A High-Calorie Smoothie for Athletes (that’s Healthy Enough for My Kids)
Of all the healthy habits I’ve started over the years, a daily smoothie is the most important.
It’s not that a smoothie is any healthier than its unblended ingredients. Or that it’s more important than a salad (another simple daily healthy habit that’s).
Instead, for me, a smoothie is all about setting the tone for what I’ll eat the rest of the day.
Start your day with a smoothie, and you guarantee that even if all hell breaks loose and you eat nothing else healthy for the rest of the day, at least you’ll have gotten in a couple handfuls of berries, a banana, a handful of baby spinach, a tablespoon of flaxseeds, some raw walnuts, and a Brazil nut.
It also happens to be my trigger habit for taking the couple of supplements I take each day (Complement Plus, and turmeric, if I’m not putting the fresh root in my smoothie). I’ve learned that if I don’t take my supplements when I have my smoothie, I don’t take my supplements.
But perhaps the best part of the smoothie habit is that it’s so easy to modify to fit whatever you’re into. While I try to pack mine full of disease-fighting, longevity boosting foods, my kids have different needs right now. Both are really into sports, and my son in particular wants to put on some extra weight. But, like me, when he gets wrapped up in something, he tends to forget to eat.
So my wife developed a chocolate smoothie recipe for him, one that’s full of higher-calorie ingredients, tastes great, and is enhanced with a serving of Complement Protein, to up the protein and calorie count even more — without the excessive amounts of heavy metals and sweeteners in other protein powders.
So that even if he doesn’t do a great job of eating the rest of the day, we know at least he’s getting a ton of calories through his smoothie.
And it’s been a huge hit. He drinks a full recipe each day (half around lunchtime, half after soccer practice), and as a result, has put on five pounds in just a month.
Here’s the recipe (inspired by one from The Juice Truck, by Zach Berman and Ryan Slater):
1 brazil nut
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1/4 cup silken tofu, organic non-GMO
3 pitted medjool dates, soaked
1 tablespoon cacao powder
1 tablespoon cacao nibs
2 tablespoons Complement Protein
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 large, very ripe frozen banana
3/4 cup ice
1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk
Combine all ingredients in a high-powered blender and blend until smooth. Makes 28 ounces.
… for a grand total of 789 calories, 33 grams of protein, 106 grams of carbohydrate (18 from fiber), and 34 grams of fat (whole-food fat, not oils).
Considering the rest of his diet is probably only 1500-2000 calories, this is a big increase, and it’s not hard to see why it has worked.
How could a daily smoothie help you?
Matt
PS. Don’t forget, the price of up Complement Protein goes up 10% after tomorrow. Sad face. But that means there’s still time for you to get it at the lower price, or best of all, subscribe and lock that price in month after month. Get all the details here.
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