a recipe for you...

I don't know about you, but I crave sugar. If it's chocolate and in the form of a cake, brownie, or ice cream, I'll take it. I really think it's an addiction - everyday around 4pm the cravings hit and I need a fix. I was telling my preceptor about it and she asked me if I was getting enough protein in my diet. I told her I probably wasn't.  I eat a lot of fruit and veggies, and whole grains - but I rarely eat meat or good sources of protein outside of the occassional serving of beans or peanut butter. She told me that I could be craving sugar so badly because I'm not getting enough protein - cravings usually key you into the fact that you may not be getting what your body needs. I thought it was interesting, and she told me her secret is adding protein powder to smoothies. I took her advice 1. because I like smoothies, and 2. because I wanted to see if adding protein would help with my dessert cravings. So here is a quick and easy recipe for the smoothie I made this morning for breakfast - it tastes fabulous, has a lot of protein and even some fiber in it :)

Peanut Butter Bananna Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 large banana (about 7-8 inches long) frozen (I break it into four pieces cause it blends faster)

1/2 tablespoon of honey

1 tablespoon of Naturally More peanut butter (This is a great peanut butter - it has an extra kick of protein AND flax seeds in it - so you get a kick of fiber too!)

1 cup of unsweetened almond milk (AlmondBreeze is my favorite, but Silk's brand is good too and has fewer calories)

1 scoop of whey protein powder (I used Publix's Greenwise Vanilla Whey protein powder - mainly because they didn't have unflavored powder at the store, but it's good - I like it).

Blend that junk together and enjoy it :) It makes a fairly large smoothie, so you can split it in half and enjoy the rest later.

Nutrition breakdown: 1 serving:  about 367 calories; 10g Fat; 15mg Cholesterol; 274mg  Sodium; 47g Carbs; 7g Fiber, 24g Protein; 26g Sugar (you can decrease the sugar greatly by leaving out the honey, especially if you get vanilla flavored protein powder because it's already sweetened).

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