Pumpkin Cheesecake Protein Smoothie

I love pumpkin all year long. I stock up on it during the holidays when it's usually cheaper or on sale. The problem is that I never use the entire can. I usually only need a 1/2 cup for my protein pancakes and then the rest gets put in the fridge until it's old and moldy because I couldn't find anything else to do with it.

I've been doing shakes and smoothies for breakfast the past few weeks because I'm too lazy to do anything else. I came across this recipe on Pinterest the other day. I had it for breakfast this morning and it was amazing!

1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 cup 4% fat cottage cheese
1/4 cup 0% Fage Greek yogurt
1/4 cup sliced frozen banana
1 scoop Bodybuilding.com vanilla whey protein powder
3 Nilla Wafers
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 packets of Truvia, or to taste (or sweetener of choice)
 4 ice cubes
whipped cream for topping, optional

I'm doing the Labrada Lean Body Challenge and I'm not getting enough protein or calories throughout the day but this shake got me off to a strong start! I swapped the graham cracker for 3 Nilla Wafers and I used 2 packets of Truvia instead of 3 packets of Equal. Also, I used Bodybuilding.com's Vanilla Whey Protein. Here's the nutrition breakdown per MyFitnessPal:

401 Calories
41g Carbs
11g Fat (I used 4% cottage cheese)
41g Protein
21g Sugar (mostly natural sugar from the bananas and pumpkin)

Note: I made this in my Magic Bullet. The cups barely fit all the ingredients in. They would fit better in a Nutribullet, Ninja, or blender. If you have a newer bullet, I would use the larger cup for blending.

xEnjoy
#healthywholebeautiful