Bigger than One Direction

One of the biggest struggles I face on a daily basis in my battle to stay healthy is my sweet tooth. I have more of a tusk, than a tooth, actually. Ok, so it’s a tusk with a root canal and crown, but you get the point.

Let me tell you, there isn’t a day that goes by that I do not crave something sweet. I have an INSATIABLE sugar addiction. It is easily one of my biggest demons. It’s monument sized. Marvel Comics’ movie budget sized. It’s bigger than “One Direction”!!!

Seriously. Have you seen Pinterest lately? Apparently the one called “Niall” has to fend off tween girls with a laser gun or something. I don’t remember ever being that sycophantic to any one person, but I guess it’s possible I blocked that memory out into the same place I blocked my Nirvana “Nevermind” tee shirt and wide leg jeans with platform sneakers days. (hawt. BTW, I was a TWEEN when Kurt Cobain met his maker, yet still obsessed in 8th grade. HMMMM) Smells like Emo teenager.

Back to my original point. This tooth of mine gets me into all sorts of problems….the biggest problem that it gets me into is a larger size of pants and possibly the dentist’s chair. I HATE the dentist and totally understand why of any profession they have the highest suicide rate. People hate them.

As healthy as I try to be, you’d think I’d be better at controlling the cravings by now. Nope! I go down with a frown into sugar town.  What I am better at doing is choosing my ingredients wisely!!

Skim milk has approximately 80 calories a cup,  and a whopping TWELVE grams of sugar!! Not to mention, my son can’t drink it anyway. He’ll tell you as much, too.

“Is that cow’s milk? I dwink soy and almond and coconut milwk. I’m awergic to cow’s milk.”

Silk Pure Almond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk has THIRTY calories a cup and NO sugar. Yeah. You read that right.  That tiny fun sized kit kat I just ate while typing this has more than double those calories….and let’s not discuss the sugar. (it’s embarrassing…I mean, I just told you I’m healthy and I often suffer from sugar need, so much so that I just DOMINATED that bar.)

Tell me then, with that sugar and caloric difference, why would I use regular milk in my smoothie? I wouldn’t. Even moreso because I already use juice and yogurt in my smoothies….who needs the extra fructose and butt fat increasing calories? I spent a lot of money on these jeans, and I intend upon wearing them to my grave, and I’m not dying this week.

This smoothie that I am dubbing the “Ancient Antioxidants” smoothie, mostly because I enjoy alliteration, has a fruit that you may or may not be familiar with; the “dragonfruit” or “pitaya”. It has a sweet and creamy flesh that is high in things like lycopene and awesome. It has the taste of a pear and the texture of a kiwi, making it sheer perfection for a smoothie.  I like to pair the fruit with cherries and vanilla to  really bring out the contrasts in light and dark flavors. It is magical.

Ancient Antioxidants Smoothie, aka Cherry Dragonfruit Smoothie

Ancient Antioxidants Smoothie

½ individually sized Silk Live Vanilla Yogurt

½ cup frozen pitted cherries

½ cold dragon fruit, chopped

½ cup Silk Pure Almond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (saving 25 calories and 6g of sugar compared to skim milk)

¼ cup apple juice

To get into the dragon fruit, slice it in half and scoop out the innards like a kiwi.  Place all ingredients in a blender and whir until smooth.

Silk Pure Almond compensated me for this post, but all opinions and testimony are my own.