Trek Protein Flapjacks*

Good morning all!

Today's post is allllllllllllll about one of our favourites things, protein bars. These particular protein bars come from Natural Balance Foods, and they are the Trek Protein Flapjacks:

We were kindly sent a mixed box of the Protein Flapjacks which contained 16 bars in total, with 6 different flavours. They are protein packed and each bar has around 9 or 10g of protein, they are also gluten, wheat and dairy free which is pretty cool!

You can see the flavours in the image below:

I don't know about you but there's not a flavour there I wouldn't enjoy!!

After munching on them all week I can say that they were all very good and true to their flavours, however the Cocoa Coconut one I cannot stop raving about and I need to find some more asap! What an amazing taste, an oat flapjack covered in chocolate with pieces of coconut inside, it is actually amazing and everybody needs to try it!

I've been eating these at various times, my morning snack break and as a pre-gym energy boost. They're really great as they stop me feeling hungry but they don't take forever to digest either so you know you can get to the gym without waiting forever.

Have you tried Trek bars? I've tried the normal bars and now these flapjacks and they have all been great, I would really recommend them to anyone looking for a healthy snack to add to their day. 

A box of 16 bars will cost you £14.99, that's less than £1 per bar which is great for a healthy, filling and protein rich snack.
They've recently brought out some Protein Bars too to refuel after the gym, the Cocoa Chaos and Peanut Power flavours sound just up my street, I'll have to put an order in soon! Thank you to Natural Balance Foods for sending us this box of goodies to try!

L xxx

Fitness Friday: Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bars

Hi there!

I've been a bit more adventurous with food recently - not that I've been eating weird things but just trying to vary it a bit more than usual.
I've been doing well making eggs with veggies for breakfast and replacing usual carbs with quinoa and cauliflower rice, but snacking is something i need to work on.

I found this recipe on The Daily Hiit blog (link here) and after reading it i knew that I had to try it.

I'm by no means a baker - I am so much better at cooking meals and proper food, when it comes to cakes I am (luckily!) rubbish so don't generally bother.
This recipe however involves no baking whatsoever, its a freezer only type bake - winning.



Here's the main ingredients - almond milk, protein powder, almond meal, coconut oil and peanut butter.
For the topping you need coconut oil and chocolate chips - as well as some kind of chopped or flaked nuts for sprinkling on top.
(For amounts you can read the original recipe, i won't bore you with that!)





Melting the ingredients in a microwave took about 1.5 minutes with regular stirring. I'm always wary of using the microwave to melt things but this didn't seem to cause any issues.

Adding in the dried powders and mixing thoroughly gave a batter type mixture that easily filled the square tin. So far so good, no issues and nothing that i can do wrong:





Next you just have to melt the coconut oil and chocolate chips together to create a super glossy mixture that you just want to dunk marshmallows in!

Pour this on top and you might get something that looks like this:



The instructions then suggest 20 minutes in the freezer.....I would say mine needed more like 2 hours. Not sure why this was but at 20 minutes it was still very gooey like the image below, and after 2 hours it was much more like the bottom image and had set:

Small setting issues aside, these are 100% amazing - if I say so myself.

After I made them on a Sunday around 11am I ended up eating about 4 throughout the day....oops!

I wouldn't recommend it as I felt extremely sick afterwards but OMG you need to make these!!!

I think maybe I'd add a little more almond meal to the mixture next time and it would set better, but these taste so good I don't care that I'll have to eat them out of the fridge.

Do you make your own snacks and bars like these? Do you have any other similar recipes?

I really want to make some more snacks like these - cleaner than shop bought and even more tasty!

L xxx

Bounce Energy Balls

Happy Friday!

I've double posted today as I normally do a Fitness Friday post, but this is related. Bounce balls are something that I've previously mentioned in posts where I've detailed my snacks that I have in between meals.

If you haven't heard of them they're great for a pick me up and are really quite filling.

A few weeks ago i tweeted at them because where i buy them in Waitrose, they've recently gone up in price by 30p per ball which is quite a lot when they were already £1.79 each which is quite expensive for one snack. I tended to buy them as a treat anyway unless they were on offer which was rare but that was ridiculous!

