Question regarding nutritional value of a power smoothie

[carlos...@gmail.com]

Hello,

I have two questions actually. The first relates to eating habits and
the second relates to my a huge power shake I make for dinner.

As I have to be in at work early, I skip breakfast (not by choice). I
then have a light to normal lunch and I don't usually snack during the
day. By the time I get home for dinner I am starving. Frequently for
dinner, I make a huge smoothie/shake (40 oz.) instead of traditional
dinner meal.
Here is what goes into the shake:
2 bananas
water
tablespoon of natural peanut butter
2 packets of stevia
Hershey's light chocolate syrup 2 tablespoons
1/4 bar dark chocolate
Costco brand protein powder- 2 scoops

I don't usually snack after this meal and go to bed about 4 hrs.
later. Is this power shake nutrionally good for me? And are my eating
habits bad? I've seen on 20/20 that when and how you eat doesn't
really matter.

Thanks!

[TLN Phil]

Carlos,

Thanks for your question.

Let me break this down for you:

1. Smoothie Ingredients

Not bad at all. Processed sugars in the Hershey's Syrup, but not a
major deal since you are only using a couple of tablespoons (Trader
Joe's has a product called Midnight Moo that contains organic sugar
and natural ingredients). I like to see that you are using natural
peanut butter--a good source of healthy fats and contains no trans-
fats from hydrogenated oils. Cool to see you using stevia!

2. Nutrition Profile

The key ingredients that you use in your smoothie is peanut butter and
protein. This helps balance out the proportion of carbs, protein and
fat, promoting longer satiety (feeling full) and less of a sugar
spike. This is typical with most fruit smoothies. Even if they
contain all natural ingredients, they are still all sugar. This
causes a spike in our blood glucose (sugar) levels, resulting in a
rush of insulin to be secreted to clear out the excess sugar in our
bloodstream. Guess where it transports the excess sugar? A small
amount is stored as a simpler form of energy called glycogen, but the
rest is shuttled to fat tissue (adipose)! Another result of insulin's
reaction to the flood of sugar into the bloodstream is hypoglycemia.
This is the well-known "sugar-crash" where energy levels plummet after
only an hour or so and you are hungry again.

Since your shake is pretty well balanced, is too much of a calorie-
buster, and you go to bed 4 hours later, I would say that you are OK.
However...you need to make tthe effort to spread your meals out
throughout the day. This not only helps your energy levels, but also
what your body does with surplus calories--especially if you are not
too active or exercising enough. If you are coming back from the gym
in the evening and drinking your shake, your body is not going to have
a difficult time dispersing the calories and nutrients to places other
than fat stores. But if you are coming home after working all day and
eating very little or sporadically, it is a sound bet that a high
percentage of those calories are going to be stored as fat. The body
does not need them for energy replacement or recovery, and because you
don't eat enough during the day, the body will horde the calories for
later use.

In helping you to break from the "one-meal trap", I suggest reading
the 4-part series of healthy eating articles I posted in the Files
section of TLN Group. Start with Part 1: The Nutrition Short Course
and work your way through. You will find them a big help in managing
your eating habits: http://groups.google.com/group/tlnutrition/files

Regards,

TLN Phil