Welcome disabled winter enthusiasts. Welcome all! Welcome to Winter Park! The stars have lined up and you are here with perfect conditions. It’s all downhill from Winter Park.

It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, hearty or frail. We want you feeling your best. Here at altitude if you take a little extra care you can go off and still feel super.

Life is all about the simple pleasures. It’s so easy to skip over the stuff that’s good for you and head right for the quick satisfaction of junk that’s bad for you. It’s all about balance.

These days, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know s—, but I have found three things that improve my life, especially if I do them every day. I bet they’d work for you, too. Combined, they take almost an hour so I suppose that can be considered a considerable chunk of time, especially nowadays when we must set aside a whole bunch of hours for staring into our devices and screens.

Fruit smoothies are the first on the list. I’ve always liked them, but recently knocking one out in the morning has bubbled up my priority list, right behind steaming hot coffee, prepared in a press pot. Coffee remains essential to motivating me to get out from under the covers.

After the coffee it’s all about the smoothie. These things are easy to make, and almost anyone can do it. You could do it for your friends or significant others, and they may think you are a real gourmet.

The smoothie is a great place to get in your daily allowance of fruit. If you play your cards right, you can also get your daily dose of kale or cruciferous leafy green vegetables, which for some can be a real challenge. There is no set list of ingredients, so there’s room for creativity as well as thrift. If you do your smoothie right, you can go right back to most of your bad habits straight off and still feel good about yourself.

The Centers for Disease Control says that only one in 10 Americans gets the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables needed to stay healthy. Until I started hitting the smoothies I was in the majority with the rest of you.

Healthyeating.com says that, “Low fruit and vegetable intake increases the risk of heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure and even cancer.” Other than that, it’s no biggie.

Let’s start with the fruits, as they are much more palatable than some vegetables. But keep reading and I’ll explain how to gag down the veggies, too. No matter your health condition you are supposed to ingest two cups of fruit every day. That may sound absurd, but if you make yourself a smoothie getting the right amount is fast and easy, and, might I add, delicious. Don’t think you are doing it with processed juice. Too much sugar.

There are a lot of fruits I won’t eat raw, but if they are part of a smoothie, I have no problem. I’m not going to eat three mangoes, half a pineapple, five apples or a half-dozen cuties. Chips are easier.

My favorite smoothie starts with a banana. Overripe is fine, even preferred. A banana sweetens up the puckery fruits. Then throw in the other fruits that you can get real cheap. Look for what’s on sale. Pineapple chunks, mango pieces, oranges and other citrus are perfect. Even the frozen stuff is fine. Bruised and battered fruits are perfect in a smoothie. If you are person of means, and many of you are, toss in those wild blueberries, some raspberries and even papaya. I’ve never been much of an apple person but go ahead and drop one in.

In order to make the smoothie smooth it doesn’t hurt to scoop in some plain yogurt. Of course you can use sweetened yogurt but I’ve found that the fruit is sweet enough. If you need to thin it down, pour a cup of water in there.

You can keep it as simple as that, but if you want to go all the way you can add a few more ingredients to superfy your smoothie. Soak some unsalted sunflower seeds for a few minutes and then scoop them in. Even if you hate kale or spinach you can add a few leaves, and you will not even notice, except for the color, which can go from a pleasant yellow-orange to a sickly green. The bottom line is it still tastes great! Close your eyes if you need to.

Lastly, a couple of teaspoons of flax seed will round out the nutritional punch of this thick drink. Don’t go too crazy with the new age supplements, though. This is really all about getting your fruit, and you don’t want to make it a chalky mess with protein powders, green algae and too many nuts.

Grind it all up in a blender. It’s easy to make enough for two, so you can treat your significant other or a friend to the gift of fruit just as easily as treating yourself.

Wow, I don’t have the space to share the other two items on my list, but this gives me something to write about in the future.

Steve Skinner wishes you a fruity future. Reach him at nigel@sopris.net.