Pear, Avocado, Kale Smoothie | High Fiber High Protein Meals
Pear, avocado, kale team up to make this a tasty, high fiber, naturally every day detoxing smoothie. If you’re new to using kale stick with the milder flavored dinosaur kale and wean yourself into it! The pear will help offset the flavor and your taste buds turnover in 11 days, so hang in there. Try to play with the smoothie until you find a way to make this not just good for you but good to you.
Ingredients:
- 1 medium pear
- Handful of kale (stems removed)
- 1 serving protein powder (unflavored or vanilla)
- 1/3 avocado
- 2 T chia seeds
- 3 T hemp hearts
- Optional, Fiber Boost (adds 3 or more g fiber!)
Instruction:
I think you’ve got this! Just add to a high-powered blender and mix. If you’re using a clean protein like Flipping 50’s you want to always add liquid first and protein last. If you’re using a blender that requires you to flip it upside down before blending, add protein in the middle to get it to mix best.
Hint: add the liquid and protein first. Blend and then add other ingredients.
Flip: Prefer it cold? Add ice or you can buy frozen avocado slices. So handy if you don’t go through avocado very quickly!
Fiber: 15g (without Fiber Boost, 18 after) Protein: approximately 30g (check your labels)
Why High Fiber?
There’s a post you’ll want to locate to get the full monty on fiber’s list of desirable traits! Stay full? Check! Blood sugar benefits? Check! Better digestion? Check!
All fiber isn’t created equal. You may be getting less than you think. Read the post to learn more.
An excerpt from the post: In new research we see that nutrition is not complete without the addition of sufficient fiber to meet gut and colon nutritional needs. Diets containing more than 50 g of fiber per day are associated with low colon cancer risk. Current dietary fiber requirements are based on cardiovascular health ignoring needs for colon health. Add to that the benefits of fiber for weight loss support, and you have a persuasive argument for fiber.
Why High Protein?
Let’s first visit “high protein.” It’s really most likely higher “than you thought.” It’s not “high” protein. Though it may be, relative to the percent of carbs or fats at a certain meal or in your diet. Muscle requires protein. It also requires carbs. So if you’re struggling to gain lean muscle (aka, boost metabolism), and going low to no carb, that’s one limiter.
You’ll also be full for longer if you have adequate protein at a meal.
So to address “adequate protein:” It’s been known in science for 25 years. It’s been slightly more mainstream since 2008. And there’s still a ton of confusion about it.
If you know your lean body mass (in pounds), your Fat Free Mass on many Smart Scales now, that would be a target for your grams of protein. If that’s unknown, (first, I’d suggest fix that! Link to my Amazon page for 3 Smart Scale recommendations for this need-to-know number) our ideal body weight in pounds in grams of protein is what you need. Now if you weight 200 and want to weigh 150, you might think that’s where you want to be. Not true. If you need to LOSE weight to be at your ideal, you need to increase protein by about 10-15% while you’re in a calorie deficit so that while losing weight you KEEP muscle.
Again, loss of muscle means loss of metabolism. That means? The inevitable regain of weight.
Questions? There is an abundance of content in blogs, podcasts here on Flipping 50 to help. Try the Food Flip (open select times a year) for support if you need a real shift in your dietary habits.
Make the Pear, Avocado, Kale smoothie? Comment below and lmk how you like it or tweak to your liking!
