Perfect Protein Bars

I have spent the past few weeks perfecting the perfect protein bar to share with you. So what constitutes a perfect protein bar? Well, deliciousness of course! But in keeping with one's fitness and physique goals I wanted to create one with appropriate macros as well. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Quest bars for just this reason but seeing as they have been costing me a bundle each month I wanted to see if I could make a similar product. Indeed I can :)

Qualities of a (good) quality bar:
1. Superb taste
2. Pliable but not too melt-y consistency
3. Majority of carbs from fiber
4. At least 1 serving protein (20 grams)
5. Low in fat & sugar

I began by Googling "Quest bar recipes" and came upon several different sites that offered up similar recipes. However, one site in particular, www.busybuthealthy.com shared a product I had yet to hear of, VitaFiber.

You can read about what exactly VitaFiber is at the Company's website http://www.bioneutra.ca/index.htm but in a nut shell it is a low-calorie, sugar free sweetener similar in consistency to honey that is extremely high in fiber. The product also comes in powder form but for the sake of not having to add additional liquid to my recipe I opted for the syrup version. It costs an arm and a leg but it's so worth it! There is one other company that sells this product in the US however BioNeutra gives you slightly more product for the money, despite the flat shipping charge to the US being more than the product itself!

Before my VitaFiber arrived in the mail I experimented with some cashew-coconut protein bars which were pretty decent in consistency and taste but way too high in sugar due to having used honey in my recipe. For my first experiment with the VitaFiber I made key lime protein bars. These were delicious but way too liquidy and had to be eaten with a spoon! Next I tried peanut butter chocolate bars which were a little harder in consistency but didn't taste as good because of the brand of protein I used (side note: not a fan of MusclePharm!). My third try was with white chocolate macadamia nut flavored bars. These were pretty good but again the consistency was just not quite there. The main ingredients for all of these bars were the VitaFiber, protein powder, flour, and water to achieve desired consistency. Plus of course extras like nuts, coconut, choc chips, lime ride shavings, and lime juice to make the specific flavors. Finally I connected that the best bars consistency-wise were the ones I made the first time which used cashew butter. Thus, today I concocted the perfect protein bar in the flavor of double cashew! You can head on over to my recipes tab for the exact recipe by clicking here: http://gymrat-confessions.blogspot.com/p/favorite-protein-packed-recipes.html. The only modification I would make would be to use 4 scoops of protein and 1/4 cup of flour. I had to adjust this because I only had 3.5 scoops left in the tub! This will make your macros slightly better by increasing the protein and decreasing the carbs a tad. Still, the nutritional content was pretty good!

You could make a delicious double almond bar by using almond butter and almonds instead of the cashew butter and cashews I used today. I can't wait to try these out post-workout tomorrow. I sampled a little bit of the batter and it was soOoOoOo tasty! If you've ever tried the fantastically delicious PureFit protein bars http://purefit.com/ I would liken them to those....but with MUCH better macros!

My tummy is rumbling as I type this so I think I'm going to go prepare an early dinner and then take the pup out for an early evening walk once the sun starts to set. I always feel bad taking him out midday this time of year since I hear the hot tar can really tear-up a dog's tender paws!  Anyway, I hope you take a stab at your own protein bars and if you do, please share your own unique recipe and results with the rest of the gym rats in the comments section below! Happy cooking xo

Always Changing

Good Morning gym rats! Your day is probably just beginning but I’m already ready for bed. Soooo sleepy and the rainy / humid / grey atmosphere is not helping matters. I may have officially woken up at 4:45 this morning with the sound of my alarm alerting me it was time to get up, fuel-up, and hit core before work but I really feel like I’ve been up since about 2:30, having tossed and turned much of the early morning hours. I do love my early morning gym sessions but unless they are a regular occurrence, the change in schedule really sets my bodily clock out of whack!

A week of having a training partner was about all I could handle so I am back to training on my own this week. I will say though that it was exactly what I needed to get me over a plateau I didn’t even realize I was on. I’m lifting much heavier all across the board right now. I even realized yesterday that in the past two weeks my rear delt flies have gone from 12.5 DBs to 15’s to 17.5! I’m feeling wicked strong and even think my gains are starting to be noticeable. Very happy with my offseason strength progress thus far! I think sometimes you just need someone to remind you that you CAN lift more than you think and get you to push through the last couple of seemingly impossible reps.