Bounce Energy Balls were shocked at the price increase as they hadn't been made aware they would increase that much and kindly sent me a variety box to apologise and thank me for making them aware of it. It was a really nice touch and shows that a great customer service can change everything!

I was really excited to try some of them out as I hadn't tried the purple ones, the Fudge and Walnut.

The flavours have a great range, Coconut and Macadamia is a great sweet treat and seems to curb my cravings for cake. The Cacao Mint Protein Bomb is perfect for the chocolate cravings and the Peanut Protein Blast is ideal for when you are really hungry or have a heavy gym session coming up.

All contain whey protein, are 100% natural and are GM free, gluten free and free from artificial preservatives.

The Almond Protein Hit is similar to the Peanut ball in which is protein heavy and great for those hungry days. Spirulina and Ginseng was very interesting in the first bite, it's a green/black colour and a little off putting on appearance but tastes great and really serves as a Defence Boost as the name suggests. The Fudgie Walnut Brain Storm energy ball was the only one I hadn't managed to get my hands on.

Here was the note that came with the variety box, so lovely of them to send me a box an although the snacks are expensive I won't be as put off as I was before!

I really enjoy Bounce Energy Balls in my morning break to stop me from eating cake in the staff room. Some such as the almond and peanut balls are quite chewy and dense meaning they fill you up a lot easier than the others and they've been very handy! I also tend to have one sometimes on my way to the gym straight from work if I'm feeling low on energy; the coconut and macadamia or cacao mint balls are a lovely sweet treat for times like these and I've tricked myself into thinking that they're just like chocolate or cake for me!

Have you tried a Bounce Energy Ball? Which one is your favourite?
Have you experienced good customer service recently?

I always think its lovely to share when companies go the extra mile.

L xxx

Banana Protein Pancakes

Hey All

A double post from me today. L's being sharing some tasty healthy treats and tips lately so I thought I'd share one I did at the weekend. We are both pancake fans. I love american style fluffy pancakes covered in all sorts of treats. One weekend at L's after a night out we used some of her brothers protein pancake mix (post here) and they were amazing so I decided it was time to try and make the banana pancakes I've seen everywhere!

These literally need 2 ingredients though from L's recommendation I added a third. You need 1 ripe banana, 1 egg and I used one scoop of chocolate whey protein (you could use 1 tablespoon of oat flour - just grind oats in a food blender, or even normal flour). L had warned me the mixture was a little wet using just a banana and egg.

I was sceptical as to how good these would be as they are so basic. This weekend I decided to give them a go. They are the easiest thing to make too. All you need to do is mash up a banana (this is where having a ripe banana really helps, mine wasn't ripe enough, mashing was hard work so I used to my hands to mush it!).

To the mashed up banana crack the egg and mix.

Then add the scoop of protein powder, oat flour or normal flour. 

Mix all the ingredients well and heat oil of choice in a fry pan over a medium heat. I used coconut oil (to my South Wales bloggers the health food shop in the arcade with Wally's sells it for a bargain £6.99 for 500g!).

When the oil of choice has melted add a scoop of pancake mix. I found using my 1/3 cup measure with this mixture got me three pancakes.

I left then for about 90 seconds. You can see as the mixture starts to set. Flip over and leave for about 60 seconds and serve.

How quick and easy. They were so light, fluffy and tasty. I covered mine in peanut butter (in the same health food shop you can get 1kg of 100% peanuts peanut butter for £5.99!!) and a small amount of maple syrup. They can literally be topped with anything. I'd usually go for Greek yoghurt and berries!

Will be trying these as a healthy weekend treat. Let me know how you get on!

Love M

xxx

Fitness Fridays: Protein Pancake Mix

Afternoon!

I mentioned in a previous post that my brother had picked up a bag of Go Nutrition's Protein Pancake Mix. I know I've posted about other products from GN but I promise I'm on no commission! We made a huge order of products to try as they have such a wide range of protein and fitness related foods so there might be more in future too.

The protein pancake mix comes in a bag like this:

It's the typical style of GN as all of their powdered products come in bags with zip lock tops to them. This makes it a lot easier to store for longer periods and know that it will still be as fresh as it was when you first opened it.

The bag contains 1kg of product and is unflavoured. I've never tried an unflavoured protein product before so I knew this was going to be interesting! As each serving is 50g and the bag is 1kg, this will give you 20 servings. That's not bad for the £8.99 price tag. It works out at 45p per serving and you can add any kind of topping you like!

