Recipe: Chocolate Almond Smoothie

This delicious smoothie is packed with tasty nutritious ingredients like honey, peanut butter, and cocoa powder. To add some more healthy fats to help tide you over, you can substitute coconut milk for the almond milk if you prefer. If you're a chocoholic, this is the perfect healthy breakfast!

Chocolate Almond Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. raw honey, warmed slightly
1/2 cup almond milk
2 Tbsp. natural peanut butter
1 medium banana
1 1/2 Tbsp. raw cocoa powder

Directions:

• Put all the ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth and frothy.

Recipe: Nuts And Oats Super-Protein Smoothie

This hearty and filling smoothie is packed with protein and fiber and will keep you full for hours, helping your body maintain energy at the same time as burning fat. If you're looking for a breakfast smoothie that will keep you satisfied until lunchtime, give this one a try.

Nuts And Oats Super-Protein Smoothie

Rolled oats (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon flaxseeds, ground
1 tablespoon almonds, crushed
1 tablespoon rolled oats
1 1/3 cup whole milk, or vanilla flavored Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons whey protein powder
1 cup any type frozen fruit

Directions:

• Place all ingredients in a blender and blend on high until desired consistency is reached.

Create More Satisfying Smoothies With These Simple Tricks

Smoothies are an easy way to start your day off right with something super healthy and delicious. However, one of the common complaints people have about drinking a smoothie for breakfast is that it doesn’t hold them over very long. This can be frustrating, especially if you end up giving in to that hunger, heading for the chips and cookies, and defeating your health goals right off the bat.

But there is good news. You don’t have to give up on your favorite morning smoothie. It’s just a matter of adding some ingredients to your smoothie to help you feel full longer. Let’s take a look at a few ingredients to make your smoothies more satisfying.

Oats

Adding oats to a smoothie is a great way to get in more dietary fiber, which is exactly what you need to feel fuller longer. You will add a few calories and carbs, but the fiber plays a big part in offsetting even those problems. Plus, if a few calories and carbs in your smoothie can keep you away from the snack machine later in the day, you are definitely ahead of the game.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Greek Yogurt

Choose Greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt for your smoothie and you have a big advantage – protein. Read the label and compare and you'll be surprise how much more protein there is in Greek yogurt. What's the advantage to protein, besides just more protein? Protein has the added benefit of making you feel fuller longer.

Protein Powder

Not just for body builders any more, these products are good for anyone who wants to add a little extra boost of protein to their diet. Again, as mentioned above, protein makes you feel fuller longer, along with the other obvious benefits.

Nuts

Throw chopped peanuts, walnuts, or almonds in the blender and your smoothie will be thick, nutritious, delicious, and filling. The few extra calories this adds to a smoothie is offset by the added protein, fiber, and healthy fat, which essentially helps keep hunger away longer. If you want something smoother, add natural peanut butter instead. (Stay away from highly processed peanut butter spreads - like Jif and Skippy - these are mostly sugar and will do no favors for your health.)

Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although cottage cheese is not often mentioned in recipes, it blends up just fine. You'll have a thicker smoothie, which will naturally help you feel full. This is another protein boost, of course, which also helps you feel full. You can mix yogurt or milk in to smooth out the consistency if you like without losing any of the benefits of this filling ingredient.

Avocado

Another nutrient we need, not only for our health but to feel full and satisfied, is healthy fat. Avocados are a great source for healthy fat, along with many other nutrients. Blending even a part of an avocado into your smoothie will help satisfy that hunger, even if you hardly taste the avocado at all. The texture will be thicker and you'll have that wonderful full feeling for a good, long time, plus fewer cravings.

Skip the Juice

If a smoothie recipe calls for juice, replace the juice with whole fruit. Then add enough  yogurt or milk to get the consistency you want. This will result in a thicker smoothie and more nutrients, which will always keep you feeling fuller longer.

These are just a few ways to create more satisfying smoothies. By no means is this an exhaustive list of things you can do. It’s just a basic list of tricks to help get you thinking about ways you can make a power-packed glassful of goodness for breakfast that will tide you over longer than a few hours.

Be sure to check back later this week for some tasty and satisfying smoothie recipes you can try!

Recipe: Greek Yogurt Strawberry Smoothie

This is an absolutely great smoothie for anyone wanting to curb cravings and lose weight easily. The yogurt supports healthy digestion, while the avocado and whole milk help keep you full and reduce cravings for junk food. Healthy fats like avocado are great for boosting your metabolism and fat-burning capacity, while keeping you satisfied so you don't reach for that bag of cookies or chips!

