Get Healthy With Smoothies

As you can tell from my other articles, I love eating healthily. Smoothies are a great way to get more fruit and vegetables into your diet. They also have other health benefits:

Hydration - smoothies are great for keeping you hydrated as they contain a large amount of liquid.

Packed with nutrients - as smoothies are usually packed with fruit, smoothies are full of essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs to stay healthy.

Weight loss - drinking smoothies can help keep you fuller for longer, stopping you from gorging on unhealthy salty and sweet snacks and when you do feel hungry having a smoothie will keep you satisfied.

Here are some great healthy smoothie recipes to get you started.

If bananas are the fruit you love, here are two great banana recipes sure to tickle your taste buds.

Banana Berry Smoothie

Ingredients:

    1 bannana
    ½ cup blueberries
    ½ cup strawberries
    2 cups yoghurt
    1 cup milk

Banana Lime Smoothie

Ingredients:

    1 banana
    1 cup limeade
    1 cup key lime yogurt
    1/2 cup of banana yogurt
    2 cups of ice

Why not try something more exotic

Tropical fruit smoothie

    ½ can pineapple in its own juice, including juice
    1 cup of Papaya, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
    1 mango, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
    1 ripe banana, peeled and broken into chunks
    2-3 tablespoons coconut cream
    2-3 tablespoons honey
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1 to 1½ cup plain yogurt
    1 to 1 ½ cup crushed ice

Tropical Pina colada

    1/2 pineapple
    1 apple
    3 Tbs coconut milk
    1 banana
    1 orange

And if you just cant keep away from chocolate. Here are some smoothies that will give you your chocolate fix.

Raspberry chocolate smoothie

    1 cup frozen or fresh raspberries
    1 ripe banana
    2 tbs. instant chocolate pudding powder
    1 cup cream soda (yep, cream soda)
    1 cup milk
    2 1/2 cups ice

Peanut butter chocolate smoothie

    2 cups of milk
    2 tablespoons chocolate milk syrup
    1/2 teaspoon dry chocolate pudding mix
    1/4 cup peanut butter
    1 banana
    1 cups ice

For added protein, why not add a scoop of whey protein power to your milk based smoothies. Protein is good especially if you want to lose weight and tone up as it helps to boost your metabolism, repairs damaged muscles and stops you from being hungry so often.

There are loads of recipes floating about on the web, so you are sure to find a smoothie recipe that suits you. Give them a try, you wont regret it!