9 Ways Power Smoothies Can Be The Centerpiece Of A Lean & Healthy Lifestyle 1. Help You Avoid The Perils Of Meal Skipping Skipping meals may not sound that bad on the face of it. Or it might actually sound like a good thing (skip a meal—lose some weight). In fact, this habit can take an enormous toll on your health and pack on the pounds. Here’s why: You Can’t Trust the Judgment of a Starving Person There’s solid evidence that people who skip meals are much more likely to be overweight. Why? Because they usually end up eating a lot more food and make poor food choices compared to folks who eat 3 reasonable meals spread out through the day. This is particularly true when breakfast is the missed meal. Breakfast dodgers, in fact, are notorious for an eating pattern I call “avalanche eating”. Avalanche eaters start the day smal—little or no breakfast and an insignificant lunch. By mid-afternoon they’re starved and the eating just gets bigger and bigger—and then roars out of control taking everything in it’s path! Hey. What can I say. A starving person just can’t be expected to be particularly discriminating about what and how much they eat. Miss Meals—Get Fat Most people know that their body burns calories according to their level of activity. But many don’t know that their metabolic rate is also significantly affected by starving. Even one skipped meal can cause the body to go on starvation red alert. Lack of food causes the brain to trigger a slow down of metabolism and an increase in fat storage. Why is missing breakfast especially bad? Think about it this way. When you get up in the morning, you’ve actually already fasted for at least 8 hours while you slept. Postponing the first meal of the day is sure to set off the starvation alarm to save fuel and store fat. No Food=Crash and Burn Yet another casulty of meal skipping is your energy level. Missed meals cause your blood sugar to plummet. The result: lack of energy, drowsiness and just a general lack of motivation. Even your brain is affected by lack of food. So much so, that breakfast eaters, both young and old, routinely outscore breakfast dodgers in tests designed to measure alertness and problem solving ability. A Smoothie Fits Perfectly In Those Meal Gaps Skipping meals is not something to be taken lightly. It’s a habit that is highly likely to aid and abet any inclination you may already have to overeat, gain unwanted pounds, and make poor food choices. Power smoothies will come to your rescue. We’re not suggesting all your meals come out of a blender. We are suggesting that smoothies can be a quick, delicious and nutritious way to fill in some of those food gaps during the day. Breakfast is the biggest and most important challenge for most people. Smoothie meals are the ultrafast, simple answer. Even if you’re constantly locked in a battle for time, it’s easy to make a smoothie and sip it while you get ready in the morning. Or, blend it up and take it with you. 2. An Easy Way To Get More Fruits & Vegetables If 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables seems like some impossible mountain of produce, power smoothies will come to your rescue. Each smoothie in this book is guaranteed to give you several fruit or vegetable servings to your credit. And if you’ve been searching for a way to start eating better, just remember that the best approach is a simple one. Start with a few simple changes, but don’t put pressure on yourself to change everything. You could get really tough with yourself and stop—cold turkey—all those bad eating habits. But, in the long run, hardly anyone is successful with this approach. The pressure to be perfect becomes too overwhelming. One easy way to begin chalking up more fruit and vegetable credit is to focus on breakfast. Even if you make no other changes at first, something as simple as starting the day with a nutritious power smoothie breakfast can begin to make a dent in those 5 to 9 servings that are so important. The ingredients are simple to shop for and easy to have on hand. Power smoothies are so quick to fix and delicious, they’re an easy way to take a big step toward a healthier lifestyle. 3. Power Smoothies Are The Perfect “Stealth Health” Vehicle. Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D. says you can “eat right in spite of yourself” in her wonderful book, Stealth Health, How To Sneak Nutrition Painlessly Into Your Diet. Although we called them “secret ingredients”, we’ve used a version of the stealth health method for years. It all got started with carrots. You see, my wife Wendy is a regular Bugs Bunny who just loves carrots. The kids and I? Well, we can take ‘em or leave ‘em and would usually leave ‘em. Until one day I was in experimental mode and whipping up a peach smoothie. I closed my eyes and dropped some baby carrots into the peachy concoction. Voila! A peach carrot smoothie and I couldn’t taste the carrot. That’s what I would call a total success! After that I began popping carrots in lots of smoothies. The point is, you can add some really nutritious items to smoothies that you might not necessarily eat by themselves. Carrots are just one example of a healthy food that blends in so thoroughly that you can fool yourself and not know it’s in there. It’s easy to get your 1-1/2 carrots a day (the official recommended daily carrot allowance per Dr. Ken Cooper of The Aerobics Institute in Dallas, Texas.) using power smoothies. You’ll find some of our favorite smoothie recipes using “stealth technology” in this book. After you try our recipes, I’m sure you’ll come up with your own ways to sneak healthy stuff in on yourself using smoothies. 4. “Drinking” Your Whole Foods May Be The Road To Maximum Nutrition Recent studies have shown that some cancer fighting nutrients like beta-carotene (found in carrots, cantaloupe, apricots, etc) and lycopene (found in tomatoes, watermelon and pink grapefruit) are absorbed as much as 3 times more efficiently by your body when the foods are pureed versus eating them raw. Although beta-carotene and lycopene were the only food properties that were the subject of these studies, many experts believe that pureeing fruits and vegetables (as in a blender) causes many nutrients to be much more bioavailable (absorbed) by the body. Pureeing “breaks down certain chemical bonds in fruits and vegetables and releases the carotenoids” according to the July, 1999 issue of the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, the premier health and wellness newsletter in the world. Sure, you get enormous food value just eating a carrot. But you may just be maximizing the nutritional punch of that carrot by blending it up in a power smoothie. 