Best Fruits and Vegetables for Weight Loss Smoothies

One of the most popular ways to use smoothies is to lose weight. In fact, weight loss smoothies are one of the most popular recipe ideas you’ll see online. And these smoothies are not just limited to boring protein powder and water smoothies (I’d call those shakes anyway).

What I wanted to do here was to cover the list of all of the fruits and vegetables that you should include in your weight loss smoothies.

It’s important to know that not all smoothies are great for weight loss. Some smoothies are super healthy, but they might actually be a bit too calorie dense. That doesn’t mean that they are bad for you, they might be super healthy and just better suited for when you’re training and need to get in extra nutrients after a heavy workout at the gym.

Remember, this list is only going to focus on which fruits and vegetables are good for weight loss smoothies.

As a general rule, I advise that if you’re looking to keep smoothies low calorie for weight loss, then what you want to do is limit things like nut butters. For instance, while almond butter taste great and makes smoothies have a really nice texture, I advise against using it in a smoothie if you’re trying to lose weight because it does add a ton of calories.

So, let’s get started looking at the best fruits and vegetables for your weight loss smoothies.

Leafy Greens- Kale and Spinach

Green smoothies are perfect for weight loss. First, they are lower in sugar than pure fruit smoothies. Second, they are low in calories but high in fiber. This makes the excellent at helping you feel full on a lower calorie count.

I know, spinach and kale and leafy greens in general aren’t anyone’s cup of tea. They don’t taste as good as a blueberry smoothie or a banana and peanut butter smoothie. But, the pay off is that they can help you shed pounds and if you’re trying to cut fat and get lean and sexy, there is relly no better type of smoothie.

Of course, you don’t have to limit your green smoothie to just leafy greens. That wouldn’t taste good and it wouldn’t really make sense either. You can mix other things into the smoothie, as long as you keep the greens in their, I am fine with still calling it a green smoothie.

What I like to do when I’m making green smoothies is to pick something like Pineapple (which appears on this list as well) or lemon and berries and combine them. That way you get the nice flavor, but also the healthy benefits of the kale and spinach.

Kale in particular is really good to add to your diet if you want lose weight because it’s been proven in studies to aid in fat loss even while on a high fat diet. So, adding kale as a base to a smoothie diet is a great way to aid in fat loss even if you can’t manage to hit your calorie deficit goals.

Bananas

There are hardly any fitness influencers who don’t have smoothie recipes that include bananas. Why? Well, because bananas are perfect for weight loss smoothies.

They are filling, they have great texture, and they also have important nutrients that you need if you are working out.

What nutrients exactly? Well, magnesium is a great mineral that is necessary for proper energy. It’s been studied extensively and found to be instrumental in exercise performance.

Besides magnesium and potassium (which is also great for when you’re exercising) bananas just taste to nice in a smoothie.

If you’re making a smoothie with some berries or a little bit of peanut butter (less than a tablespoon) then the bananas can be a great low calorie way to carry that flavor through.

A single banana has only around 100 calories, and it’s very satiating. If you add a banana to your smoothie, then you’re getting a ton of fiber and low calorie flavor.

Beets

Anyone who reads my blog knows about my love of beets and beet smoothies. They are super nutritious and add a deep flavor to a smoothie.

If you check out the diet plans of athletes, you’ll see that quite a few of them like to incorporate beets into their pre-workout smoothies. A big part of that comes down to how beets contain betaine. This is one of the most powerful natural ingredients to boost oxygen and nitric oxide levels in the blood, which is important for athletes.

Betaine is present mainly in beets (where it gets it’s name) and I think that the best way to get it is either by making a beet smoothie or juicing raw beets with lemon.

If you’re making a weight loss smoothie, and you’re also planning on hitting the gym, then there is really nothing better than a beet smoothie. They hit your low calorie goals, they create a positive nitrc oxide level in your blood (important for working out) and they also satiate you for later in the day.

Berries- Frozen Blueberries or Mixed Berries

Berries are the perfect low calorie food for dieting and weight loss. Even mega popular fitness YouTubers and Insta Celebs appreciate berries.

And who wouldn’t love them? Berries, especially frozen berries, are perfect for weight loss smoothies. There are ample reasons for this.

My first observation would be that berries simply taste so good. They are the perfect  food for weight loss smoothies.

A study in Harvard even commented on how blueberries and strawberries are not only good for weight loss, but improve heart health.

In addition to great flavor, heart health benefits, and most importantly for people on a weight loss goal–they make smoothies taste good.

If you’re looking to make a weight loss smoothie, then a great option would be to use a vanilla flavored protein powder (or even a vegan protein powder).

Berries are an excellent way to make a protein smoothie taste clean and fresh. It makes for a perfect morning smoothie, or even a post-workout smoothie.

Lemons

Lemons are another excellent fruit for weight loss smoothies. They are super low in calories and sugars, and they can also be used to make green smoothies more palatable.

Lemons are also a bit hard to blend up. That’s why it’s important to only use lemons in powerful blenders (the cheap blenders aren’t really able to blend up whole lemons and their skin).

There’s a ton of evidence surrounding lemons and their benefits for longevity as well as weight loss.

Basically, you can take a lemon and use this in your blender to make anything taste good. That sounds like a stretch, but it’s not.

