Can Drinking Smoothies Help You Lose Weight?

Yes, but only if you do it right. And that means no crash diets, and no crazy calorie restrictions.

You didn’t expect an easy yes or no answer did you? Ha. Well, it’s not that simple.

Yes, drinking smoothies can help you lose weight. But only if you follow a certain meal plan, diet plan, and drink the right type of smoothies.

I’m going to go over the pros and the cons of smoothies and weight loss in this article.

First though, I’ll give you quick summation in case you don’t want to stick around and read the entire thing.

Can Drinking Smoothies Help You Lose Weight? Yes

Right off the bat, the answer to your question is a resounding yes. You can certainly lose weight by drinking smoothies as long as you don’t drink a lot of them and as long as the rest of your diet is in check.

If you’re eating junk food and having a fruit smoothie with peanut butter for a snack, then ….well yeah, that’s not going to be a wise plan for weight loss.

In fact that sounds more like a plan for weight gain.

(Fun fact, there are some people –bodybuilders, for instance–who use smoothies to help them gain weight! They add lots of nut butters and things likes oats to their smoothies to pack in the calories).

So, as a rule, a smoothie will help you lose weight if you are not loading it up with tons of excess calories in the form of nut butters or other highly calorie dense foods.

Now that you’ve gotten your answer, let’s take a look at the topic in more detail.

 

What Type of Smoothie Should You Avoid Drinking If You Want To Lose Weight?

It’s not so much a type of smoothie that you should avoid, it’s more what you should avoid putting into your smoothie.

You want to avoid anything that is calorie dense. That list includes:

• Peanut Butter
• Almond Butter
• Nuts and Nut Butter of any kind really
• Full Fat Yogurt
• Coconut Cream
• Coconut Oil
• Oats (use in moderation)

That list seems pretty self explanatory except for oats. Why do oats make the list? Well, because oats are easy to eat and they can sneak in the calories before you know it. There’s a good reason why the bodybuilding community says “oats and squats” is all you need to gain massive size.

What Types of Smoothies Help With Weight Loss?

The types of smoothies that you will want to make are green smoothies, with limited fruit. That’s because smoothies that contain fruit have more fructose and therefore more sugar. This in turn correlates to more calories.

I suggest making smoothies that have a pain liquid base, such as water or coconut water. If you’re going to use almond milk, then make sure it doesn’t have any sugar in it. Unfortunately there are many almond milks out there that have a lot of sugar.

Next, I would focus on greens. Now, not everyone likes to have green smoothies, but believe me when I say that they are vastly superior at helping you lose weight.

Green smoothies are better at helping you shed the pounds for a few reasons. First, they are not as appetizing as a berry smoothie. Sad to say, but honestly, what sounds more delicious…a berry smoothie with almond butter or a green smoothie made with kales and other leafy greens?

The other reason that green smoothies are ideal for helping you lose weight is that you’re going to get more insoluble and soluble fiber when you drink them.

This fiber helps fill you up. That’s one of the big reasons that if you’re on a diet and normally drink juices, even leafy green juices, then I would suggest switching over to making smoothies.

The fiber in the smoothies will fill you up whereas a pure juice, even a green juice, isn’t going to fill you up as well.

Here are two of my favorite recipes. Take a quick look at them before we move on to the next section.

Weight Loss Smoothie Recipe #1

The Kale and Lemon Smoothie

I would only recommend that you make this smoothie if you have a really good blender. I would suggest using a BlendTec or Viatmix. I’ve covered them extensively before on my site, so I’m not going to go into too many details. Here’s a good primer about them in an article covering the best blenders for green smoothies.

The simple reason I would suggest you not try and make this smoothie in a regular blender is that the lemon peel is not going to blend up as well in some of the bottom of the line blenders. I love to blend lemons, and even wrote an entire article entitled can you blend a whole lemon, so it’s a subject I take seriously.

• 1 Handful of Kale (organic, washed and dried)
• 1 Half Lemon with Skin (organic)
• 1/2 Cup Ice Water
• 1 Scoop Unflavored Protein Powder (vegan)

That’s a killer weight loss smoothie. And the lemon makes it decently palatable. I would suggest that you only use a neutral flavored protein powder. If you must use one that has a flavor, try a vanilla one. I think that chocolate simply won’t work with vegetables.

Weight Loss Smoothie Recipe #2

Spinach, Cucumber, Apple, and Lemon

This is my second favorite weight loss smoothie recipe. I like it because it’s easier to make then the other smoothie (the one with kale). Unlike that smoothie, this one doesn’t require the same heavy duty blender.

Spinach, especially baby spinach, is easier to blend up than kale. So if you are using something like a Ninja blender, then that would work fine.

One of the reasons that I like this smoothie for weight loss is that it includes lemon. As I mentioned in my article on blending lemons, the lemon oil in lemons is a great way to suppress appetite. And you can blend a whole lemon in a blender, skin and all.

 

How Much Weight Can You Lose Drinking Smoothies?

The amount of weight that you can lose drinking smoothies will vary greatly depending on what type of diet you are following.

If you’re only having one smoothie per day and using it as your main meal replacement, then you can calculate the calorie savings using something such as MyFittnessPal or some other app.

I would recommend that you not crash diet. Don’t do something drastic such as drink two green smoothies a day and nothing else. First, that’s basically too low a calorie diet. It would only be good for short time frames where you might be interested in doing a type of fast. Lowering your calories too low can actually hurt your metabolism.

As a rule, the main approach I would endorse is to swap out one meal with one smoothie.

By doing this, you are avoiding the negative effects of a crash diet (since you’re not actually lowering your calories or nutrients enough like those bad diets do) and you are still going to have a average net negative of 500 calories a day.

That can result in losing a 1 pound to 1.5 pounds a week.

If you’re new to making smoothies, I have a few different articles I would recommend that you read:

First up, you have to learn about protein. I have an entire article written about what type of protein to use with your smoothie. 

It’s important when trying to lose weight while drinking smoothies that you don’t skimp on the protein. If you have too little protein, you are not going to effectively lose weight. You might lose weight, but it will be a combination of muscle and fat. By making sure you add protein to your smoothies, you will make sure that you maintain muscle mass which means a toned body!

 

Next, my introductory article that covers the best blenders for green smoothies. If you’re going to go on a diet, I would make sure to get a blender that can make green smoothies. I cover a bunch of different types of blenders on this site (everything from Single Serve Smoothie Blenders to The Best Blender for Crushing Ice.

 

Helpful Hints For Losing Weight When Drinking Smoothies

• Don’t Snack With Hidden High Calories

This means that you need to be careful with what you’re eating during the day. Things like protein bars can add lots of calories if you buy the wrong one. There are some good ones to choose from (I have a whole article covering the best protein bars for weight loss and muscle gain, if you’re interested).

Obviously, be careful with nuts and other high calorie and calorie dense foods.

• Add in Some Cardio and Weight Training

The old maxim is that abs are built in the kitchen. What that means is that diet is everything. And while that’s true, exercise is important to help boost your weight loss goals and also helps to prevent fatigue.