Reasons Why You Should Have A Smoothie For Breakfast Every Day
When people say, ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, they’re not kidding. There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t skip breakfast; skipping breakfast decreases fat burning ability, results in blood sugar spikes, encourages overeating, lowers cognitive function and can be dangerous for many health issues.
WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS EAT BREAKFAST
There are so many misconceptions when it comes to breakfast; lots of people skip it in the hope of losing weight, because they’re rushing every morning or perhaps because they’re practicing intermittent fasting.
FYI, intermittent fasting can be brilliant for your health, but it shouldn’t result in consistently skipped meals, read my post ‘intermittent fasting mistakes’ for more information on this.
Either way, a healthy, easy to digest and nutritional breakfast should be an integral step of every day. Spoiler alert – this doesn’t mean you should have a bowl of cornflakes or a bacon sarnie and tick off ‘be healthy’ from your to do list. Not all breakfast choices are good ones, but don’t worry, I’m going to tell you what the BEST breakfast you can have is: A SMOOTHIE!
Not excited yet? Let me tell you a bit about how just a simple change daily can completely change your life.
SMOOTHIES: THE HEALTHIEST AND TASTIEST CHOICE
Smoothies are portable (so you can drink your breakfast on the go on those mornings that feel relentless), nutritious, light and easily digestible. Plus, they’re delicious. So, not only is this tasty treat highly functional but it’s also chock-a-block full of goodness, with ZERO nasties to slow you down or steal your focus.
Are you still not sure you want to commit to a smoothie a day to keep the doctor away? Ok, what if I told you that smoothies genuinely have healing powers? Don’t believe me. There is mounting research in nutrition on HOW you eat your food and what you absorb is as important as WHAT you are putting in your mouth.
A smoothie for breakfast a day keeps the skin irritation today. My healing journey has lots of elements and there isn’t ever just one ‘magic bullet’ for overcoming your health issues. Saying that, my eczema, cystic acne and uneven skin texture and colour never completely cleared until I started implementing a morning smoothie every single day. Now, my skin glows and I have watched this improvement happen in correlation with my breakfast habits.
4 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE A BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE EVERY DAY
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HYDRATION
When you wake up, you have not hydrated for up to 10 hours, maybe even longer. Your body is 60% water. Your brain is 85% water. Your blood is 90% water. You need water to function! When you have a morning smoothie, you are helping your body rehydrate first thing in the morning.
I start my day with a glass of room temperature water with lime or lemon juice and pinch of Himalayan pink salt for essential minerals and hydration, followed by the smoothie which gives me everything else I need to kick start my day.
Hydrate before you caffeinate, and you might find you don’t need caffeine at all.
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ABSORPTION
It is not what you eat, it is what you ABSORB. By blending the food, you are removing the manual mechanical breakdown of food, making it easier for your body to process and the nutrients more readily available. This maximises the absorption of nutrients.
Think this a minor benefit? Think again! Fruit and vegetables often have a tough outer layer, which is designed to protect them from the elements as they grow. When you peel back each layer you will be exposed to more nutrients, proteins, vitamins, and flavonoids. By blending the fruit and/or veg you can benefit from all the nutrients from each layer AND have access to a more effective soluble fibre source.
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AIDS DIGESTITON
In addition to being able to absorb the nutrients better, digestion also becomes easier. Drinking your breakfast removes the requirement for your digestive system to do the hard work of breaking down the ‘chunks’ of food. Whilst lots of fruit and veg are full of goodness, many can be quite hard to digest, which can lead to bloat, pain and, if experienced over an extended period, inflammatory digestive issues. This is relevant to EVERYONE, however if you already have some digestive issues, it’s even more important that you make life easier for your digestive system.
If you have a lot of inflammation, bloating, stomach pain, symptoms of leaky gut, IBS, constipation, loose stools, undigested food in your poop, fatigue or brain fog, you will benefit hugely from having a liquid breakfast. Have you done at home functional tests? Have these signalled that you have gut dysbiosis, overgrowth or are enzyme- or acid- deficient? If so, your ability to chemically break down foods will be inhibited. Drinking your breakfast will not only help ease the strain on your digestive system, but it will give your body chance to heal and optimise function.
This won’t all be fixed overnight, a smoothie for breakfast will need to become a daily habit and used in conjunction with an anti-inflammatory diet (see Synergised Nutrition for recipes), some supplementation and a wellness protocol depending on the symptoms that you are experiencing.