However, by the time Thursday rolled around my lifting partner seemed to forget that spotting does not mean groping so I’ve since backed away. Men are such dumbasses. Training by myself at 5:00 pm these past couple of days though has reminded me how annoying most of the amateurs in the weight room are, thus I decided to rise and grind this morning. I’ll probably do the same tomorrow since I’ll likely be giving myself an early bedtime tonight and I really do enjoy starting my day with such a prime selection of meat LOL!

Another change I decided to start this week is in my macros. Right now I’m hovering around 1,700 calories +/- each day which does seem to provide me with ample energy to train and get me through my day as well as build muscle. However, I am not satisfied with my current level of leanness so I did some research on macros the other day based on my body type (Ectomorph – naturally lean “hard gainers”), gender, and muscle building goals. I decided it might be a good idea to try to increase my carbs and decrease my fats. Not substantially, but say 5-10% on a daily basis. I was previously achieving an average of 40% carbs, 35% protein, and 25% fat but I think I may get better results both energy and physique-wise if I try to get something more like 45-50% carbs, 40% protein, and 15-20% fat. I’m going to keep my calories constant for now, then reevaluate in a month or so. I’ve been so terrified of taking in too many carbs for so long now that increasing them to this degree is going to be a challenge but I am always game for a nutritional experiment!

Anyway, that’s all for this mid-week update. Off to go re-fill my Nalgene bottle. For some reason being exhausted makes me so thirsty! By 9:00 am today I have already had about 12 oz of coffee, 20 oz BCAAs while lifting, 20 oz protein shake post-lift, and about 20 oz water. 72 oz in and at least 11 more hours of hydrating to go. No wonder I pee so much!

ISSA Sports Nutrition Certification

Hi everyone! Another gorgeous weekday spent inside the arctic office here in Maine. Its days like this when I think about how great it will be to one day grow my personal training business into a full-time gig and be spending these sunny afternoons sitting outside creating workouts and diet plans for clients. There must be temperature-controlled laptops and glare screens by now right?

Before getting back to my blog, please allow me to remind you all to visit www.FitFierceFun and sign-up for your own personalized workout plans! I work with my clients to create monthly workout plans that only include exercises they feel comfortable doing, are enjoyable, and are in-line with their personal fitness goals. Or….share my site with your health & fitness-minded friends and family!

So, speaking of training, my ISSA Certified Fitness Trainer expires this winter and in order to keep it active I need to obtain 20 CEUs prior to then. Since I am currently out of good summer reading material, I decided to get a head-start on the process and signed up for the ISSA Sports Nutrition Certification course last night. I am so excited! Anyone who knows me at all knows that while I love fitness, nutrition is my #1 passion. There were two separate nutrition courses to choose from, this one and another called Fitness Nutrition. However, after reading the overview of each, the Fitness one sounded more generic and likely covered a lot of topics I already know inside-and-out. The one I choose is more specific in terms of learning proper nutritional requirements for athletes. This will be especially beneficial to me as a competitor as well! I feel well versed in the nutritional requirements of a bodybuilder at this point but I am looking forward to learning more about the needs of other types of athletes and the general fitness-minded population. I get a lot of friends who will ask me how they should be eating and I have a hard time steering away from my “Protein! Protein! Protein!” mentality LOL!

Have any of my readers ever taken this course or one similar? Has this benefited you as a trainer, competitor, athlete or general gym rat?

Beyond the Mental Boundaries

Good Morn Gym Rats! All I can say is my shoulders are SPENT. Honestly, they are so sore right now I can’t even believe it; I haven’t felt a shoulder burn like this in months! Adding to this is an increasing bicep and tricep burn leftover from Monday’s lift sesh. The reason for all of this is that upon leaving the gym on Saturday I randomly bumped into an old gym friend I hadn’t seen in a few years. You know, one of those rare people who you don’t really know outside of the gym but when you do encounter them they actually have really good tips and advice for you. Anyway, I was shocked to see him, having assumed that he had moved away long ago. Just my luck though, he had randomly purchased a week pass to World’s while on a stay-cation for the week and decided his new gym down in Saco was a nuisance to commute to. He mentioned training together so we agreed to meet on Monday. Long story short, best lifting partner ever. He always did have good exercise ideas but I’d never actually done a whole workout with him before. He’s the kind of person who really motivates you to push beyond your mental boundaries to get in those last burning reps and does so without being mean or condescending like some others can be when they THINK they are being motivating. It was such a good sesh that we agreed to do shoulders last night. For the most part I have stuck to my planned exercises but increased the weight on pretty much everything and gone from 3 to 4 sets all-around. Last night he showed me a better way of doing rear delt flies (IMO my most problem area) where instead of using a bench for support you get down in sort of a sumo squat position. What a killer burn! Then after my regular exercises we did overhead BB presses where I honestly felt like my muscles had finally hit failure. Seriously, even with his spotting, the 45 lb BB felt like I was trying to lift a 2,000 lb car! Then when I was ready to quit we went over to the pull-up bar and did 4 sets of hangs, increasing the hold time with each set. If I keep doing these on a regular basis I think I should be able to do unassisted pull-ups in the not-too-distant future! That would seriously be my dream if I could walk up to the bar by myself and bang out 8-12 unassisted pull-ups like it was nothing LOL.

