Thanks, Susan, for reaching out. Unless you have an issue with glucose metabolism, you won't need to worry about the natural sugar in a smoothie like the one in my post or any variation of it. You need to check the beetroot juices carefully about their sugar content. Many manufacturers try to hide the relatively unpleasant taste of beetroot juice with loads of sugar. The one that I'm using here in Germany is probably not available in your neck of the woods, but I'm sure you'll find a reasonably unsweetened supply. With respect to your unwanted weight gain: once we get on the wrong side of 60, metabolism will slow down. At first you won't notice it, but once you start weighing daily, you'll find a slight upward trend noticeable. It is easy to correct when you monitor it.

My team and I have developed a method which we call "develop a 6th sense for calorie balance".

You may read up on it here (https://www.adiphea.com/en/a-6th-sense-for-calorie-balance/)

If you are interested and if you have the Withings scale that we use for our LiLo intervention (you'll find more info that intervention in some of my other posts), I invite you to use the 6th-sense application free of charge as a beta-tester.