It is always great to have a quick snack in your gym bag for before or after workout. Remember it is important to eat something as soon after your workout as possible, when your muscles are like sponges. Your body uses the simple carbohydrate to replace your muscles glycogen stores and the protein to feed and build your muscles.
I have been eating a Larabar between workouts and am happy to have found something else that will be fresher, provide more nutrition, save me money. I gathered a few recipes for bars off the internet, and then customized this recipe with ingredients that I like. What I learned, is that you can really put in just about anything you like, so use the following recipe as a guideline, and make it your own! My 2 classes tried them on Monday morning and gave them the thumbs up – let me know what you think .
3/4 cup peanut butter ( you could try other nut butters
3/4 cup honey or Brown rice syrup ( I used mostly brown rice syrup)
1 cup chopped, pitted dates
1/2 cup other dried fruit (I used chopped apricots and cranberries)
1 cup chopped nuts (I used almonds and walnuts – other seeds would be great too!
1/2 cup chocolate chips (definitely optional but yummy)
3 cups brown rice crispy cereal
1 cup oats ( I ground them a little in the food processor)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
Heat peanut butter and liquid sweetener in a sauce pan to soften and combine.
Meanwhile, blend dates in a food processor (or just cut up finely), and then transfer to a large bowl and
combine with other dried fruit, nuts, vanilla and salt. Add melted honey/peanut butter mixture – it gets pretty goopy here- and then fold in the rice cereal and oats. I gave up and just used my hands! You can add the chocolate chipsat this point or wait for the mixture to cool more so they don’t melt. Once you have it thoroughly mixed press into a lightly oiled 9 x13 pan (or smaller for a thicker bar) and let it harden at room temperature, and then store in the fridge or freezer.
-Contributed by Trainer Stephanie