Here's the info on the back of the pack; you can see the ingredients are pretty simple.

GN say:

Protein Pancake Mix is a fantastic healthy snack suitable to support all training goals. For those that train and compete on a regular basis a diet high in protein is essential for muscle growth, repair and recovery and our Protein Pancake Mix can really help you increase your daily protein intake. Furthermore, our Protein Pancake Mix provides 10g of low GI carbohydrates from oats to slowly release energy, making them ideal any time of day. Each serving of Protein Pancake Mix also provides 2.5g of medium chain triglyceride (MCT) health fats and 1g of flax seed which is high in Omega-3 Linolenic Acid.

They recommend you use their Organic Coconut Oil to cook them in to ensure the maximum benefits from the meal.

They are super easy to make, all you need is two scoops of powder with 100ml of milk or water. Shake them together, they suggest you use a protein shaker but I've also used a jug and fork and achieved a pretty consistent batter.

This will create two pancakes, so all you need to do is add half the batter to a frying pan and bake it for 60-90 seconds each side and hey presto you're done!

I have made these a number of times and each one has been consistently good. I've added bananas and maple syrup, greek yogurt and fruit, and obviously slapped some peanut butter and nutella on them for a good old treat!

You can see my pictures of some of them below:

These were bought by my brother on a whim but I can honestly say that when they've run out I'll be buying them again, they're so easy for a nutritious, filling and fun breakfast on weekends.

You can buy this protein pancake mix in a maple syrup flavour as well as unflavoured, though I think I'd prefer to add my own separately and change it every time!

What do you think of the protein pancake mix? Would you try it?

L xxx

Fitness Fridays: Cafe Pure Cardiff

Hey there!

This week's fitness friday post is a little different as me and M went to a local cafe this week that has been getting so many good reviews. Cafe Pure can be found right next to the Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff Bay and is dedicated to serving healthy and protein rich foods

First off, apologies for the lack of pictures of the place itself, its a very clean looking white and grey shop/seating area with wheatgrass growing down the middle of the bench tables, how cool!

By the time we finally got there and ordered we were so hungry we couldn't contain ourselves so you should think yourself lucky we have any pictures at all!

The menus are pretty simple, easy to read and set out in sections depending on the time of day and what you're after. It was a hard choice picking a meal knowing we could only have the one, we're going to have to go back and try everything else over the next few months!



Not only is it a super healthy menu with easy ways to customise your meal they've got everything broken down into macro nutrients at the side of each dish, absolutely love this!
Makes it so easy to decide what you want based on what you want to feed your body and not just what you want with your eyes (which by the way was EVERYTHING as we walked through seeing everyone elses food)





It took a little while but as we'd missed the breakfast slot (next time pancakes you are mine!) we settled on a Hot Box and a Power Shake to satisfy our hunger. We were tempted by the absolutely huge and tasty looking salads but as it was horrible weather outside we decided we both needed something warmer instead.

In true style of ourselves we ended up getting the exact same food and shake, although I chose chicken and M had steak.



Once you've ordered you're given a dumbell as your order number to take back to the table, its little things like this that makes the place what it is and everyone was so friendly and helpful there. The staff were all super smiley, beautiful and tanned which just makes us want to spend even longer there, surely the food will make us look like them right?!



Onto our actual meals, this was the power shake:



A whizzed up mix of banana, peanut butter, almond milk, ice and chocolate protein powder.
It was absolutely divine and not a patch on anything I've made myself, I've been dreaming about it ever since and need to get another one soon.
As a firm fan of the definitely not so healthy Ed's Diner shakes I can honestly say I prefer the taste of this one which is better all round really!




M decided to eat hers so fast there was no chance of getting a picture of the steak hot box, but here is the grilled chicken version - I'm much more restrained:



It was super tasty, the teriyaki sauce was the perfect portion for the meal and as a self confessed sauce lover I definitely need to remember the portion size of this as I think it's my downfall!
The homemade slaw was also really good and contained a good mix of seasonal veg.

All in all it was a filling, tasty, healthy meal and both the hot box and the shake came to a total of £9. I think the meal was worth every penny and will certainly be going back for more.

