This keto beetroot shake is the perfect addition to your fat adapted endurance workouts, as beetroot allows your muscles to receive more oxygen in less time.
Everyone has their daily schedule, and everyone is running out of time. This smoothie helps reduce the amount of time needed for breakfast, or alternatively, it makes a great post lifting muscle recovery shake to enhance your body’s ability to rebuild any torn muscle tissue, whilst enabling enough oxygen to flow to all the right areas by increasing the nitric oxide available in your system.
Nitric oxide has a vassal dilation effect, which allows more oxygenated blood to travel to your muscles. Not only does beetroot help with recovery, but it can also help improve your VO2 max by getting more blood to the places that are using it quickly.
The beetroot powder I use is by a brand called Temple Nutrition. Full disclosure, I did receive this product for free, but I was not paid to do this post. From time to time, if I believe in a product enough, and use it every day, I like to create recipes with these products. If you live outside of Australia, you can easily purchase the same product from Amazon by clicking on this link here (by clicking on this link, if you purchase this product, I receive a small commission).
Temple nutrition do a great job at creating high-quality products that aren’t processed with any harmful chemicals, or price inflated to the point that it’s no longer a viable option to use every day. I purchased this bag of 150g for $21, which is very reasonable considering its a 100% mix of beetroot powder.
If you use code FFWL15 you can get 15% off your order, so go ahead and check out their MCT oil, beetroot powder and other food items that are aimed towards fat adapted athletes like us!
When Would You Use Beetroot Powder For Performance?
Normal nitrates when swallowed, are converted to nitrites that can react with hemoglobin in the blood, oxidizing its divalent iron to the trivalent form and creating methemoglobin.
This methemoglobin cannot bind oxygen, which decreases the capacity of the blood to transport oxygen so less oxygen is transported from the lungs to the body tissues, thus causing a condition known as methemoglobinemia.
Beetroots, however, have a significant amount of Nitrates in them, which you would think would cause an opposite effect for what a cyclist is looking for?
Instead, the body converts the nitrates in beet juice into nitric oxide, a compound that enhances blood flow throughout the body and helps lower blood pressure.
According to Exeter University, Professor Andy Jones said: “Our original research indicated that the amount of dietary nitrate makes a difference to its impact. This new paper provides a much clearer picture of when and how much is optimum. In particular, it underlines that there is no advantage to be gained from taking very large doses”.
This latest study suggests that the effect on performance is at its peak 2-3 hours after ingestion and that the effects gradually decline, with little improvement being seen after about 12 hours.
In all honesty, beetroot powder is most effective if used 30 mins before a workout of high impact or heart rate zone. I’ve hit 5KM personal bests using beetroot powder and can run significantly faster when using it. Keep in mind this is personal trials only.
A study highlighted in PubMed compared the influence of different forms of dietary nitrate supplementation on the physiological and performance adaptations to sprint interval training (SIT). Compared with SIT alone, supplementation with nitrate-rich beetroot juice, but not potassium NO3−, enhanced some physiological adaptations to training. This study can be found here
Keto Beetroot Shake For Athletes
Ingredients
- 1 tsp Temple Nutrition Beetroot Powder
- 1 Tbsp Temple Nutrition MCT Oil (use 1 tsp if you are new to MCT oil)
- 1 Scoop Whey Protien Isolate (Optional)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 tsp Cinnanmon Ground
- 1 Cup Coconut Milk or Almond Milk, Pea Milk
Instructions
- Put all ingredients into a high speed blender
- Blend for 30 seconds
- Pour into a glass, or drink straight from the container. Top with extra beetroot powder if desired
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Nicole says
Wow, you really are good in the kitche! I had no idea this would taste good, but I had left over beets I wanted to do something with. I did not have MCT oil, but I am not on a keto diet anyways. I really liked the taste and will make again. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
FatForWeightLoss says
Thanks Nicole 🙂
nagendra says
It looks delicious and please tell Where I can get beetroot powder in India.
FatForWeightLoss says
Hi Negendra,
Unfortunately, I’m not sure where you could purchase this in India. You could however just simply use beetroot?