Imagine taking an unflavored whey protein or vegetable protein and then making a smoothie with some leafy greens. The results wouldn’t taste that good. In fact, many people would take one taste of that and decide that they would be done with smoothies.

However, if you did something as simple as add a whole organic lemon to the smoothie, then you’ll turn that bland smoothie into something that tastes much better.

More importantly, a lemon doesn’t have many calories (the entire nutritional breakdown can be found here on the FDA official list)

Pineapples

When you think of Pineapple smoothies, you probably think of those “Hawaiian” style smoothies that you see for sale in fast food style juice bars and smoothie bars.

But those smoothies are trash and not something that you should be consuming on a regular basis. They are going to make you fat. And when you buy a smoothie in a smoothie shop, realize that a lot of the time they are loading that smoothie with things like sherbet, or even a ice cream or sweetener syrup.

The people who are health conscious and on diets (your favorite Instagram influences, for instance) own blenders and make their own smoothies at home. They don’t rely on fast food smoothie shops (even the ones that advertise themselves as super healthy–who pay their workers minimum wage) to make healthy organic smoothies!

But pineapple is actually super healthy for people who are on weight loss diets. And if you’re hitting the gym when you are losing weight, and lifting heavy weights, then these fruits are ideal.

Why? Because study after study has shown that pineapple aids in regulating obesity, helps reduce cardiac stress, and can aid in preventing inflammation after working out.

A few tips for making weight loss smoothies with pineapple:

• Don’t blend the pineapple skin (I don’t care what blog or youtube video claims you can, you can’t)
• Don’t let the pineapples get overripe (you want a fresh taste)
• Don’t blend underride pineapples (if the pineapple is not ripe at all, it will be tough to blend)

When I’m blending pineapple, what I like to do is add in some leafy greens. I find that the pineapple works in a similar way to lemons to help cover the not too great taste of leafy greens. So, a spinach and pineapple smoothie, with some basic flavored whey protein would be great.

Apples

You don’t often hear people talk about apples in smoothies, but you should. Apples have a low calorie, high flavor, excellent macro profile. They have a ton of healthy fiber and can make smoothies taste amazing without loading you up with fructose and tons of sugar.

And if you’re hankering for one of those fall/wintertime flavors that are popular at Dunkin and Starbucks, but don’t want an over flavored, caffeinated junk drink, then make yourself an apple pie flavored smoothie!

Just get some nice organic apples (Gala, Empire, Pink Lady…not Granny Smith, which I prefer for juicing) and wash them thoroughly.

As long as you have a strong blender then there should be no issue with blending the apple. You probably want to cut it into chunks before tossing it into the juicer just to speed up the process.

I have always liked the flavor of apples when blended (who doesn’t like applesauce?) and I think that if you add in some unflavored protein powder and cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, then you’re going to have a really nice weight loss smoothie. There are even apple pie flavored proteins you can add straight to the smoothie to kick it up in the flavor department.

Also, long term consumption of apples has been shown in scientific studies to be linked to weight loss. So, adding an apple to your smoothie instead of something like peanut butter is going to really help you out.

 

Grapefruit

Everyone who has ever looked into diets has heard about the grapefruit diet. It was one of the most popular fad diets of the 1970s and 1980s. And there are still people who design diets around grapefruits. Why? Because this is one of the best fruits for people who are on weight loss programs.

The grapefruit diet has been unkindly linked to fad diets by sites like Wikipedia, but if you take a look at the basis of the diet (low sugar, high protein, limited carbs) then you can see that it’s not really a bad diet.

However, what I like to focus on is how the grapefruit is such a powerful anti-fat fruit. There are so many studies that I had a hard time picking which ones to link to. In the end, I just decided to stick to the basics and suggest you review this one which looked at the long term benefits of eating grapefruit for adults.

Now, if you are buying an otganic grapefruit, then you can certainly blend it with the skin. But I wouldn’t suggest blending up an entire grapefruit. They are bigger than lemons, so you can’t approach the smoothie process in the same way.

I would advise you wash and slice the grapefruit into sections and then add a section to the smoothie that you’re making.

Kiwi’s

Kiwi’s are often considered the forgotten fruit. Why? Well, they are exotic, and also they never really got the advertising push that things like Apples and Oranges and even Pomegranates did from the major companies.

Remember, Kiwi’s are grown in New Zealand, primarily, and unless a major corporation is able to benefit from pushing ad dollars around a product, it’s not going to get a lot of press.

That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot of hype surrounding Kiwi’s. Everyone from fitness influencers like Jefff Nippard, to well established medical journals and academic research institutes have been praising Kiwi’s for years.

In fact, some recent studies point out that kiwi use in obese young adults shows high promise.

I like to point out to people that all Kiwi’s are not green, in fact you can and should get golden kiwis on occasion. For one thing, the taste is slightly different. That can be important if you are someone who is not a big fan of regular kiwi flavor.

And if you get an organic kiwi, you can actually eat the skin. There’s a whole online trend where people showcase how to properly eat a kiwi and it involves eating the kiwi with the skin (like you would eat an apple).

What I like to do is take a vanilla flavored protein powder, and then add a kiwi to that. Blend that up with some ice water and you have a rich and creamy low calorie smoothie that is perfect post workout.

And this is a guilt free smoothie since Kiwis are not just low in calorie, they are actually anti-obesity according to many studies.