Weight loss milkshakes are nothing new, but once you’ve tried every other tip and trick in the book, you find your eye wandering to the diet shakes on the shelves. However, before you stock up on a three-month supply of diet shake mixes, you need to first consider what they might do to your wellness. The attractive advertisements might lure you in with promises of Instant Weight Loss, but, even if that’s true, Instant Weight Loss rarely means Permanent Weight Loss, right? While weight loss shakes are healthy and tasty, a diet solely made up of these shakes can be more harmful than beneficial to your wellbeing. Still, there are several good reasons why weight loss shakes are popular amongst dieters, so let’s weigh up the good against the bad.
Pro – Weight loss shakes are healthy: You can make a weight loss shake at home easily, and include only your favourite ingredients. Using fruits and vegetables enables you to get the nutrition of wholesome vitamins and minerals bundled in to a glass within no time.
Pro – The ingredients are easily available: The packaged weight loss shake powders don’t always taste that great, so why not make your own weight loss shake at home? This provides the perfect alternative, enabling you to consume your favourite flavours that you can easily find in your local supermarket. Some of the common ingredients that you can add to these weight loss shakes include fruits (to help you get rid of toxins in your body) yoghurt or low-fat milk (for your dose of vitamin D and calcium) and protein powder (which helps build lean muscle mass and keeps digestion going smooth).
Pro – Other people have done it: As weight loss shakes are nothing new, other people have spend time and effort perfecting their recipes, and, thanks to the internet, are passing their knowledge onto you! You can find various delicious recipes on any weight loss forums that will allow you to make your own glassful of health at home.
Con – You can’t drink weight loss shakes alone: The problem with weight loss shake diets is that people ONLY consume weight loss shakes, which is completely foolish. As you can see from this list, the pros of weight loss shakes far outweigh the cons, but that’s only if you consume them as part of a balanced diet. Even if ruling out all other foods causes you to drop weight fast, you’ll only put it back on – and then some – when you return to your regular eating habits. Therefore, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you should drink weight loss shakes as one of your smaller meals, and not rely solely on them to help you achieve your goal weight.
Weight loss shakes, then, are a helpful addition to your overall diet plan, as long as you do it right. Relying on simple-to-make weight loss shakes as a meal replacement for your pre-workout and post-workout nutrition is an especially great idea – just make sure you don’t try to substitute it for a proper, balanced diet. Now we’ve got that cleared up, here’s a simple recipe to get you started:
For this super-easy and healthy weight loss shake, you will need…
- ½ a cup of skimmed milk or ½ a cup of plain, fat-free yoghurt
- One scoop of low-calorie protein powder (optional)
- ½ a banana
- One cup of fresh or frozen berries
- Crushed ice (optional)
Take a blender, and throw in all of your ingredients apart from the crushed ice. Blend them together and, if you’re not using crushed ice, stop here and enjoy your gorgeously thick shake. However, if you’re after a smoother consistency, add in your crushed ice and drink away that weight!