They have tonnes of stuff on their menu I'd like to try including pretty much all of the salads, the steak and eggs, blueberry pancakes and anything else involving peanut butter! They also have wheatgrass shots which I've never tried but will have to just to see what they are like.
For a menu that contains everything i could ever want at decent prices I will certainly be making a return........very soon.


The only downside I can see to this place is the opening hours. Open from 7.30-3 Monday to Friday and 9-1 on a Saturday means that for people like myself I could only ever visit on a Saturday due to my working hours. I'd love to take friend there for a healthy meal during the week and I bet it would make a roaring trade on a Sunday with visitors to the bay especially over the summer. Pretty please Cafe Pure can you extend these hours?!
It is not surprising that this place was very busy when we were then on an average Friday lunchtime, imagine what it could be like in the future.

Have you tried Cafe Pure yet? Are you into healthy meals and reading macro contents?

I need to study this menu and incorporate it into my diet for my training for Tough Mudder, or maybe I'll just move in!

L xxx

Fitness Fridays: Protein Balls

Morning lovelies!

It's a horrible dreary grey and rainy day as I type this and I don't know about you but it always makes me want to eat.
I'm really having to curb the snacking on my week off as being at home means I can eat whenever which is different to working in a lab where no food and drink is allowed!

I've been wanting to try some recipes for a while and took the opportunity to try this one, which i think was from Pinterest. It's not really a recipe as such as there weren't any amounts, but it was fun to do all the same.

You need 2 bananas and a whole pile of oats for this. I underestimated the amount of oats needed so basically just bring the bag/container that you keep them in!

You will need to peel and then mash up the bananas in a bowl first, this looks a lot like baby food and I felt like I'd fast forwarded my life by 5/10 years, lets not go there yet eh?!

After this you add the oats until the mixture can be formed into balls. I've no idea how much I needed in the end as I kept needing to add more, the bananas are quite moist fruits aren't they!

At this point, because I knew i wanted to try multiple flavours I separated the mixture into another bowl so I could add some chocolate protein powder to one half.

This resulted in the above photo. Having added chocolate protein powder to one bowl (about 1.5 scoops) and a few spoons of peanut butter to the other half, I then added oats until the mixture would stay when I scooped some into a ball.

These need to go into the oven at 350 degrees for 10/15 mins, so they need to be firm enough to stay in a shape but not too firm so that they dry out. This was my big mistake with the chocolate ones!

I kept adding oats until I thought the consistency was correct but must have added too many, they formed perfect ball shapes to go into the oven but took 5 minutes to go hard and now a day later taste very powdery and you need a large quantity of water to rehydrate yourself! They still taste nice though...

I was quite proud that even I managed to conquer the '2 spoon' technique in getting them to be as round as possible. Some are quite squashed and weird looking but let's just let that go.

The chocolate ones came out looking as above and whilst still warm they were chocolate, gooey and warming, which is a far cry from what they're like now but there we go. Notes for next time; oats slowly increase in size and therefore you don't actually need as many. Don't rush!

The peanut ones are on the right below, they took a lot longer in the over (~20mins) and taste considerably better. I think this is highly likely to do with me not adding as many oats and the butter being a different consistency to the powder. They're definitely the tasty brothers of this particular batch and as a result have been eaten already (most of them whilst warm...who am I to miss out on warm peanutty goodness!)

These were super quick and a lot of fun to make. I feel like I've actually baked cakes and yet all I did was mash fruit and roll it into a ball shape.

There's so many flavours you can try with this, as well as nut butters and the gorgeous chocolate spread, you could add any flavour protein for a hit after the gym, dessicated coconut and fruit and nut or chocolate chips for a treat. I would definitely make these again, I'd be interested to see how long the shelf life is and they lasted 2 days in my house before they were all eaten.

It would be handy if I could make them on weekends for the week and save myself buying bars but I've no idea if this will happen as on Sunday's I'm normally hungover in bed or slogging it out running round a park! Extreme!

What do you think of this super easy recipe? Will you be trying them out?

There's so many flavour options...what would you choose?

If you ran out of original Valentines ideas and your other half is a gym addict, you can always whip these up last minute for a surprise, I'm sure it will make them smile. I mean what gym addict wouldn't want protein filled chocolate balls on their Friday night?!

L xxx