Three Day Smoothie Diet: Reboot Your Body and Mind

The three-day diet is by far the most popular search on our website. And it’s easy to understand why. A last-minute event appears on your calendar or the holidays sneak up on you and the next thing you know, you have 3 days to drop some serious pounds.

A three-day diet is never an experience people look forward to. However, it remains an effective way to shed some visible bulk in a short period of time.

This article explains exactly how to make the most of a three-day diet using green smoothies to supplement nutrition. You’ll learn how to lose weight fast without depriving your body of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, while also providing much-needed hydration.

How the 3 Day Smoothie Diet Works

Several things happen to your body and your metabolism on this three-day smoothie diet. You lose weight not only because of calorie restriction but for a host of other reasons described below. If you consume nothing but the smoothie recipe described in this article, you will experience the following:

Three-Day Diet Calorie Restriction

The three-day smoothie diet will not allow you to maintain weight loss for a long period. It’s a quick fix for urgent situations. Though the three-day diet severely restricts calories, it provides an abundance of nutrients to keep your body healthy while you drop a quick few pounds. By using smoothies to promote weight loss, the cells in your body don’t suffer the trauma often associated with a crash diet. The smoothie you’ll be drinking is full of fiber you need to flush out your system, as well as the minerals and nutrients your body requires to function optimally.

Energy balance is the real key to losing weight and maintaining your ideal weight. Energy balance refers to the number of calories you take in versus the number of calories you burn. It’s simple math. If the numbers are equal, you maintain your current weight. When the ratio becomes imbalanced, you either gain or lose weight.

The goal of the three-day smoothie diet is to shift the balance in the direction of weight loss by consuming far fewer calories than you burn.

Regardless of how little you eat, your body still needs a baseline number of calories to function, even when you’re resting and sleeping. When it can’t find calories in food, the body will pull calories from fat reserves instead. Calorie restriction is the basic premise behind this diet, but it’s not the only one.

Reduce Insulin Production on the Three-Day Diet

Among other things, insulin tells our fat cells to open their doors and allow some fat to be stored in the cells. The cells take in the fat and swell up—right along with your waistline.

Your body produces insulin based on how much food you consume. After a meal, insulin spikes and tells the body to stop burning fat and to start storing it.

During your three-day diet, you eat far less food, which decreases the amount of insulin your body produces. With reduced insulin, you can shift your body into fat-burning mode. So along with calorie restriction, the three-day diet tricks your body into burning more fat.

Tip: The best way to keep insulin levels low and fat-burning high is to sip the smoothie throughout the day, rather than gulping it down in a few chugs. Blood tests show a spike in insulin the faster you drink it. To avoid the spike, carry your smoothie around with you, taking small sips over the course of the day. Never let yourself go long enough to need a huge gulp.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH)

A naturally occurring hormone responsible for muscle development, metabolism, and growth slows down in production as we age—and as we get fat. Studies have found that obese adults have lower levels of human growth hormone than their non-obese peers. To give you an idea of how powerful human growth hormone is thought to be in muscle development, it’s banned in the Olympics and other sports.

When adults with a diagnosed HGH deficiency are given a supplement to replace it, they experience increased bone mass, muscle mass, and a decrease in fat stores. Don’t get the idea that popping HGH pills will be your answer, however. Overweight patients who didn’t bother to change their calorie burn-to-intake ratio saw very little improvement in the long run–even if they supplemented with HGH.

Fortunately, you can boost your body’s own production of human growth hormone naturally on the three-day smoothie diet.

The three-day smoothie diet is a form of mild fasting. Instead of starving your body completely, the green smoothie (recipe to follow) will keep your cells nourished and hydrated while you lose weight. One thing we’ve learned from fasting experiments is that levels of human growth hormone often spike during the fast. This will give you an even greater boost to looking fabulous by the weekend.

Now you have the advantage of calorie restriction, reduced insulin, and a burst of human growth hormone. If you feel unstoppable now, just wait. There’s one more.

A Three-Day Diet to Speed Up Your Metabolism

A three-day fast has been shown to increase the amount of norepinephrine released by body fat. Why should you care? Norepinephrine directly affects metabolism, including resting energy expenditure. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, short-term fasting resulted in a significant increase in resting energy expenditure because of increased norepinephrine.