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Greek Yogurt Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients:

1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 banana
1 1/2 cups frozen strawberries
1/4 avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut up
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Directions:

Add the ingredients to blender in order listed, cover and pulse and blend until smooth.

Recipe: Kiwi & Mixed Berry Smoothie

This simple and tasty smoothie is packed full of vitamin C, potassium, and antioxidants, and it will surely satisfy your sweet tooth - even without any added sugars! Give this one a try for breakfast, or as a mid-day snack to help calm cravings, and avoid snacking on junk foods. (If you are lactose-intolerant, you may substitute soy milk for the whole milk, but it won't keep you full as long as it is lower in fat.)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kiwi & Mixed Berry Smoothie

Ingredients:

2 kiwis, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup chopped ripe strawberries
1/4 cup raspberries
1 banana, chopped 
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vanilla or plain yogurt

Directions:

• Place all ingredients in a blender and blend on high until smooth.

Smoothies For Weight Loss: Fact or Fiction?

Starting off the New Year is a great time to set a plan to reach your goals for obtaining a healthy weight. While you may hear some debate as to whether drinking smoothies can really help with weight loss, just like every other weight loss program, the results depend on many factors: how often you exercise, what else you eat, how much you eat, etc..

We’re not going to get into all the factors involved in a weight loss program, but we are going to take a look at how smoothies can help with weight loss.

Breakfast

Skipping breakfast will almost guarantee weight loss failure. When you wake up in the morning, your body is waiting for you to 'break fast' and replenish the nutrients. When you don't break that fast (you just slept without eating, so you were fasting) your body thinks it's going into starvation mode and it must start storing fat for survival. If you make smoothies a morning habit, you have already given your body a good reason to burn fat, resulting in weight loss.

Metabolism

When you blend up a healthy mixture of dietary fiber, protein, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals for breakfast, you naturally give your body a jump-start for the day. Not only are you consuming a large amount of nutritious foods, you’re keeping your body's fuel stoked, burning fat, which is exactly what you need to do to lose weight.

Nutrients

When drinking smoothies to lose weight, you'll be making the healthiest food choices, and drinking these foods raw. No nutrients or fiber will be lost cooking your food. Fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber will stand out in many of your recipes. Some of the better choices include kale, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, apples, berries, celery, and cucumbers. And that's just the beginning! Of course, you'll be adding some calcium and protein, along with nuts, seeds, and whole grains, too. Sounds like a tasty recipe for weight loss to me.

Replace

Losing weight with smoothies can also simply be a matter of replacing unhealthy snacks with healthy smoothies. Replace high calorie, high fat, high sugar snacks with low calorie, low fat, low sugar smoothies and you are bound to see promising weight loss  results. Also, many snacks tend to be high in 'bad carbs' which can lead to a blood sugar spike, then drop, resulting in a raid on the candy machine. It's easy to see how replacing unhealthy snacks with nutritious smoothies will give your body what it needs for energy and nutrition, and avoid all those things your body doesn't need.

So, yes, you can lose weight drinking smoothies, but only if you follow a complete weight loss and fitness program. It's not magic, but by making healthier food choices, many made easier by drinking smoothies, you can see weight loss results. Of course, as with any weight loss journey, check with your own health care provider before you change your diet and exercise program.

And be sure to check back throughout the month, as we will be posting lots of delicious and tasty smoothie recipes to help you get your weight and fitness goals off to a great start for 2015! In the meantime, here are some recommended recipe books:

   

Recipe: Blueberry Banana Agave Smoothie

After all the excess of the holidays, if you're anything like me, you're probably in the mood for something lighter! Smoothies are a great way to pack a lot of healthy nutrition into one tasty glass - like this one. Full of antioxidants, fiber, and flavor, this will satisfy your sweet tooth and your hankering for something healthy all in one.

Stay tuned for more tasty smoothie recipes later this month as we share some ways to cleanse and detoxify your body through healthy eating to start the New Year off on the right foot!

Blueberry Banana Agave Smoothie
(Serves 2.)

Ingredients:

Milk and blueberries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1 cup blueberries, frozen
1/4 tsp. orange zest, finely grated
1 banana, frozen and cut into chunks
1/4 cup plain or vanilla flavored Greek yogurt
1 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp. chia seeds, ground (optional) 
2 tsp. agave syrup
1/4 cup all-natural granola

Directions:

• Add all ingredients (except granola) to a blender and process until smooth and creamy. 
• Put the smoothie into two glasses and sprinkle granola on top and then serve.