Staying thin is easier if you have thick smoothies, suggest the results of a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This happens because a thick smoothie makes you feel fuller faster!
The secret to helping you feel fuller lies in… the fiber! As long as the healthy drink was thicker and loaded with fiber, participants in the study reported feeling fuller for a long while. A thick smoothie with only 100 calories was more satiating to them than a thinner drink, that had five times as many calories.
Research in the past also found a link between eating less and feeling fuller, which of course, leads to weight loss.
Thick smoothies are better for weight loss
The current study, though, was made on a small number of individuals – 15 – who were all men, young, healthy, and in good shape. The size of the study is at the moment so tiny that the results definitely need to be replicated on a larger scale.
The researchers from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands asked their subjects to drink 1 of 4 dairy-based shakes which had different thickness levels, because of the varying quantities of fiber. The calories ranged from 100 to 500. But all of the drinks were 50% carbohydrates, 20% protein, and 30% fat.
All of the participants had nothing to eat for 3 hours before the experiment. They had their shakes through a straw and had no knowledge of the type of drink they were consuming. The researchers then scanned their stomachs in an MRI machine every 10 minutes, for the next hour and a half. Also, every 10 minutes, they rated their own appetites.
Thin shakes leave you hungry
The thin 100 calorie-shake left the stomach faster than any of the other shakes, after about half an hour. The thicker version of the 100 calorie shake took 10 minutes longer to leave the stomach. Next up was the thin 500-calorie shake, which left them feeling hungry after about 70 minutes. While the thicker 500-calorie shake took about 82 minutes to leave the stomach.
The viscosity of the shakes influenced the fullness feeling of the participants, what the researchers called “phantom fullness”. Therefore, the thick low-calorie shake made the subject feel fuller than they felt after consuming the thin 500-calorie shake. This means that feeling full has a weak connection to the gastric emptying time.
In order to get the most out of your shake, it’s good to add the right balance of ingredients, who also provide an optimal thickness to your drink. It’s good to use fiber like bananas, kiwi, and avocado, but also protein like peanut butter.
