Finding Ultra… and Garden Fresh Cocktails

I have just finished listening to the audiobook version of  Rich Roll’s memoir ‘Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men and Discovering Myself’. Rich is a former entertainment attorney turned ultra-endurance athlete. By the age of 40 he had battled with alcohol and drug addiction and was 50 pounds overweight, but following his own epiphany he went through a major life overhaul. Since then he has become a top competitor in various ultra endurance events and the book makes for inspirational reading.

As I have just kicked my fitness regime up a notch, my muscles have been aching like never before and my morning runs have been more challenging than usual. Listening to Rich talk about his journey to compete in the Epic5 Challenge helped to keep me going – if he can do 5 ironman triathlons in a week, I figured that I could run that extra half mile!

He is also a vegan and plant based nutrition advocate who mentions his
‘beloved Vitamix’ on numerous occasions throughout the book. I own a
Vitamix which I mainly use for making frozen fruit smoothies. Motivated
by his comments, I decided to try a vegetable smoothie – something that
I’ve wanted to do for a while, but have been a bit scared to try!

Recipe courtesy of Vitamix

I picked the ‘Garden Fresh Cocktail’ from the Vitamix recipe book as I already had all the ingredients. You can find the full recipe and others here.

Ingredients

• 180 g (1 cup) diced fresh or tinned tomatoes
• 15 g (1/2 cup) fresh spinach, washed
• 25 g (1/4 cup) diced carrots
• 1 Tablespoon diced onion
• 1 sprig parsley
• 40 g (1/4 cup) diced red or green pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• 1/8 teaspoon hot sauce (optional)
• Dash of salt (optional)
• 240 ml (1 cup) ice cubes

Directions

1. Place all ingredients into the Vitamix container in the order listed and secure lid.
2. Select Variable 1.
3. Turn machine on and slowly increase speed to Variable 10, then to High.
4. Blend for 1 minute using the tamper to press the ingredients into the blades, or until desired consistency is reached.

 I will be honest with you, I really wasn’t sure about drinking this! However nothing ventured nothing gained, so I bit the bullet and took a huge swig.

It was actually rather nice once my palate accepted the carrot taste! It had a slightly strange consistency, so if I do it again I’ll blend it for another 30 seconds to really break down all of the carrot. Overall it was much better than I expected it to be and I drank the lot.

I had this after my morning workout at about 11am and it kept me full for a good 3 or 4 hours, whereas usually I would have been craving lunch by about 12.30. I call that a result! I certainly won’t be converting to drinking this every day, but now that I’ve lost my green smoothie virginity I shall be trying out some more recipes.

Mr Darcy, however, says water is still best!

made at loogix.com

You can find out more about Rich Roll here.