Want a smooth path to healthy living? Grab a Smoothie!!

For those of you who don’t know, a smoothie is a blended drink of fruit juices/yogurt and ice. The way it is prepared is that you have either a fruit juice or yogurt/milk base and you add a variety of fruits (ideally frozen) and lots of ice to it (to give it texture). First of all, it is VERY tasty, secondly there is no set recipe – you make what you want and last but not the least, it is very healthy. I usually use a base of low fat yogurt to get enough protein and some carbs, add low GI fruits and some ice. You can also use green tea extract (even though I am not the biggest fat of green team – I will discuss this later on), whey powder, multi-vitamin tablets and other supplements. Here are some recipes that you might want to try.

Orange-Pineapple Smoothie
1 cup orange juice
2 cups pineapple chunks packed in their own juice
1 banana
1/4 cup skim milk
1 Tbsp. honey
4-5 ice cubes

Tropical Smoothie
1 tub (150-200 g) Low Fat Yoghurt
1 cup Hi-Lo Milk
½ cup Orange juice*
1 Tbsp. Honey
1 cup Frozen fruit**
1 ½ cups Crushed ice

Banana Blackberry smoothie
1 medium banana, peeled
1/2 cup blackberries
1/2 cup non-fat vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup ice cubes

Supergirl summer smoothie
2 bananas, broken into chunks
1 cup cubed papaya (optional)
1 cup cubed fresh pineapple
1 cup cubed honeydew
3 cubes ice cubes
2 (6 ounce) containers fruit flavored yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice, or as needed

The Any Smoothie
Any 100% fruit juice, yogurt or milk
Any fruit you like
Any kind of ice
Blend in Any blender :-)

Here are a few more tips:
· Use frozen fruit (bananas and strawberries work well).
· Avoid sweetened frozen fruits.
· If it’s too thick, add more milk, 100 percent fruit juice or soymilk.
· If it’s too thin, add more fruit, ice cubes, yogurt (fresh or frozen) or tofu.
· It it’s too tart, add honey.
· If it’s too sweet, add lemonade or a small spoonful of lemon juice.

Smoothies are a very good addition to a weight loss, fat burn or even a muscle building program. You can treat them as a snack or an actual meal. They are healthy enough to even be used as breakfast. I highly recommend getting into the smoothie trend coz I’m telling you right now, this will be one of the best decisions you will ever make. I will be posting about the smoothie diet next time, so stay tuned :-).

Protein Shakes

Protein shakes are very popular nowadays especially because of the high protein diet. Here are a few recipes of protein shakes without the use of supplements that you might want to try.

Pre-workout/Snack
3 scoops low fat and low sugar ice cream
½ cup skimmed milk
2 tbsp oats
1 tbsp peanut butter

10 – 15 crushed almonds
½ cup skimmed milk
¼ cup yogurt
2 egg whites

Post workout
½ cup skimmed milk
2 scoops of ice cream
¼ cup yogurt
½ bananas
2 – 4 ice cubes
2 egg whites - optional
1 banana
3 egg whites
½ cup evaporated milk
2 – 4 ice cubes
10 – 15 Crushed almonds
50 g skimmed milk powder
¾ cup skimmed milk
Milkshake powder or a low GI fruit (e.g. mango, peach, pear, apple etc.)

Here is a very good collection for protein powder shakes:
http://www.projectswole.com/diet/70-protein-shake-recipes

Instead of just giving you some recipes, I’ll give you some details about what you should be considering when coming up with a protein shake recipe.

If you are following a fat loss plan, you should consider taking a similar shake as the Pre-workout shakes showed above. Along with the protein, take some fiber (oats are probably the best option) or complex carbohydrates (Low GI fruits) and also introduce unsaturated fats like peanut butter, almonds, olive oil etc. This will help slow down the absorption process, therefore providing you with constant energy. You can take this as a pre and/or post workout meal as long is fat loss is your aim.

As for muscle building, the pre-workout shake should be the same as outlined above with the same concept. The post-workout shake should include fast absorbing proteins and carbohydrates. You can take sugars, as at this point your body will be craving for sugars. In simple words, you will use up these sugars or store them as glycogen in the muscles and liver (by the way, this is all good for you). Taking in these sugars will increase your insulin level which would be unlike any other time. Usually we want to control the insulin levels but after a muscle building workout you should increase the insulin levels and take in a good amount of proteins as insulin is an anabolic hormone and helps in protein synthesis (muscle building) when required. At other times, instead of building muscle, it builds fat so be careful or spiking insulin level at times other than post muscle building workouts.

I guess this gives you an idea of what you should try and do. Please note that these guidelines are for people looking for fitness. As far as Pro-bodybuilding goes, one needs to consider a number of other things as well.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for lots lots more.