January often brings with it an influx of marketing messages: ‘get healthy!’, ‘tone up!’, ‘lose weight!’ and smoothie makers and juicers are very much the in-vogue way to attempt one or all of these New Year missions.
The honest truth is that liquidizing your food will not reduce the number of calories that you consume, nor will it make fewer calories last longer in terms of energy provision.
However, smoothies and juices do make it much easier to get more good nutrients into your system quickly. With a good machine (like the market leader – the Nutribullet) you can bung in a load of fruit and veg and be gulping down a nutritious meal in five minutes, thus preventing you from the alternative – grabbing a sugar laden breakfast bar which no doubt spikes your insulin levels and leaves you hungry in ten minutes time.
If you’re a cyclist who has decided to join the smoothie drinking tribe, you want to make sure that you’re choosing recipes that support your activity levels – providing enough calories to ensure that you’re not sitting at work with a grumbling stomach by mid-morning.
Below are a few of our favourites – they’re all as simple as bunging the ingredients into a blender and whizzing up.
Different milk varieties explained
Most of these recipes use Almond Milk – which provides a great flavour. It is lower in fat and sugar than cows milk, but it’s also lower in protein and carbohydrate, so we’d recommend swapping this or adding a spoon of natural yogurt if you’re after something more filling. If you’re training hard and need the added muscle repair as well as extra calories, you can always add a scoop or two of protein powder too.