5. Power Smoothies Can Help You Get The Snack Monkey Off Your Back. I think almost everyone would agree that snacks account for, in large part, where many of us go wrong. Because, as snackers, Americans are world class. Believe it or not, we ate almost 11 million pounds of potato chips during last year’s Super Bowl alone. Besides the chips, we average 4 donuts, a half gallon of ice icream, a half pound of candy, 7 soda pops and a couple pieces of cake per week. Whew! What a high calorie nutrition wasteland! Snacks aren’t bad in themselves. In fact, several studies have shown that breaking food intake into many small meals and snacks is more effective than the more traditional 3 large meals a day in maintaining a healthy weight. The key is to make sure that snacks don’t contribute just to the calorie side of the ledger. So, next time you’re headed for the chips or the box of cookies, reach for the blender instead and make a nutrient dense power smoothie. Your waist and thighs will thank you. 6. With Power Smoothies You Can Eat More Soy (and actually like it) There’s no doubt that soy has been making quite a name for itself. Soybeans are, by far, the best plant source of protein and the only vegetable food whose protein is complete. There is strong evidence that soy foods may help reduce both men’s and women’s risk of cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis. Not only that, regular soy intake has been linked to lower cholesterol and reduced symptoms of PMS and menopause. So, there’s every reason in the world to make an effort to eat some soy foods every day. If you’re one of those people who’ve recently jumped on the soy bandwagon for the health benefits and then jumped off again because you were put off by the taste, or never really tried it at all, try our power smoothies made with soy. All the recipes in this book can be made with soy products. In addition, we’re quite proud of the taste and nutrition in our very own Whole Nectar™ brand of Ultimate Soy Smoothie Mix. But you don’t have to use our smoothie mix. We’ll have suggestions for you on all kinds of soy variations. Power smoothies are a delicious way to get more soy into your diet every day. 7. Power Smoothies Can Help You On Your Way Toward A More Balanced Vegetarian Diet. Years ago, health people used to say, “If you’re eating the typical American diet you don’t need to worry about protein.” This was probably a true statement at the time because most people in this country typically ate lots of meat, eggs and dairy products, all excellent sources of protein. Times have changed. Nutritionists have convinced us that these animal protein sources should be eaten sparingly and a more vegetarian diet is the way to go. The ranks of full and part-time vegetarians is growing. On top of that, many people have chosen to avoid dairy products even though the low-fat and non-fat versions are very healthful. The upshot of all this is that if you’ve cut down on meat, eggs and dairy products, it’s possible you’re not getting enough protein. It’s not that it’s impossible to get enough from plant sources— you’re just going to have to work a little harder to make sure you do. But it’s still important that you do get enough, because protein has an important role in the human body—growing and repairing cells. How much protein you need is based on your weight and activity level. And while the experts sometimes argue the fine points of how much protein we should consume, no one suggests we avoid it. Just for the record—proteins aren’t more important than carbohydrates or fat (as some of the fad diet gurus would have you believe) All three have equally important roles in human nutrition. It’s called balance. Our power smoothie recipes made with soy are a great way to help fill in any protein gap you might have if you’re making more vegetarian choices. 8. You’ll Get More Fiber With Power Smoothies. The importance of fiber goes way beyond it’s ability to keep you regular. The fiberous portion of all plant food is loaded with nutrients. In addition, high fiber foods fill you up, break down slowly and help control your appetite. In spite of all the hoopla about the importance of a fiber rich diet, most of us aren’t even getting half of the 20 to 35 grams recommended by the American Dietetic Association. The whole food, power smoothies featured in this book are inherently fiber rich and an easy way to get on track with a high fiber diet. 9. Power Smoothies Can Help Get You Out Of The Weak Meal Rut. Our bodies were unquestionably designed to run primarily on nutrient dense foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains. The design of our digestive system tells us that this is true. But the most commonly eaten foods in this country are white bread, hot dogs and pop. The fact that we’re not all 400 pounds or dead by age 30 is a testimonial in itself to the tough and adaptable nature of the human body. Complaints like headaches, fatigue, overweight, constipation, ulcers, colds, flu, allergies and digestive problems are now at epidemic proportions. In fact, many experts believe that these low level, persistant complaints are warning signs of subclinical levels of malnutrition. And, what then are the consequences of a couple decades of poor eating? Cancer, heart disease and diabetes, to name a few. While experts sort through the details, the big picture is already clear. The human body has an amazing ability to fight off the effects of stress, air pollution, pesticides and all kinds of toxic chemicals—but only if it’s well nourished. A low fat diet, rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains is not just important, it’s vital to your quality of life at all times of your life. If nutritious whole foods are not yet the focus of your eating plan, you can’t afford to spend any more time in the weak meal rut. Power smoothies can help you break free of a routine of nutritionally counterfeit food.