For years, Kaia Briggs thought her morning smoothie was healthy—until she realized it had more sugar than a slice of cake.
“I was using fruit juice, sweetened yogurt, a banana and frozen mango,” she laughs. “No wonder I crashed by 10 a.m.”
Determined to do better, Kaia didn’t want to give up her smoothies entirely—just reinvent them. She started playing with low-sugar ingredients that still packed a punch: greens, unsweetened nut milks, protein powders, and fruits lower on the glycemic index like berries and green apples.
The change was dramatic. “I felt steadier. No more energy spikes and crashes,” she says. “And surprisingly, my cravings during the day dropped.”
But Kaia didn’t stop at nutrition—she made flavor a priority, too. She added cinnamon for warmth, ginger for a kick, lemon zest for brightness. “It became fun,” she says. “I wasn’t making ‘healthy’ smoothies. I was making delicious ones.”
Her go-to now? A spinach-berry-almond butter combo that keeps her full until lunch. Sometimes she swaps in frozen cauliflower or zucchini for creaminess, skipping bananas entirely. “You’d never guess there’s no added sugar,” she says. “It tastes real—because it is.”
To Kaia, the real win is how much better her mornings feel. “Smoothies went from sugar bombs to smart fuel,” she says. “And honestly? I don’t miss the old ones.”
