How to prepare for Green Thickies 7 day meal replacement Green Smoothie Challenge

UPDATE: Join our the all new Lean Green Smoothie Challenge.  

Click here to join

If you have signed up for the 7 day Green Thickies challenge, or are thinking about doing it you should read this information first which will help you plan your meals and create your own recipes.  If you are reading this in the future, you are also very welcome to do the challenge in your own time.  I will still support you if you need it.

I have already sent out this information in an email to everyone who left a comment to say they were going to participate in the Green Thickies 7 day meal replacement challenge.  If you haven’t received an email from me check your email junk folder or feel free to contact me via my contact page with your email address if you want to be included in future emails.

I’m just reminding you that we are going to be starting the challenge on Monday the 1st October in a couple of days time.

Disclaimer

Before I explain more about the challenge, I just want to draw your attention to my disclaimer at the bottom of the page.  (Check with your doctor before changing your diet especially if you have health problems, and I can’t be held responsible for any effects or lack of effects of this challenge.  That said, I am sure you will take away something positive from the experience)

Plan your meals for the week

I’m very excited as this is the first time I’ve hosted a Green Thickie challenge, and I really hope you enjoy it and get some benefit out of it.

So now is a perfect time to plan your meals for the challenge and buy in some fruit that may need a few days to ripen such as bananas, plums, avocados, and pears.

Here are some of the ingredients you might want to stock up on for the challenge:

• Fresh fruit
• Frozen fruit
• Fresh leafy greens such as spinach, chard, romaine lettuce or kale
• Frozen leafy greens in case you run out
• Fresh herbs such as basil, parsley or cilantro
• Lemons and limes
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Dates, raisins, sultanas, other dried fruit or healthier sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave nectar, date syrup, molasses
• Oats, quinoa
• Sweet potato, squash, pumpkin, carrots, zucchini
• Dairy free milk
• Spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg
• Coconut milk, creamed coconut or dried coconut
• Peanut butter or nut or seed butters

 How many recipes should I make per day?

However, to avoid waste I would plan your meals in advance and buy the ingredients that you are going to use just for those meals.  If you are replacing all your meals with green thickies I would make 2 batches of smoothie per day.  This is 4 servings which should be enough to fill you up and have some left over for the next day, depending on your calorie requirements.  I would make a full recipe (2 servings) for each meal so that way you have more Green Thickie to drink if you’re hungry, and if you’re not you can keep it in the fridge for your next smoothie meal.

For maximum health benefits and weight loss I would recommend replacing all your meals with green thickies.  Remember to eat when you are hungry and track your calories so you make sure you are getting enough.  If you are working out you will need to eat more.

 What should I eat for my other meals?

If you are only replacing one or two meals with green thickies, to get the most out of the week, I would recommend making your meals from completely whole foods with the majority of your meals made up from fruit and vegetables.  For example, you could have a baked potato with some stir fri vegetables and a vegetable based sauce on top.

 Eat raw greens with every meal

Another recommendation is that you include raw leafy greens as part of all your meals.  So 3 times a day include some kind of greens with your meals. You can do this by either having a green thickie smoothie or soup as you meal, having a tradition green smoothie (no filling carbs) alongside your normal meal, or adding your meal to the top of a massive salad.  If you do this, hopefully you’ll notice an increase in your energy levels and health.

 What recipes I am going to make

The smoothies I’m planning for the week are:

• Apple Pie with added greens
• Fig Pie with added greens
• Key Lime Pie
• Spicy Plum
• Black Forest Cake
• Sweet Potato Soup
• And some new recipes that I am going to try

I’ve just noticed there are lots of pies and cakes there, but on this challenge you really can eat all the pies, as long as they are in smoothie form.

Do you want to try a Green Thickie?  This basic Green Thickie Recipeis the perfect starting point.

 How to plan your meals

To plan my meals, I just looked at what fruits I’ve already got in and based my meals around those.  If you know what ingredients you can get hold of then just type the fruit into the key ingredient search on my recipage and hopefully you’ll get some smoothie suitable for that ingredient:

You can use any of my Green Thickie recipes  or Dessert Thickies (add some leafy greens to them) or recently I’ve posted 2 meal replacement soup recipes if you fancy something savoury.  Scroll to the bottom to see the recipes.

How many Green Thickies should you have a day

Bear in mind the calories in these recipes vary from 300-600 calories per serving which is why I’d eat when you’re hungry and if you want to ensure you definitely lose weight, I’d track all your meals with either cronomoter or myfitnesspal.  My Fitness pal will give you a recommended number of calories per day.  I exceeded mine by 800 calories a day and still lost weight.  I find it impossible to not eat when I’m hungry as I believe it’s my body telling me that I need to eat.  Of course if you are eating refined sugar this can cause your bodies blood sugar levels to swing out of control and you will probably end up eating more than you need.  This is why I also recommend you avoid refined sugar.

How to create your own Green Thickie

If you want to create your own green thickie, I use the following formula.  This serves 2 but you may want to have more than one serving depending on your calorie requirements:

• 2 Cups water or dairy free milk
• 2 cups of leafy greens
• 2-4 fruit or cups of fruits depending on how creamy the fruit is or how thick or filling I want the smoothie to be.  Just experiment.
• 1 Cup of oats, quinoa or 2 cups of sweet potato

You can also add the following which are not essential but add some delicious flavour:

• 2 tablespoons of seeds or ¼ cup of nuts
• ¼ to ½ cup of dates, dried fruit or 2 tablespoons of liquid sweetener
• Juice of 1-4 lemons/limes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or cinnamon
• ¼ to ½ cup of coconut milk, dried coconut or less coconut cream

 Ingredients I DON’T recommend

If you want to be successful on this challenge and also stick to my guidelines for creating Green Thickies, I would advise you AVOID adding certain foods to your smoothies.  This list became far too long for this post so I’ll publish it separately, but basically avoid protein/whey powders, dairy, Oil, dried greens, store bought fruit juices and expensive dried “superfoods” in packets.

How to make a cold smoothie

If you want to drink your smoothie straight away it’s better to include some frozen fruit such as frozen bananas or spinach or substitute some of the liquid for ice.  Nobody enjoys a warm smoothie so if you don’t add frozen ingredients, leave it in the fridge for up to 3 days.  You might need to leave frozen food to thaw for a bit if your blender can’t cope with it.

You can also read this guide on How to make a green thickie.  If you want to re-read the original challenge invitation post you can find it here.

I hope your challenge goes really well and please email me if you have any questions.  I’d also love to know how you get on with the challenge as you go through or at the end.  Please feel free to be honest.  I welcome both positive and negative feedback.  Not all diets are suitable for everyone so if you find it’s not for you then don’t worry about it.  I’d still love to hear from you and offer any help I can. I do really hope that you get some benefit out of it as raw greens and fruit are the best things we can be eating for maximum health and weight loss.

All the best with the challenge.

UPDATE: Join our the all new Lean Green Smoothie Challenge.  

Click here to join

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Katherine Kyle @ Green Thickies

Founder at Green Thickies

Katherine lost 56 pounds and recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with Green Thickies.
Read Katherine's inspiring comeback story, From Fat and Fatigued To Lean and Loving Life In 4 Months.
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