My kitchen is about 10x messier than this after I make smoothies. Whatever.
People sometimes ask me, “Damien, how do you possibly do SO much in one day?” Besides the fact that I’m motivated by worry that I will perish of boredom if I stop, I also learned to consume really specific foods that help my mind stay clear and my body feel good. This is how I learned to make them and some recipies for you to make some for yourself.
WHERE THIS STARTED
The first semester I was in graduate school, between that, my dayjob, and art/Heels on Wheels, I got so sick I couldn’t eat and felt cloudy and confused. But guess what? It was FINALS, I had to finish classes, and us poor folks can’t just stop going to work, so with some help, I figured out foods that got me through.
WHAT YOU NEED
— A blender
— A cutting board and a knife
— Whole, raw fruits and vegetables, or frozen pre-cut ones if you are baller [preferably organic but if that’s too expensive it’s better to eat non-organic vegetables than any organic sugar/carb-based foods in my opinion.]
SMOOTHIES! You know, you can blend most things into a delicious smoothie with a little elbow grease. The more liquid you add to a smoothie the easier it is to blend but the less like a milkshake it is, and I like em like soft serve. So, sometimes you have to just keep stickin a spoon in the blender and move shit around.
The good news: blending and juicing foods smash up the cells of the food, releasing awesome nutrients that are easier to digest because the blender/juicer did the hard cell-smashing work. All your body has to do is just absorb nutrition, basically. SO good!
Start the Day: blend the first five things, then add the kale & ice for a second round of blending. Then run to work/school and feel great about yourself.
— 1 Frozen Banana
— 1/2 orange or an apricot or a 1/2 pear or some pineapple slices
— 1/2 grapefruit
— Handful of berries [blueberries, strawberries, blackberries]
— 1/4-1/2 cup almond or soy milk or yoghurt
— 2 big stalks worth of kale leaves
— 3-5 pieces of ice
After the Gym Afternoon Drink: it’s good to get some protein in after you work out cuz it helps your muscles. And I am really addicted to coffee so I try to multitask my food. I’m busy!
— 1 Frozen Banana
— 1-2 shots espresso
— 1 big spoonful peanut butter [almond butter would also be good]
— 1/2 -1 cup chocolate almond or soy milk
— 1 spoonful protein powder
— 3-5 pieces of ice
JUICES! A few years earlier my partner at the time and I did some strategic juice cleansing after a particularly indulgent trip to Las Vegas, and I’d gotten a juicer for free on Craigslist as part of this. I first learned about juicing when my ex-wife worked for a fancy juice bar in Toronto, started by someone who kicked heroin by juicing.
You can’t actually juice anything. It needs to be, well, juicy, and not so full of fiber that all of the foodstuff gets lost in the extraction process. Juicing a strawberry loses a lot of the berry, for example.
