tasted at the food expo but I guess both smoothies deliver the same benefits.

I got so addicted that I prepare a smoothie every morning. After my morning walk, instead of preparing my carrot juice, I now prepare a green smoothie. No, I am not going to stop drinking carrot juice, it's just that, a smoothie is more useful for the entire family than the juice. A kilo of carrots barely produces an 8-ounce juice, it's only good for one person. Secondly, my children hate carrot juice (except for Rae who drinks and eats whatever I give him). Good thing about the smoothie is that I get to make my kids drink it! They don't eat  vegetables and they hate carrot juice, with the green smoothie, veggies get into their body without them complaining. Alright, Roi and the girls complained at first but they're drinking it now. :)

The green smoothie is so tasty! I prepared this using my old 10-speed Kyowa blender

This is a mango-banana-romaine lettuce smoothie. No sugar added. The natural sweetness of mango and banana masks the taste of the lettuce. Except for the color, one can never tell it has greens on it. It is so tasty and so healthy. And oh by the way, green smoothies make you glow from inside out, it's very good for your skin :)

Here are inspirational websites with excellent green smoothie recipes:
Incredible Smoothies
Family Sponge

Have fun making your green smoothie and stay healthy!

Sunshine after the rain

So many things happened to me this year and I don't know where and how to begin my tale, but let me just say that my life turned upside down when my father had a stroke in March that paralyzed half of his body and when my dearest auntie had a stroke in April that led to her death. I was devastated.

It was a very difficult time for me. I tried very hard to be strong for my family but deep inside me my controls were slowly ebbing away from my grasp and I became very anxious, I got sick, my blood pressure rose, I palpitated, I went back and forth to the doctor. Hey, I am very slim and I eat healthy so even I could hardly believe I have blood pressure problem. My doctor in Davao calls it essential hypertension, and this treacherous illness runs in the family. He advised my to take a maintenance medicine (losartan 50mg). One doctor in Batangas, however, advised me to go easy on the hypertension med because he, too, doesn't think I have hypertension issues. He said the rise in my BP could have been triggered by an illness or a difficult situation. Hypertension became a dark shadow that loomed in my horizon, it consumed me, had it on my head all the time. Blood pressure monitoring became a daily exercise, I checked my BP everyday, morning and evening, and I took my BP pill religiously for fear of stroke.

Last month, I went through a company-required annual executive medical check up that included the following tests: Blood chemistry (CBC, FBS, Creatinine, Uric acid, Lipid profile,  SGPT/ALT), Urinalysis, Stool exam, Chest x-ray, Ultrasound of the bladder, kidneys, liver and pancreas, ECG, Stress echo-Cardiogram test. GUESS WHAT? My results were all normal as normal as can be! The doctor who attended to me, a cardiologist, prescribed me medicine for anxiety (Xanor 250mg) instead of hypertension. He told me to take the medicine for 5 days before bedtime and take only half a tablet when anxiety attacks or when I palpitate. He  told me to discontinue my hypertension maintenance medicine after two weeks. I had fears that if I stopped taking losartan my blood pressure would rise again but I took the doctor's advice and stopped taking losartan after 2 weeks.

I feel better now, I stopped palpitating, my blood pressure is normal but I still continue to monitor my BP. I also exercise daily. My morning ritual includes saying my morning thanksgiving prayer, taking my blood pressure, drinking a glass of water with kalamansi, walking/jogging/stretching for 20-30 minutes, and drinking fresh juice, most of the time carrot juice with a little milk and lots of ice.

So in a capsule, I could say that, yes, there's always sunshine after the rain. I have never felt better, my financial woes are being solved and I am happy, but that is another story :)