2016 is here and every blog and its brother will be inundating you with ways to be healthier, more relaxed, more positive, lighter, smarter, faster, more focussed, and a generally more awesome version of yourself. More dubiously, you’ll also have information pushed at you about how to lose weight or become better looking.

Let’s just say this now: wanting to grow, heal, and embrace more joy in your life in 2016 is wonderful. Restricting, dieting, confining, squishing, or otherwise attempting to punish or hate your body or self into being something that fits a very (very!) narrow definition of attractive is not helpful. In fact, it’s harmful. Don’t fall prey to the new year thinking that somehow you aren’t good enough and changing your outside is what needs to happen.

Ideally, your resolutions, goals, or priorities for the new year elevate and excite you, and they serve to boost your spirit, not depress you about how much you need to fix, improve, or change. That’s where I think the ‘new year, new you’ concept really falls off the rails. Each year shouldn’t start with a vow to rehaul your entire self. What kind of message does that send to your internal esteem? The idea is to bring more joy, more pleasure, more fun, more laughter, and more healing and growth into our lives to become the best version of ourselves in the process. That’s how to start the new year.

This smoothie is something I’ve been tinkering with over the holidays, and it represents some of these ideals in food-form: it’s boosting, light, energizing, healthy, and is just the kind of the tasty and tangy re-set your tastebuds might need after a more indulgent festive season.

The turmeric adds a nice cheerful boost of yellow colour and is a powerful anti-inflammatory, and adding a healthy fat (I like NutraVege Citrus omega oil) helps with absorption and is good support for your brain and skin (every cell in your body needs and benefits from healthy fats – and you have trillions of cells all performing some little but necessary function at every moment. Give them some support!). Orange juice and mango add lots of Vitamin C, which is helpful for your immune system and your skin collagen, and the banana adds potassium and fibre. A scoop of protein powder adds some protein so that your smoothie can keep you full longer.

I typically measure out the juice, almond milk, and powders the night before, and then in the morning just add the mango and banana. Blend it up, and Bob’s your uncle.

Happy New Year to you all! May 2016 bring you joy, peace, love, and laughter, and may you feel that you lived it all in the presence of your best self.

Turmeric and Vitamin C ‘New Year Best Self’ Creamsicle Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup almond or coconut milk
• 1/2 cup orange juice (essentially equal parts juice to almond milk)
• 2 teaspoons lime juice
• 1 cup frozen mango chunks
• 1/2 of a frozen banana
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons (or 1 scoop) vanilla vegan protein powder
• 1-2 teaspoons your favourite omega oil (fruit/citrus flavoured works well)
• OPTIONAL: 2 teaspoons sunflower lecithin; 1-2 teaspoons maca powder

Instructions:

1. Measure out all ingredients into a blender or NutriBullet-type device.
2. Blend ’em up!
3. Sip and enjoy.

© Eat Well, Live Vibrantly