Sunrise Protein Smoothie

Hello and welcome back! I’m posting this Sunrise Protein Smoothie today to let everyone know I’m actually alive and well and still creating delicious recipes for my family. 🙂

So where have I been? You know, to sum it up I’ve been super busy with my family. We have four little boys to take care of and since the baby was born last September I feel like I’m in survival mode everyday. I also have a relatively new photography business that is taking up quite a bit of my time. If you are in the Central Pennsylvania area go ahead and check me out!  www.danacarvellphotography.com 

My business is specializing in newborn and family photography and things have taken off to the point where I feel like I’m ignoring my first baby, my 3boys blog! I got a swift kick in the rear when I realized that I still get thousands of hits a day and I’m so missing my foodie community. It almost was like a big wake up call:

“Hello Dana! There are thousands of people reading your recipes everyday! You are killing in in stats, where are you!?!?”

It kind of just dropped on my lap, honestly. So here I am! I not only love doing this, it is like a breath of fresh air!

So i’ve decided to try to dedicate a little time each week to still posting and doing something that I ultimately love to do. I’ve had such a positive experience here and I love it! And of course, by the way, since upgrading my camera, and getting A TON of experience in taking pictures of people I’ve also grown so much in my food photography. Gone are the days of super over exposed images. 🙂 I also really love taking pictures of food because hello! Food does not move! Most of the time I’m chasing around toddlers. Don’t get me wrong, I love a challenge, but a subject that is motionless once in a while is so fun!

As I mentioned since our 4th boy was born last year I’ve been in survival mode. Little by little we are getting back to our own “normal” but it has taken quite some time. Just because our baby is 16 months old doesn’t mean things have gotten a whole lot easier, just different. More of chasing mom around the house begging to be carried around all day so that mom can literally do nothing, including cook for the rest of the family! haha In order to get healthy, whole foods into my own body I have resorted to a lot of smoothie recipes because… again…survival mode ya’ll!

I hesitated to post this Sunrise Protein Smoothie recipe because it seems so simple. At the same time I thought, why not!?!? This is real, this is what I’m eating, and I should share it. It doesn’t have to be super elaborate for readers to find it helpful. So here it is! 🙂

How to Choose the Best Protein Powder

This is one thing that made me hesitate to post this Sunrise Smoothie Recipe because I don’t want folks to pick a protein powder that contains a ton of unhealthy ingredients. In the back of my mind I’m saying:

“I’ve seen some really bad ones. Will someone choose that?”

So here. I’m telling you straight. Read the ingredient list. Look in the “naturals” section, and choose wisely. Choose organic if you can, try to find the shortest list of ingredients, and stay away from soy. I’ve actually seen partially hydrogenated oils in GNC’s protein powders, as well as a bunch of others. Like really GNC!?!?! How dare you throw horrible ingredients into a powder that is marketed to people trying to be healthy. These are the things that just simply anger me because it is necessary and dangerous. I love Food Babe and she has a list here that will help you choose. While mine is not on her list, I would still highly suggest all Vega products as they taste great and have worked very well for me!

I use Vega protein powders that are the best I’ve found. Yes, they are vegan. No I’m not following a Vegan diet. However their ingredients check out and I will be eating non-vegan foods the rest of the day so it is a nice change.

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