Chocolate shake after working out?  Am I crazy? Probably, but not for this.  Seriously it taste like a real shake but it's packed with good for you stuff.  That's right a no guilt reward after your hard work.  Now that's motivation!


If you follow this blog you probably have noticed my obsession with banana shakes.  It all started when I realized that if you freeze bananas and blend them with some liquid, they're like soft serve ice cream just a little softer.  Since it is a little on the soft side I prefer using it as a base for shakes instead.  Because while it taste close to ice cream, it's still obviously not the same thing, but shakes are much harder to tell the difference in my opinion.

 I started with a basic banana shake with just coconut milk and frozen bananas.  Then I started working out and learning about how you want to use a fast acting protein to boost your muscle growth and HGH hormones after a work out.  I bought plain grass fed pesticide free low heat processed whey protein from Defense Nutrition via Amazon.   If you're vegan you can try Vega One.   So of course I thought hey why not add protein powder to my banana shake and have that after my work out.  I also tried adding probiotics with yogurt and keifer, cause hey why not add some good probiotics while I'm at it.  Then I added organic psyllium husks to add more fiber.  Check out the full recipe here.  The end result is I couldn't even tell I added all this extra good stuff into it.

How I Altered My Original Post Work Out Shake Recipe
I altered my last recipe slightly.  I am using organic whole milk at the moment because I learned that the milk alternatives I was using (unsweetened coconut and almond milk from Trader Joe's) has added synthetic vitamins in it D2, Vitamin A Palmitate, and synthetic vitamin E .  Yuck! Organic whole milk at least has only one synthetic vitamin Vitamin A Palmitate.  You wouldn't think organic would have synthetic vitamins would you?  Why whole milk?  According to Fox New skim and low fat milk have even more synthetic vitamins.  I have concluded that organic whole milk seems to be the best I option next to making my own almond or coconut milk. I also decided to not put in yogurt to make sure it taste more shake and less smoothie. 

I was pretty happy with this recipe and couldn't imagine any way to make it taste better or to be healthier until recently while playing around with cocao (raw chocolate) I had the ideal of adding it to my shake.  And how about adding coconut whipped cream?   It seriously  is soooooo......good I swear you'll think it's bad!

Why Raw Use Raw Cocao?
The added benefit is raw cocoa is so good for you it's considered a super food.  That's right have all the raw chocolate you want as long as you don't increase your sugar intake!  You know how you here about how dark chocolate is good for you, well it is but no where near as good for you as it is in it's raw state.  When they heat chocolate it loses most of it's good nutrition.  Before it's heated it's actually the highest foods in antioxidants (20 times the antioxidents in green tea according to David Wolf) and magnesium, among lots of other cool stuff.   After it's heated it only retains a small fraction of the powerhouse nutrition it once had.  Where can you find it?  I bought my raw cocao powder at Whole Foods for $20/lb.  If you can only find cocao nibs at your local health food store, here's how you can grind them. Or you can buy it here on Amazon (this is the same brand I used and is way cheaper I plan to buy mine here in the future).

Post Work Healthy Chocolate Banana Shake 
(Yields about 3 cups)
Ingredients
3-4 medium to large banana chopped into 1-2 inch chunks and frozen
1-2 cups (depending on how thick you want it) of organic whole milk  (can use unsweetened coconut milk or almond milk instead)
2 scoops of grass fed low temp or cold pressed whey or Vega one if vegan
1 tsp of stevia (optional)
3 tablespoons of raw cocao powder (can sub with cocoa powder if you don't have)

Directions
Put all of the ingredients into the blender (start with one cup of milk) and blend it all first and make sure to use a spoon to scrape the sides of the blender.  If it's too thick add a little more milk until it's your desired consistency.


Want to top it off with guilt free coconut whip cream?
Check out this recipe from Healthy Happy Life.

Coconut whipped cream from Healthy Happy Life

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