Fruit smoothie for breakfast for a week, here’s what happened

Many among us do things off our way to lose weight. I belong to this league. The thought came to me a month ago to alter my diet for the better while I was working out at home following an app which promised a 30-day transformation. It was working, indeed, but I wasn't satisfied. Like a typical Arian hankers quick results, so do I. So, there I went with my fruit smoothie challenge.

Full disclosure: Though I had thought that I would also alter my other meals besides my breakfast, I was only partially successful. Some days, as I had longed, I had salads for my dinner and skipped the traditional meal with daal and rotis. While when hunger pangs took better off me, I couldn't resist and had a bowl of daal and a bowl of vegetable with a multigrain roti.

I had decided to pull some fruits, vegetables and nuts in my smoothies and had decided to keep it more or less same for the seven days. I avoided the frozen variety and went only for fresh and organic selection.

Day 1

My experience of not eating any grain for my breakfast was pretty much non-existent. I belong to a typical Punjabi family that cannot start its day without paranthas. Though I had tweaked it a bit for myself and had added muesli, oats, daliya and poha for variety, fruits and fruits alone had never happened for me. But I didn't mind this fact today. I was looking forward to see a drop in my weighing scales and I was told it happens in the kitchen.

I pulled in a banana, an apple and a kiwi in my blender, poured in half a cup of low-fat milk and added walnuts, cashews, almonds and raisins. After a minute's blend, it gave me a fine, thick, limish smoothie. It tasted fine. I liked the afterword more. I was hungry again in two hours and felt lighter throughout the day.

Day 2

I followed a similar routine and pulled in exactly the same ingredients with two exceptions. I added two strawberries and a spoon of peanut butter. This changed the taste of my smoothie to make it a little more on the side of sour. I supposed that my kiwi was also a little more tart than the previous day. It left me with a pleasant acidic kick in my mouth.

Day 3

A good riddance was happening with this happy replacement of my morning breakfasts with smoothies. I would usually sip tea after my multigrain paranthas, poha or vegetable daliya in the mornings. But you can't have it after a smoothie. This reduced my tea intake to one in a day (in the evening) from two previously.

On the third day, I decided to give my smoothie a vegetable kick. Today I pulled in a banana, a green apple, a kiwi, some spinach leaves and an orange carrot. I added some water to it. It made a mix of over a glass and was too heavy but I somehow had it. I am also not a fan of spinach personally, so I thought what better way to have it than by masking its taste among fruits I love. But this experiment failed, kind of.

For the past two days, I felt hungry again in two hours so I assumed it will happen today also because fruits and vegetables are nothing but fibre and will get digested. But it was four hours already and I could still not have anything more. A chef-friend suggested me to drink at least three to four glasses of water to rid that feeling of bloatedness because it was too much fibre for my body. Not that it was bad, it just needed more water to digest itself.

Day 4 and 5

The fourth and the fifth day were almost the same. I replaced my banana for a mango. It got yummier and tangier. With nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar siding with mangoes so much, I gave them a green signal too. The smoothie turned out really yummy on the fifth day particularly because, I assume, the mango was very sweet and pulpy. After the spinach disaster, my stomach would have thanked me today.

Day 6 and 7

It was the weekend. I usually indulged in a heavy breakfast on holidays. But this time, though I couldn't but I made a deal. I did have smoothies in the mornings but I treated myself during lunch. That's how I made sure my stomach loves me again.

I had melon-based smoothies on the sixth and seventh day. I took watermelon, pomegranate and a kiwi and blended them. I did not add water because watermelon already gives a flowy texture to the drink. This time, I kept nuts for dressing and sprinkled a few walnuts and almonds over my smoothie. It tasted delicious. This was, by far, the best smoothie I had yet made.

Having raw fruits and vegetables first thing in the morning is definitely worth two days a week. It made my digestion better (though I was sipping hot lemon water in the mornings too and that could have aided my ailing digestion as well), made me feel like I had the optimal amount of food in the morning and kept me gladly hungry throughout the day. Above all, I felt happier as I was leading a healthy way of life.

Sometimes, it was difficult managing to make it or get it made in the mornings as it needs an extra effort from your end. There would be days when you would simply not feel like toiling for it and have what's made for others in the family but as I said, two days a week is healthy enough. Keep them as a source of nutritive variety and have cereal in milk, daliya, oats or multigrain paranthas on other days.

As far as my weight was concerned, there wasn't much difference on my weighing scale but I could see myself shedding inches. It was the beginning after all and it sure did give me goals and a determination to achieve them.

Source: Mihika Arora