Banana Orange Smoothie

I've mentioned to you all that I've been on a big gym, yoga, 'trying my darnedest' to eat better regime for the past month.  Being someone who loves to bake and eat fresh bread isn't helping but I do my best since I'm going to be displaying my buff bod in Florida in 5 weeks.  Now there's some motivation!

One of the big no-no's for weight loss is to skip breakfast (apparently coffee doesn't count as a full breakfast - huh).  As a way to make myself eat breakfast and get the old metabolism jump started in the morning I've begun to make myself smoothies.  These easy to whip up beauties also taste great after I get back from a good workout at the gym. Armed with only a handful of ingredients and my beloved Ninja blender (with individual cups) smoothie making is so easy!  It is so easy that my kids have got on the smoothie band wagon and are asking for a fruit smoothie instead of a traditional snack.  The power of the mighty smoothie, people!

It also doesn't hurt that the combinations are endless with smoothies - from berries, to Nutella, to bananas and spinach ....   They are the pizza of the bevvie world but the combo of banana and orange is definitely my favourite (especially since there are no seeds to contend with afterwards).

Enjoy!

Yield: 1 smoothie

1 banana - cut in half, peeled and frozen (see Note below)
1/3 cup orange juice
3 tbsp no-fat plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp ground flax seed (optional - and will make your smoothie less 'smooth')

Place all of your ingredients into the hopper of your blender (I love using the individual cups of my Ninja blender for this).  Blend until smooth.  Drink immediately.

Tip: One of my big tips for making smoothies easier is to peel older bananas, cut them in half and freeze them in a Ziploc freezer bag with a bunch of their brethren so they're easy to grab.  If you have no frozen bananas on had you can use an older banana on the counter (not a new one because it won't have enough flava-flava) but add about 1/2 cup of crushed ice to the blender to make your smoothie nice and chilly.