This means the body was burning more calories while in a state of rest during the fast than it was before the fast. The metabolic rate was actually stimulated without the presence of exercise or chemicals. If you want to burn more calories without doing anything at all, increasing your metabolic rate is the way to do it.

Additionally, the three-day smoothie diet includes (optionally) protein. Protein has several benefits, some of which will be discussed later, but one of them is the apparent increase in metabolism. According to Women’s Health magazine, “For a supercharged metabolism, between 25 percent and 45 percent of your calories should come from protein.​” To read the complete article, click here.

When you look at the powerful combination that the three-day smoothie diet can provide, it’s easy to see why people keep coming back to it.

How to Do the Three-Day Smoothie Diet

We have prepared for you a very special smoothie recipe (with some alternatives for food preferences as well as options for adding fat-burning protein). Similar to other three-day diets, this one is based on a nutritional meal (or smoothie) that you will eat for the entire three-day duration.

For a milder version of the diet, you can substitute a smoothie for your dinner every night and eat normally for the rest of the day.

If, however, you’ve taken the time to read this article, we assume you’re going for the gold in terms of three-day weight loss. In that case, you’ll make up a big batch of smoothies and sip on it throughout the day. When you feel hungry, either drink 8 ounces of water or have some of your smoothie. You should be consuming at least 64 oz of smoothie a day and at least that much in water.

Know that 3 days of near fasting is going to bring some discomfort and feelings of hunger that you’ll have to manage. The smoothie is full of fiber and green leafy vegetables that will help you feel full. Adding the protein option will help even more.

Variations

As referenced in the previous section, you can scale up or scale down your weight loss strategy. Here are the options:

Least Aggressive: For a mild version of the three-day diet, you can use the green smoothie to substitute one meal a day and eat normally the rest of the day. You will not experience a noticeable weight loss in three days. However, you will boost your vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant intake by drinking a green smoothie every day, and you are likely to notice how much better you feel.

Mildly Aggressive: Follow the steps above, replacing one meal a day with a green smoothie for as long as you like. Ten days or a lifetime will gradually transform your body into a much healthier state. Because you will be removing a significant number of calories every day over a long period, your weight loss will be slower but longer lasting.

Most Aggressive: You can safely follow the original three-day diet for up to two weeks. That means nothing but green smoothies for two weeks. You can add protein powder as needed to keep your energy levels up and your stomach full. You’ll lose an impressive amount of weight and the abundance of nutrition will boost your energy as well as your mood.

If you choose to go with a more aggressive approach to the three-day diet, be sure to ease back into eating whole food. Depending on your individual makeup, your body may quickly adapt to the smoothie diet and have trouble digesting chewable food for a few days. Other people will see no problem switching back. You’ll know if you need to go slowly if your stomach hurts after eating whole food.

Don’t Forget:

Protein

The benefit of adding protein powder or nut butter is the increase in satiety—or feeling of fullness. Proteins are the building blocks of our cells and when the body has enough, it shuts down the hunger reflex. This means you feel fuller after eating and the sensation of fullness lasts much longer. Protein is a huge key in short as well as long-term weight loss strategies.

Water

You need to drink equal amounts of water and a smoothie (or something close to that). Because you’ll be taking in so much fiber, you’ll need water to help flush everything out. Without enough water, you risk constipation and bloating—the last thing you want.

Bonus

YOU CAN DRINK COFFEE! Caffeine has been shown to boost metabolism and provide more focus and energy throughout the day. As long as you do not add creamer or sweetener, you can drink as much coffee (or tea) as you normally drink.

Beverages

Allowed beverages are limited to water, coffee, and tea. Nothing added to them. No flavored or vitamin water. They’re full of calories…

Salt

Be sure to add a pinch of salt to every batch of smoothies you make. Your body needs salt for electrolyte balance. Without it, you’ll feel woozy and weak.​

Make Ahead

You can make your smoothies in advance and freeze them in pint-sized freezer bags. Just be sure to transfer them into the fridge long before you plan on needing them. ​ Be aware that fresh produce doesn’t last long, even in the refrigerator. Once you’ve blended them in a smoothie, they are even more vulnerable. We recommend you either make a fresh batch every morning or freeze a huge batch into smaller portions. Freezing works great, and, contrary to rumor, does not degrade the nutritional value of produce. It preserves it.

Maximize Your Weight Loss

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