Using healthy fruit shakes as snacks or meal replacements is one strategy that can lead to successful, lasting weight loss. If you're going to try it, however, it's important to pay careful attention to what goes into your drinks, how many calories they have and about how many calories you're consuming throughout the day. For the best results, get a balance of nutrients and exercise regularly in addition to cutting calories.
Fruit Pros and Cons
Fruit has a number of positive qualities for weight loss. According to MyPyramid.gov, eating more fruits every day increases your intake of dietary fiber, which aids healthy weight loss efforts and can also encourage lasting feelings of satiation. Fruits also contain the vitamins and minerals necessary to lower risks of heart disease, stroke, bone loss, cancer, kidney stones and diabetes. However, blending up too many fruit shakes can actually be detrimental to your health. Neglecting other main food groups for fruit can bring about nutrient deficiencies, and CNN.com's Dr. Melina Jampolis notes that eating more than three servings of fruit per day can make it difficult to break through a weight loss plateau.
Nutrition Information
Fruits may be low in calories, but they're also high in natural sugar. To make the healthiest shake for weight loss, minimize any added sugar and focus on the fruits' natural sweetness instead. Since fruits contain simple carbohydrates that are easy for the body to break down, it's also helpful to add low-fat protein or complex carbs to your shake so that you might stay fuller longer.
Recipe
To create a shake for one person that is balanced enough to form a healthy meal replacement, you'll need 1 cup of nonfat plain yogurt, 1/4 cup of crushed ice, 1 medium frozen banana, 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries, 1/2 cup of raspberries, 1 tbsp. of wheat germ and 1 tbsp. of unsweetened cocoa powder. Blend all the ingredients in a food processor or blender until the shake is smooth. Each shake contains about 345 calories, 19 g protein, 3.5 g fat, 67 g carbohydrates, 11.5 g fiber and 40 g sugar.
Considerations
You can drink fruit shakes as snacks rather than meal replacements, but keep in mind that your goal is to reduce daily calories, and you may not be able to do that if you add to what you normally eat every day. In addition to having plenty of fruit, a healthy and balanced weight loss plan includes daily servings of vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains and lean proteins. Before you use fruit shakes as meal replacements or make big dietary changes, speak with your physician.
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