I’m trying to make peace with the fact that early morning outdoor exercise is soon to be a relegated to the weekends.

For the first time since early spring I busted out the pink hat (you know, the hat I knit myself) and gloves for a morning walk/run today. More walking than running this morning, sometimes it nice to simply walk.

It’s also nice (and necessary) to remember that no matter how freezing it is out there, you DO warm up once you get moving! If anything, the cold is motivation to pick up the pace in the beginning. Knowing how good that early morning air and sunshine will feel on your skin is enough to make it worth it to drag myself out from under the covers.

Eventually.

3 miles and 48 minutes later I was warm enough to be in the mood for a cold breakfast. I made a smoothie for Ava yesterday per her exact instructions:

“No yogurt, no hemp seeds, no flax seeds, no funny business.” Just bananas, strawberries and almond milk.

No funny business? Well what kind of meal is that?!

I came to see though that she was on to something. Her very simple smoothie looked really good. So good in fact that I couldn’t wait to make one for myself today.

I did add Greek yogurt to my version of a simple strawberry banana smoothie. A meal with no protein or fat will leave me feeling hungry again in about 30 seconds.

I also added one other ingredient that I’ve come to discover turns an ordinary strawberry smoothie into something more closely resembling a strawberry milkshake.

Besides vanilla extract, it was just frozen strawberries, one banana, a scoop of 2% Fage and almond milk.

No flax seeds, no hemp seeds, no spinach, no funny business.

Simply strawberry.

And holy delicious batman! Kids are smart!

It was giant, but I managed to make the whole thing disappear.

And now I’m freezing again. But it was worth it.