Well-Balanced Banana Smoothie Recipe for Weight Loss

If you’re looking to slim down, sticking to a meal plan or just keeping things consistent with planning can help immensely. Knowing what you’re going to eat every day and at what times might sound like punishment for some, especially if it’s over an extended period, but keeping your diet full of a variety of fresh ingredients can help. When there isn’t much time between meetings and workouts, smoothies can help to simplify meals, making them quicker, and often much healthier. When you need a complete on-the-go meal, you’ll be hard-pressed something better than a banana smoothie.

Slim Down Smoothie

Have you ever heard of the ketogenic diet? It’s become quite popular among people looking to lose weight at a higher rate, which isn’t necessarily true by the way. The basic premise of the ketogenic diet is to eat foods that are high in fat and protein and extremely low in carbohydrates. To remain in ketosis–the metabolic process where the body uses fat as the primary source of energy instead of carbs–you need to eat lots of foods high in fat. This banana smoothie makes for the perfect high-fat hit, loaded with three of the best sources one can find; Kefir, Greek yogurt, and avocado.

Kefir and Greek yogurt are both excellent probiotics that can benefit your gut flora. The research is pretty clear that having a healthy gut is key to many body processes, not to mention healthy immune system function. These microbiotas change over time when the diet changes, and as overall health changes. They thrive on a diverse diet composed of plant-based whole foods, not processed pastas, bread, and salad dressings. The microbes in your gut can change your mood, the foods you crave, depression, ambition, impulse control and a whole lot more. They’ve been around a lot longer than we have and outnumber the cells we have in our body by trillions. We are only now becoming more aware as to how the microbial community affects our overall health and behavior. (1)

Bust Through Hunger Pangs

To make this hunger-busting smoothie, start by chopping up some fresh banana and leave it in the freezer. The frozen texture of the banana adds yet another level of flavor to the smoothie without adding too many excess carbs. Next, grab your chia seeds and leave them in a glass of water for 15 minutes until they’re ready to be added to the blender full of avocado, kefir, Greek yogurt, honey, vanilla extract, and ice. Chia seeds are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, rich in antioxidants, and they provide fiber, iron, and calcium to the body. They’ve also been shown to help weight loss in type 2 diabetics. (2)

With smoothies that have fresh fruit in them, like this well-balanced banana smoothie, it helps to leave a few smaller pieces of fruit to add in at the end. This will ensure you’re breaking down the enzymes in the fruit correctly and are genuinely taking advantage of all the health benefits you possibly can. Just about every smoothie recipe on this site will help promote weight loss, so you don’t have to feel intimidated at all. I just like this one in particular because the protein content really keeps me satiating in between meals, so I don’t find myself snacking on nuts or biscuits like I used to!

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