Fuel bar recipe re-post

This is my most popular post - with over 16,5K views... I think it's worth raising it again as there's clearly interest in making this sort of thing.

Before I went low carb, I decided to lay off the processed fuel/sports bars and make my own on-the-go fuel food.  I've refined this over 10 iterations now and reckon this is the perfect one.  I'm thinking even now, with the honey and chocolate in this recipe that it's still valid fuel for during long, hard rides/runs.

Fruit and nut and seed bars - X

Makes 16 portions

Calories (kcal)	247
Carbohydrate (g)	29.6
Protein (g)	6.2
Fat (g)	11.7
Fibre (g)	3.2
Fruit & Veg	0.1

Ingredients

• 150g clear or runny honey
• 135g crunchy peanut butter (preferably with no added salt)
• 80g Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Nutella) 
• 40g plain puffed rice (Kallo make a good range)
• 260g Fantastically Fruity, Roasted & Toasted, Dorset Cereals Muesli
• 120g Tasty Toasted Spelt, Barley & Oat Flakes, Dorset Cereals Muesli
• 60g raisins
• 25g mixed seeds (sesame, pumpkin, linseed, sunflower etc.)
• 20g walnuts
• 20g pecan nuts

Method

Pre-heat oven to 140-150C and line a baking tin with greaseproof paper.

Weigh cereals into a bowl.  Add raisins and chopped nuts.

Weigh peanut butter and honey into a separate bowl. Microwave for 60s, stir, add the Nutella and microwave for a further 30s or until smooth and easy to stir.

Add the chocolate, honey and peanut butter mix to the dry ingredients.  Mix all of it together thoroughly and dollop into the baking tin. Press down firmly (use the back of a spoon or a bit of greaseproof paper and your hands, or another tin of the same size that nests inside which I find easier).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden.  Leave to cool until hard, preferably with something heavy on top so that the puffed up fruit don't make the cake break up as they shrink back down.  Then turn out and chop with a sharp knife into 16 portions.

And biscuit (well, OK... bar)

We ran out of fruit, nut and seed bar quite a while back so with a triathlon tomorrow I had to get on with making some more today.  And I thought, as well as making it thicker so it cooks up softer, I'll do what I've wanted to do for a while and that was use some really fruity Dorset Cereals muesli as the main bulk of the bar.  I reckon it's worked really really well.  They've come out thick, well stuck together and slightly soft.  Lower fat, higher protein and higher carbs than recent batches:-

Serves 16:-

Calories (kcal)	207.1
Carbohydrate (g)	26.6
Protein (g)	5.6
Fat (g)	8.7
Fibre (g)	2.9
Alcohol (g)	0.0
Fruit & Veg	0.1

Ingredients

• 160g Honey, Pure, Clear, Average
• 125g Peanut Butter, Crunchy, No Added Sugar, Organic, Whole Earth
• 50g Breakfast Cereal, Puffed Rice, Wholegrain, Brown, Original, Organic, Kallo
• 450g Breakfast Cereal, Muesli, Fantastically Fruity, Roasted & Toasted, Dorset Cereals

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 140-150C and line a square or rectangular baking tin with greaseproof paper.
2. Weigh cereals into a bowl and break up any big bits of nut and fruit
3. Weigh peanut butter and honey into a separate bowl. Microwave for 30s, stir and microwave for a further 15s.
4. Mix all of it together thoroughly and dollop into the baking tin. Press down firmly (use the back of a spoon or a bit of greaseproof paper and your hands which I find easier).
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool until hard. Then turn out and chop with a sharp knife into portions.

New variety fuel bars

I've been fiddling with the recipe for the fruit&nut&seed bars again and today's version has coconut in it.  Something that's clear now on the 6th iteration is that when they go in the oven they need to be quite thick.  The last 2 batches in the new baking tins have been too thin and come out a bit too crispy for my liking, so I think I may have to make 16 bars' worth instead of 12 and have them come out thicker, but smaller footprint.

