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All, I have been trying to improve my breakfast situation from no breakfast or a really crappy breakfast. Because I changed by diet and cleaned it up a bit, I no longer binge eat at night. This of course leaves me legitimately hungry in the morning.

After attempting a few different ideas and taking into account travel and other factors I have found self made smoothies fill me up.

My question is, is this a reasonably healthy meal to have in the mornings? Sometimes I also add a slice of brown toast with some natural peanut butter if I am really hungry but on average it does me right till lunch.

Smoothie consists of:

  • 1 small banana
  • 1 handful raspberries
  • 1 handful blueberries
  • 1 handful blackberries
  • 30g Protein Powder Mix
  • 1 small glass orange juice
  • 2 dessert spoons live natural yoghurt

In terms of my physical make up, I am currently 17st down from 23st. I work out 6 days per week, a mix of body weight training and jogging. My goals are simply to improve my diet in line with my exercise regime. Ultimately I just want to be fit and healthy, no specific training goals or the like in mind. My previous diet consisted of pastries and other fat laden goodies that shouldn't really be eaten at all, never mind for breakfast.

To the down voter. I would have thought physical fitness and nutrition go hand in hand? While I am new to this it does seem one without the other is not a good idea?

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  • While this is surely not unhealthy per se, I feel it's missing low-glycemic (slow acting) carbs. All carbs you provide are from fruit and therefore rather fast acting. I'd maybe substitute some fruit for a handfull of oats for good measure. Also note that the same thing all the time is in general not considered healthy, so mixing it up every once in a while might be a good idea (maybe use milk instead of orange juice on some days). – LarissaGodzilla May 21 '14 at 11:55
  • That's pretty much all sugar... and you might as well just substitute mountain dew for orange juice. Also check to see if your yogurt is sweetened (takes deliberate effort to find stuff that isn't). The smoothie I make every morning is: 1 cup rolled oats, 2 scoops optimum nutrition vanilla protein powder, 2 tbsp sugar free berry flavored fiber, 1 cup unsweetened mixed frozen berries, 1 tbsp coconut oil, and water to desired consistency. It's filling, high in protein, and delicious. – Daniel May 21 '14 at 14:29
  • @LarissaGodzilla Milk would curdle in that smoothie from the acid in the berries. – Daniel May 21 '14 at 14:32
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    @Doc: While that might be, I've had my fair share of fruit milk and never found it to be undrinkable or even unpleasant. – LarissaGodzilla May 21 '14 at 14:35
  • You should tell us about your goals -- "healthy" is subjective. Do you wish to lose weight, build muscle, have energy for half marathon training? Generally speaking, you should eat for your protein needs (~1g per lb of lean body mass), then fill in the rest of your caloric needs with carbohydrates and some fats. If you want to lose weight, you need to know how many calories you burn per day, and eat 100-500 calories below that. It takes work and willpower. You can try unprocessed food diets (ie, paleo diet), which intrinsically limit calorie intake if counting is not an option. – Daniel May 21 '14 at 15:11
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It's a good start but like others have mentioned, the biggest fault is that it's pretty high in carbs and particularly fast-acting carbs (fructose, despite being from "healthy" fruit, is the worst in this regard).

My suggestion would be toss the orange juice. It's the worst offender to the above point and won't fill you up at all since there's very little or no fiber. Next to go would be the banana but it's not bad (the berries are quite nutrient and fiber dense and don't have as much sugar either). To make it more filling, add some fats. The PB isn't a bad idea, you could also consider adding coconut oil (my personal recommendation) or, if your yogurt is full-fat (I recommend it always should be) then have some more of it.

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  • Thanks Luis, this was the sort of thing I was looking for. I don't mind tossing the OJ, it was more for consistency purposes, are there any other liquids I could add? The banana can go easy enough too, it was for bulk. Someone mentioned I could add some rolled oats to substitute here. Thanks again. – McDonnellDean May 22 '14 at 15:50
  • Good question. Probably this will be mostly a matter of experimenting and finding your preference. Obviously water will do the trick, milk might too but @Doc rightfully warns of curdling, but it might not be bad. I've never tried this myself but possibly an "alternative" milk such as almond milk or something? (stay away from soy though) – Luis May 23 '14 at 13:07
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In my opinion, remove many kinds of fruits but just choose a couple of them, and take extra carbs in your breakfast. You can eat normal oatmeal or your can easily cook a porridge if you have the opportunity, which I always eat with proteins in my breakfast.

There is an article about taking low carbs in breakfast, which is not a good thing to do for either of muscle gain and weight loss:

Researchers have found a possible way to overcome the common problem of dieters eventually abandoning their diet and regaining the weight they lost. Eat a big breakfast packed with carbohydrates and protein, then follow a low-carb, low-calorie diet the rest of the day, the authors of a new study recommend.

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  • Note that the linked article cites a study on women only, basically starving (1043kcal per day). The study's findings are also more about lifestyle (it's easier) than necessity. While that doesn't necessarily contradict your point, I still disagree on low carb breakfasts being detrimental to muscle growth or weight loss. – LarissaGodzilla May 21 '14 at 12:45
  • I cited the important part, and gave reference site link. If you wish to argue about that citation I wrote is wrong, feel free to add your own answer. Read my answer and the cited part before commenting. I am not telling all article is good or bad. – canova May 21 '14 at 14:51
  • @SirSC I read the article and your answer (by the way, the article doesn't mention anything about muscle gain). I'm saying the article is poor and deceptive, and the information doesn't come from a creditable source. – Daniel May 21 '14 at 15:01
  • I've removed the accepted answer as there is some doubt? I'm new to all of this so if anyone feels they have a better answer the tick is up for grabs, if not I will reapply the green tick – McDonnellDean May 21 '14 at 15:03

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