5 Banana Drinks That Actually Help With Weight Loss

No drink burns fat. What these do is keep you full for three or four hours on 250 to 350 calories, which is the part most people struggle with. A banana on its own is not filling. A banana blended with fibre and protein is a meal.

Slightly green bananas work better than ripe ones here, and there is a reason, which is at the end. Start with the first recipe.

1. Green banana and cinnamon shake

Roughly 210 calories.

• 1 slightly green banana
• 1 cup milk or unsweetened almond milk
• ½ tsp cinnamon powder
• 4 to 5 soaked almonds
• a few ice cubes

Blend everything for about 30 seconds. Drink it fresh.

The banana should still have green at the tips. At that stage it is high in resistant starch, a type of carbohydrate your small intestine cannot digest, so it passes into the colon and feeds your gut bacteria instead of spiking your blood sugar. Fully ripe bananas have converted most of that starch into sugar.

Cinnamon has some evidence for blood sugar control, which matters here mostly because a slower glucose curve means fewer cravings two hours later.

2. Banana oat breakfast shake

Roughly 320 calories, and this one genuinely replaces a meal.

• 1 banana
• 3 tbsp rolled oats
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbsp curd
• ½ tsp cinnamon

Soak the oats in the milk for 10 minutes before blending. Skipping this gives you a gritty drink that nobody finishes.

Oats bring beta-glucan, a soluble fibre that forms a gel in your stomach and slows down how fast it empties. That is the actual mechanism behind feeling full, and it is why this shake holds until lunch while a fruit juice leaves you hungry by eleven.

This is the one to have if you currently skip breakfast and then overeat at lunch.

3. Banana flaxseed lassi

Roughly 250 calories. The highest protein option here.

• 1 banana
• 1 cup thick curd
• 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
• ½ cup water
• a pinch of cardamom

Blend until smooth. Grind the flaxseed fresh if you can, because whole seeds pass through undigested and pre-ground flax goes rancid within weeks.

Curd carries about 10 grams of protein per cup, and protein is the single most satiating macronutrient. Flax adds fibre and omega-3.

Good as a mid-afternoon drink, which is when most snacking damage happens.

4. Banana cocoa dessert shake

Roughly 230 calories.

• 1 frozen banana, sliced before freezing
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ tsp vanilla, optional

Freeze the banana slices for at least four hours. Blend with the milk until it goes thick, almost soft-serve.

No sweetener. The frozen banana is sweet enough, and unsweetened cocoa is what makes it taste like dessert rather than a health drink.

The point of this one is substitution. If it stands in for the ice cream or the two biscuits you would otherwise have after dinner, you have saved a few hundred calories without feeling deprived. If you drink it on top of dessert, it is just extra calories.

5. Banana coffee pre-workout shake

Roughly 190 calories.

• 1 banana
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup cold black coffee
• ice

Blend and drink 30 to 45 minutes before exercising.

Caffeine before training is one of the better supported performance aids there is. It lets you push harder, and a harder session burns more than a lighter one. The banana supplies quick carbohydrate and potassium.

Skip this one if caffeine keeps you up or if you train in the evening.