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INCREASED ENERGY
Digestion uses energy. When your body must put a lot of effort into digesting your food, this will reduce the amount of energy that you have for other tasks, such as exercising, focusing and everything else that contributes to the inner workings of your incredibly talented body!
A breakfast meal that is difficult to digest is the last thing you want first thing in the morning, as you have your whole day ahead of you! A hard-to-digest breakfast can leave you feeling slow, heavy and with a head full of brain fog! Drinking your breakfast reduces the energy tax that digestion requires, leaving you with more stored energy to better use elsewhere.
Not only is a smoothie reducing the energy that you exert, but the ingredients SHOULD be giving you energy as well, if you are following my carefully thought out smoothie recipes, that is. You will be getting your hit of vitamins, nutrients, amino acids and healthy fits which will make you feel physically and mentally more alert.
A breakfast smoothie a day will give you a dose of REAL energy that coffee will never be able to replicate.
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SKIN WILL GLOW, HAIR & NAILS WILL GROW
As well as the physical benefits, you will notice aesthetic benefits too. With the right smoothie ingredients, short and brittle nails will begin to strengthen, you should notice hair growth with a bouncy shine and your skin will begin to clear and then glow.
I suffered with AWFUL skin inflammation, I had eczema and acne outbreaks for years. I spent years healing from the inside out with various lifestyle and nutritional changes plus supplementation and wellness protocols. These all drastically improved my health and I now live with energy and vitality.
However, my skin did not truly heal until I started having a smoothie for breakfast EVERYDAY. It sounds like a trivial addition to a healthy diet and lifestyle, but I can honestly tell you that there is nothing trivial about a breakfast smoothie. My health and skin would not be where it is today without the implementation of a daily smoothie.
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MOOD BOOSTING
A healthy smoothie really is happiness in a glass. The combination of health-enhancing nutrients and vitamins, increased energy, taking pride in your health, starting your day well, glowing from the inside and out and no mid-morning ‘crash’ really does give you the feel-good factor.
Did you know that feeling good also does good? The process that your body goes through when you are feeling happy is super beneficial for your overall health. If you are anxious and stressed, your body is in a ‘fight or flight’ state, which slows down or stops digestion and other important bodily functions. This can cause a multitude of issues in the long run. Read more on how mood and health are intrinsically connected here, here, here and here.
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REDUCE CRAVINGS
People often have the preconception that a smoothie isn’t a filling or adequate meal. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A good smoothie will contain your protein fix first thing, giving you a daily dose of amino acids.
Your stomach does not tell you that you feel full (if it is, you have overdone it), your brain tells you that you are full. When you eat, mu-opioid receptors (MORS) communicate to your brain that you are eating, when these are blocked your brain is triggered that you can stop eating. Now, how does the morning smoothie come into this?
When you digest protein, peptides are formed. Peptides can block MORS, which sends signals to the brain that you are full. Then the gut is stimulated to release glucose, curbing your appetite, and kick-starting your day with energy.
Just like I advise you to chew your food carefully and eat slowly, I also advise you not to quickly down your smoothie – no matter how delicious it is! Food modulation has a natural ‘lag’ so give your body time to signal to your brain that you are receiving all the food and nutrients you need to start your day, as a result, you will feel satiated and full.
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IMPROVE CONSUMPTION OF FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND FIBRE
Parents often blend lots of vegetables into a sauce for children to ‘hide’ vegetables to increase consumption. Well, if you aren’t a huge fruit and veg fan, drinking smoothies will make you one.
Smoothies supply you with your fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals, and nutrients in one delicious blend. This is all crucial to good health: supporting the immune system, the digestive system, reducing the risk of cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, becoming overweight… the list goes on.
We are all aware that poor lifestyle and a bad diet can make you severely unwell, so why is it such a big leap to say that implementing healthy lifestyle practices and eating a nutritious and balanced diet can be healing?
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A NUTRITIOUS MEAL REPLACEMENT
If you are trying to lose weight, you are too busy to make a lunch, you have had a procedure that requires a short-term liquid and soft-food diet, you are travelling or you are trying to reduce the strain on your digestive system, then a smoothie is the IDEAL meal replacement.
Having your trusty smoothie as a meal replacement will help you avoid fast food and highly processed ‘ready-to-eat’ supermarket food. Let us say goodbye to the dreaded ‘meal deal’ and hello to delicious smoothies and health, vitality, energy and truly LIVING!
