Spring Into Summer Smoothie

Hello beauties!

I’m just in the middle of my Inner Spring and I wanted to share a recipe I’ve been tweaking for the past few months.

It’s FINALLY ready to be shared with the world so say hello to “Spring Into Summer!”

Our Inner Spring is a time of transition.

We’re moving slowly away from the sleepiness of our Inner Winter to the full blazing glory of our Inner Summer.

So… it’s REALLY important that everything we eat during this time is jam-packed with nutrients

Think protein and good fats (really important for healthy follicles. Healthy follicles = healthy ovulation).

We  also need to carry on replacing the iron we lost during our Inner Winter. (Quite often when women tell me they feel exhausted after their periods it’s usually because they haven’t been eating enough iron rich foods)

And…because our oestrogen is starting to rise we need to make sure we’ve got plenty of fibre to keep that oestrogen flowing out nicely. If we allow oestrogen to build up now it can lead to problems during ovulation or even PMS in our Inner Autumn (and no one wants that!)

It can be quite tempting in our Inner Spring to eat really lightly but to be honest we do so at our peril as we’ll arrive at our Inner Summer exhausted.

This is why I LOVE this smoothie…it literally ticks all the nutrition boxes AND is soooo delicious! (Not to mention REALLY easy to make!) It’s a brilliant combination of proteins and fats and lighter ingredients like courgette and spinach alongside hormone-flushing fibre. I could go on about the nutritional composition of this smoothie all day but I won’t bore you to death so let’s move on!

You’re probably asking yourself, what exactly is in the smoothie and what’s so great about the ingredients?

Read on my beauty to find out!

First up we have avocado.

This an amazing source of good fats and Vitamin E which is VERY important for healthy and happy follicles. (Every month one follicle goes on to mature and release an egg into our fallopian tubes so happy and healthy follicles are definitely where it’s at when thinking about how we can support our Inner Spring.

Next we have cashews.

These are a great source of good fats AND protein - they’re on the list  of recommended Inner Spring nuts so why the hell not? They also give the smoothie a really lovely creamy flavour and they work well with the avocado and spinach. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of watery smoothies….eeeuughh….

Third on the list is the humble (and often ignored) courgette.

Ok bear with me here… I know courgette seem like a strange smoothie ingredient BUT it’s a brilliant vegetable for our Inner Spring as it’s a surprisingly good source of folic acid which is SUPER important for follicle development. (There we go with those follicles again!)

Courgette also weirdly adds a lovely creaminess to the smoothie. I’m actually a massive fan of adding courgettes to smoothies and I can guarantee you this won’t be the last time you’ll see me sneaking a courgette into a recipe!

Next up a good quality vanilla protein powder. Most smoothies are quite low in protein and as we know our Inner Spring needs a LOT of protein to set us up for a successful Inner Summer. So best to cut to the chase and tip in a generous scoop and smile smugly to ourselves that our protein target has been hit!

What do I mean by good quality protein powder? One with no crap or fillers in it, one with no artificial sweeteners and preferably one that’s organic.

We then have a nice big handful of baby spinach.

Like I’ve already said, it is SUPER important that we carry on replacing the iron we lost during our period and baby spinach will do this nicely.

You’ll see I’ve also added a nice squeeze of lemon to boost Vitamin C content which will help with the absorption of the iron in the spinach. (Plant sources of iron absorb much much more efficiently if they have a bit of vitamin C to help them along).

Of course no smoothie recipe would be complete without a nice nut milk.

It adds to the creaminess and overall deliciousness (and ensures your smoothie is most definitely NOT watery!!!!)

Just make sure you use an unsweetened one.

And finally we have some lovely pumpkin seeds. These are PACKED with good fats and zinc.

Zinc is SUPER important for hormonal health…and if you’re into seed cycling you’ll know that pumpkin seeds are perfect for our Inner Spring as they help to support rising oestrogen levels whilst at the same time providing one of the building blocks for progesterone (which will start to rise in our Inner Summer). So a big yay for pumpkin seeds!

Ok enough of me waffling….

Here’s the ACTUAL RECIPE:

“Spring into Summer”

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 avocado

10 cashews, chopped (leave a small amount to sprinkle on top at the end)

1/2 courgette 

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

1 handful washed baby leaf spinach

Squeeze of lemon for vitamin C and iron absorption 

250ml water/nut milk of your choice (unsweetened please!) 

Handful of pumpkin seeds

METHOD:

Combine all the ingredients in a high speed blender and blend.

Super delicious and creamy! Top with the remaining chopped cashews

Sit back, close your eyes and immerse yourself in the goodness!

Honestly I haven’t been THIS excited about a smoothie recipe in a longggg time.

I just LOVE how the ingredients here really help us transition from the depths of our Inner Winter to the radiance of our Inner Summer!

The protein and good fats really help to set us up for all the energy we’re going to be using up in our Inner Summer whilst the spinach helps us replace any last bits of iron we might have lost whilst bleeding.

Oh and the zinc in those pumpkin seeds is really going to set us up nicely for ovulation….excitingggg!!!

I can’t WAIT to hear how you get on with this recipe - make sure you tag me @hormones_in_harmony in any photos you post so I can cheer you on in your amazing journey to live in harmony with your hormones!

Sending you so much love,

Giulietta x