However, this recipe makes 12:-

Ingredients

• 50g Oats
• 120g Clear Honey
• 100g Crunchy Peanut Butter
• 40g Puffed Wholegrain Rice
• 50g Raisins
• 40g Pecan Nuts
• 40g Dried Cherries
• 40g Cashew Nuts, Plain, Average
• 35g Desiccated Coconut
• 50g Mixed Seeds, Omega Sprinkle, Neals Yard Wholefoods

Method

Pre-heat oven to 140-150C and line a baking tin with greaseproof paper.

Weigh oats, coconut and rice into a bowl. Weigh and chop fruit and nuts into the bowl and add in the seeds.

Weigh peanut butter and honey into a separate bowl. Microwave for 30s, stir and microwave for a further 15s.

Mix all of it together thoroughly and dollop into the baking tin. Press down firmly (use a bit of greaseproof paper and your hands which I find easier than a spoon which the mix just sticks to).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool until hard. Then turn out and chop with a sharp knife into portions.

Per portion:-

Calories (kcal)	215.6
Carbohydrate (g)	22.1
Protein (g)	4.9
Fat (g)	12.2
Fibre (g)	2.8
Fruit & Veg	0.1

Slippage yet again

Last night's dinner resulted in slippage again.  750kcals over maintenance through over-doing it beyond what was planned.  Dinner itself was really lovely, clean and though the veal was overcooked, it was pretty nice.  But then I was bad and that ended up in a final snack of buttered toast with Marmite and way over maintenance.  And today I'm not well, so I haven't gone to the gym and that means my allowance for the day is low and I'm hungry and feeling sick at the same time and there was leftover Easter chocolate which has survived the last 2 months in the fridge untouched...

The rest of today's food was less bad, and I finally got a picture of my fruit and nut bars.  The recipe is based on one by BrokenYoYo which I've modified to my own taste after a first run (which I really didn't follow her recipe closely at all anyway) which wasn't as nice as this run.  The first batch didn't have anywhere near enough fruit for my liking, so this run I dropped the amount of puffed rice and really ramped up the fruit and mmmmmdelicious!  They are almost as calorific as the 9 Bars we've bought in the past, but I think my bars are nicer because the 9 Bars don't have fruit in them (though I have done a nut and seed one with no fruit for Mr TOTKat which, apart from the honey disaster, seem to have gone down well.)

Ingredients

• 50g Large Organic Oats
• 30g Pecan Nuts
• 100g Pure Clear Honey
• 35g Organic Walnuts
• 140g Organic, No Added Sugar, Organic Peanut Butter
• 71g Soft, Dried, Pitted Dates
• 40g Wholegrain, Brown, Organic Puffed Rice
• 37g Organic Almonds
• 40g Mixed Seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, linseed, sesame and flax)
• 75g Organic Raisins

Method

Pre-heat oven to 140-150C and line a baking tin with greaseproof paper.

Weigh oats and puffed rice into a bowl.  Weigh and chop fruit and nuts into the bowl and add in the seeds.  Weigh peanut butter and honey into a separate bowl.  Microwave for 30s, stir and microwave for a further 15s.   If it's pretty runny it's ready, if not, another 10s in the microwave.

Mix all of it together thoroughly and dollop into the baking tin. Press down firmly (use the back of a spoon or a bit of greaseproof paper and your hands, which I find much easier).

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool until hard; this will take at least an hour. Then turn out and chop with a sharp knife into portions.

 I really love these ones; the honey and peanut butter mix caramelises a little during cooking and tastes almost chocolatey.  Of course, this means I've gone a bit crazy with the next online shop and ordered lots of different dried fruits and nuts for the next lot.

Anyway, I feel rubbish and at the same time extremely lucky that my body appears to be dealing with what I think should be excess kcals in ways other than laying them down as fat at the moment.  I'm not sure why, but it may be that I have gained muscle mass recently (not taken a body fat measurement to find out) and thus my BMR is a bit higher but to be honest I don't think I could have gained enough muscle over the last 2 weeks for it to make an appreciable difference to BMR (I forget the calculation for it at the moment so can't do a finger in the air guess on what kind of difference an extra pound of muscle would make, for example).  In any case, back to the gym tomorrow as long as I'm feeling better.  I've got a long weekend away coming up and I want to make sure I deserve a 4 day break from exercise!  (though there is a pool at the hotel...)

