Commercial diet shakes, such as Special K and Slim Fast offer dieters convenience and the opportunity to lose weight quickly. However, you may also tire easily of the flavors and that could hamper your ability to stick with the diet plan. Most shakes offer you chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavor options. The following recipes give you ideas for ways to tweak those diet plans while adding flavor to diet shakes.
Toss any flavor shake into a blender, add a half cup to a cup of ice and turn the blender to ice crush. Although this doesn’t add any calories, it does increase the bulk and texture of the shake, perhaps making you feel more satisfied.
Toss any flavor shake into a blender and add a half cup of frozen fruit. You’ll increase your calorie count, although not by a lot. Like the ice, the frozen fruit adds more texture to the shake while adding some flavor. Try a vanilla shake with blueberries, strawberries, or frozen melon. Add mixed berries or strawberries to a chocolate shake or strawberries to a strawberry shake.
Add some fresh fruit to your diet plan by adding in fresh berries, mango, papaya, kiwi, pitted cherries, peeled and cored apple, segmented orange, pineapple, etc. to any of the shakes. To avoid increasing the calorie count too much, limit yourself to a quarter-cup or half-cup of fruit. You could also add a half cup of ice to add more bulk. Put everything in the blender.
The difficulty with adding fruit is that you may add “just a bit more” although you should remember even that bit has calories. Chances are you are trying a diet shake based plan because you want to lose weight quickly, so watch out that you don’t go sneaking in calories. That said, add in fresh or frozen fruit as opposed to juice which adds calories without giving you any of the small bits of fruit in the shake that will trick you into feeling as if you’ve consumed something more substantial.
Shake Up Your Diet Plan
What if you’re wondering how to lose weight with diet shakes without adding calories? Consider mixing in a diet soda to your shake. Avoid putting this in the blender as you don’t want to lose the carbonation. Pour the shake into a large glass, add a flavored diet soda, and stir. If you want, blend the shake with ice and then stir in the soda.
Try diet orange soda with vanilla for a Creamsicle, a chocolate shake for a dessert-like flavor, or a strawberry shake for a fruit smoothie. Diet cream soda or root beer with a vanilla diet shake is a bit like having an ice cream float. A cherry-flavored cola with a chocolate shake can taste a bit like a chocolate-covered cherry.
Stroll through the soda aisle for interesting flavors that could blend well with the basic diet shake flavors. Adding a couple of ounces of diet soda can make a whey protein shake taste more treat-like.
For other calorie-free diet options, mix in a half to a full teaspoon of instant coffee or instant espresso powder to vanilla or chocolate shake for a coffee shop-inspired chilled beverage.
Although it should go without saying, no matter how tasty some chocolate cookies could make a diet soda if blended in, don’t do it! Beyond mixing in a serving of fruit, avoid adding in any other solid foods so you keep the calorie count down.
