Smoothies are a healthy and filling way to fuel your body pre or post work out. Let's get right into it!
Protein shakes promote muscle gain and improve performance and recovery. They also prevent muscle loss and may even help increase muscle mass during weight loss. Here's a great protein recipe for your post workout shake. It's really simple and easy! Let's go!
The Base of your smoothie is a personal preference – Fruit vs. Ice: Start with a base of around 1 cup of ice or 1 cup of frozen fruit. My favorite base is frozen banana, but mixed berries are a close second. Add it right into your blender.
Your Protein is important too! Choose your protein source(s). We typically use multiple protein sources when making a protein shake. For example, you could do a serving of protein powder + a teaspoon of chia/flax seed + a tablespoon of nut butter.
Your Sweetener helps with flavor, but you can make your smoothie without it. Depending on how sweet your protein powder is or what base fruit you used, you may not need to add one! If you are going to add one, we suggest an all-natural sweetener such as maple syrup, honey or agave.
Now for your liquid. Start with about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup of liquid and add more from there. There’s nothing worse than a protein shake that’s too runny, so start conservatively. Feel free to use any liquid you like such as water, orange juice, almond milk, coconut water etc.
And last but not least, the blend! Now it’s time to blend it all up! The better the blender, the smoother your protein shake is going to be! If things are having a hard time “smoothing,” this means you need to add more liquid.
And that's it! Enjoy your smoothie. Let me know which one you decide to make:)
Xoxo,
Niema