NOT ALL SMOOTHIES ARE CREATED EQUALLY
How healthy your smoothie habit is largely depends on the ingredients you include. At breakfast, fruits need to be low-glycaemic to avoid sugar spikes and weight gain. Plus, a breakfast smoothie without a no-nasties vegan protein powder will NOT give you half of the above benefits listed.
Does adding healthy fats seem counter-intuitive when trying to lose weight? Maybe, but I promise you that including healthy fats in your morning breakfast smoothie will only elevate your weight loss plan, not hinder it. Healthy fats like organic cold-pressed coconut oil, avocado, or a good quality MCT oil will aid absorption of those essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
CAN YOU GET ALL THE NUTRIENTS YOU NEED FROM YOUR SMOOTHIE ALONE?
Honestly? How much nutritional value your smoothie gives you is completely down to the ingredients you use. However, food alone is no longer enough to deliver all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that we need to function optimal, and therefore supplementation is required.
Why? Lots of reasons! Mass farming has caused our soil to become depleted in nutrients, which results in reduced mineral value in fruits and vegetables. It doesn’t help that the longer your fresh produce is stored or ‘on the shelf’, the lower its nutritional value becomes.
Additionally, we are all very stressed. This is not news to most; we are all more stressed in the 21st century than we had been historically. There are more stressors, both externally and internally, and this effects our bodily functions, which suffer enormously when you are stressed. I could write for hours on the damaging effects of stress and inflammation, but today we are talking about ways to combat this, one breakfast smoothie at a time!
One of the biggest reasons we need supplementation is because of the increasing amount of toxicity and pollutants that we are exposed to daily. This comes from environmental pollution, microplastics, cosmetic products, perfume, household cleaning, processed foods, smoke, pesticides… everywhere you look there is something that is hindering optimal health. For more reasons than one, our bodies are nutritionally deficient and have a hard time absorbing and retaining the goodness that we can take from food. Therefore, we must supplement.
DAILY ESSENTIAL FORMULA – THE IMPERATIVE INGREDIENT
I have been enhancing my breakfast with supplementation for years, and feel the healthiest I have ever felt. This is also a vital part of any protocols my clients follow, and they always see transformative results.
However, my extensive experience in this field made me realise that there isn’t a protein powder, multi-vitamin or daily nutritional support that has everything you need on a daily basis to fuel your day. Nothing in the market was doing what I needed it to do to fit my lifestyle and health requirements, and I knew this isn’t just something that I personally needed. I have worked with hundreds of clients with the same issue.
Multiple supplements and powders can be overwhelming, not to mention expensive, for busy, every-day people. So, what did I do? I made one myself.
I developed the Daily Essential Formula to ensure that every day my breakfast smoothie gave me EVERYTHING I needed for the day, at the start of the day. We should be consuming 7-9 servings of fruits or vegetables, enough protein for essential amino acids to help regulate blood sugar, recovery and to keep you full and free from energy crashes throughout the day, plus fibre to support digestion, as basic foundation for nutritional health.
Synergised’s Daily Essentials Formula is like no other product out there. It contains all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals you need to kickstart your day and support your health, energy levels, cognitive ability, mood, to best prepare you for everything that life throws your way.
The Daily Essentials Formula is a convenient shake, which can be mixed with water or your favourite non-dairy milk alternative – no other additions required! Therefore, it is easy to be enjoyed on the move if your day is especially busy. My favourite way to drink it is to add it to my favourite smoothie to turbo-charge the recipe!
The Daily Essentials formula was created with in-depth research and understanding of functional medicine and nutrition. The ingredients are all in the best state, exact quantities and precise ratios to allow all the ingredients to be absorbed to their fullest potential. There are so many supplements and proteins out there that are difficult for your body to absorb, and therefore you’re not benefitting from all the vitamins and minerals. With the Daily Essentials Formula, you can feel confident that your body is reaping the benefits from all the good stuff that’s packed inside.
So, what is the good stuff that I’m talking about? There are all the vitamins and minerals that you need to support your immune system and muscular and skeletal health. There are electrolytes to support cellular hydration, thus aiding detoxification. There are antioxidants from organic broccoli and glutathione, which further supports the detoxification process, especially in your liver. There is vegan hypoallergenic organic pea protein to give you the amino acids that you need to help balance blood sugar levels, boost metabolism and give you the energy that you need for your day.
I need to emphasise that there isn’t another product out there which gives so much to your health, from just one morning shake. This is a staple in my clients’ routine, my friends and family’s day and an everyday must for me, and it should be an integral part of your day also!
And THAT is why not all smoothies are created equally.
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