So, suffice to say that I don’t really have DOMS right now because my shoulders felt like they were going to fall off before I even left the gym! Tonight we are planning on doing back but if my upper body pain increases throughout the day I may switch it with my core day to give myself a little more recovery time. Even though I’ve been back to the 5:00 pm schedule this week and the gym has been obnoxiously crowded per usual, I haven’t been annoyed at all. Working out with a male lifting partner who knows his shit seems to do the trick when it comes to fending off the squirrely tools!

Unfortunately I don’t know that he’ll continue to come after this week is over since World’s is kind of out of his way once he goes back to work but I’m going to do my best to convince him to at least make an occasional appearance. I do prefer to workout by myself but when you finally find a good lifting partner, it’s not something you want to give up! Anyway, off to work I go now. I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday; I’m so spent already! Do you prefer to workout alone or with a partner?

Lifting Tunes

Happy Fourth of July to all my American Gym Rats today! I'm taking advantage of the extra day off from work by getting some house cleaning, organizing, Goodwill drop-off, and blogging done this morning. Hurricane Arthur is supposedly headed our way and is thus leaving us with cloudy, grey skies, high-humidity, and sporadic rain showers, so it's not like I'm missing out on a beach day. Portland's fireworks have already been postponed to tomorrow night so there's not much going on festivity-wise today.

Friday is supposed to be my rest day but I decided to do my Sunday chest sesh this morning since I was up anyway, feeling well-rested, and thinking ahead that Sunday may be an all-day beach or boating day. My lifts on my new plan are all sooOOooOOOo good! In fact, my DOMS from last Saturday's leg day was so intense I was feeling it three days later! On Wednesday (back day) instead of my usual BB stiff-leg DLs I opted for one of my old favourites, the 1-legged DB balancing bosu ball DL (see One-Leg Deadlift tab for a visual). I had stopped doing these ages ago when I determined that they weren't effective for me anymore and caused to much shin pain to be worth it. However, I decided to be adventurous and use 2 20-lb DBs which was heavier than I ever used to do and holy crap I am still feeling a burn! I don't recommend these unless you have great balance but if you feel up for it they are a fantastic total-body strengthening exercise with an emphasis on the hamstrings and lower back. I made sure to give myself a good stretch and foam-roll this morning post-workout because I don't want to take on leg day tomorrow with any lingering soreness.

The other reason I think my workouts have been so great is my new playlist. I give you permission to make fun of me as I downloaded my first iTune last weekend! Call me old-fashioned but I've just always preferred an actual physical album. However, since I had a list of a bunch of random songs I wanted I thought it would be a better idea to make my own random-artist playlist for once. I have had iTunes for years now but all of the songs are either burned from my CDs or really old downloads from the days of Limewire and Kazaa. I ended up downloading about a dozen songs and then (after a stressful hour of trying to figure out how to sync my iTunes playlists with my phone) created an awesome mix of my favourite songs to lift to. I wanted to share it with you but since there are 53 songs on it I'd have to do multiple screen shots. So, here's a list of my top 10 favs in no particular order:

1. Sail  - Awolnation
2. Work Bitch - Britney Spears
3. Fighter - Christina Aguilera
4. Lose Yourself - Eminen
5. Remember the Name - Fort Minor
6. Roar - Katy Perry
7. Bulletproof - La Roux
8. Hall of Fame - The Script
9. Mouth - Bush
10. Poison - Kopie Von Groove Coverage

Some are more upbeat and some are more angry but they all have a great motivation factor for me. If I were a cardio queen I'd probably have more of a happy/techno mix but the weights are where it's at! Do you listen to music while you workout? If so, what genre do you generally choose and does it change with the kind of exercise you are doing?

Have a safe, happy, and fun holiday everyone! xo