B - Dorset Cereals muesli with semi-skimmed milk
S - 35g of organic chocolate mini eggs
L - beef chilli with roasted cherry tomatoes
S - fruit and nut bar
S - carrots and houmous
S - 2x mini BabyBel Light
D - salmon fillet with couscous, peas and sweetcorn

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1812 1791
Protein (g)	104.9 (23.6%)
Carbohydrate (g)	185.7 (39.2%)
Fat (g)	73.2 (37.1%)
Fibre (g)	26.7
Fruit & Veg	8.5

Not really feeling the journal vibe

I'm really not feeling the journalling vibe at the moment.  Probably mostly because I've been out and not been doing very well on the keeping things sensible front.  So.  Quick round-up and probably a couple more days of quiet if I'm still not up to it tomorrow.

Monday... I had a great gym.  We went out to dinner (I had goats cheese terrine, steak with spinach and cabbage, and stilton and water biscuits at the end) to celebrate something.  I ended up lots of kcals over maintenance (2962kcals, 750kcals over maintenance) mostly due to the Bellinis before and the champagne during dinner.  We stayed out in town - fantastic blaggage on where we stayed but that's a story for another day.

Tuesday... rest day; we couldn't be bothered to cook so we ended up with takeaway.  I was still very comfortably under maintenance kcals (1646kcals, 140kcals under maintenance), but...

Wednesday... the scales punished me big-time.  Back up 1.5kg again.  Yeah I had saltiness in the takeaway, but seriously.  *sigh*

Gym today was good and bad.  I was "helped" by some guy who told me that seeing as my planks looked so comfortable (hah!) I should try lifting alternate legs, or doing Superman planks.  Yeah.  Thanks.  I do know how to progress planks and actually I was trembling during those planks.  However, my arms did feel amazing during and after my clean and presses, buzzing/fizzing/vibrating; nice!  AND, my negative motion pull-ups are getting better and more controlled.

I got a freebie from Ocado the other day; a new snacky bar thing, branded by "Elizabeth Hurley".  I was very skeptical and then I read the ingredients and there actually wasn't any crap in it.  I tried it today after my protein shake after gym as I was still hungry (I'm having one of those "permanently hungry" days :o/)  Very sickly sweet but pretty flavourless in the end though.  It was supposed to be banana and chocolate flavoured but it was just bland and sweet.

So, not impressed and wouldn't bother actually buying these.  There are plenty of other, better products on the market already and, yeah it may have "only" 100kcals in a bar but there's nothing special about it, it didn't taste of much and it was only 26g.  Many many other, better fish in the sea.

Dinner today was not too bad in the end, despite the fact that Halloumi goes rubbery pretty quickly after cooling down.  The mango went very nicely and mint in the dressing topped it off nicely.  But, like all of the rest of today, I'm still hungry.  I am.   It's not fair.  I wish I wasn't.  But I am.  And all I really want right now is crusty, white baguette with spread, not even butter.  I could nip out and get some from the Sainsburys down the road, but I'm not going to.  This week has started off badly enough already (though the food on Monday was really good and clean too, I drank a bit too much wine) and I'm not sure how much of my current weight is transit/water etc.  So I do want to be close to my loss kcal target for the day.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - salad; lettuce, celery, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, sweet pepper, Food Doctor Herb Boost, chicken breast
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
S - Elizabeth Hurley bar - chocolate and banana
S - carrot and houmous
D - salad; lettuce, mint, olive oil, vinegar, mango, toasted pine nuts and grilled Halloumi

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1765 2220]
Protein (g)	140.8 (32.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	137.6 (29.6%)
Fat (g)	73.7 (38.1%)
Fibre (g)	23.9
Fruit & Veg	12.2

Hungry hungry day

The problem with rest days, apart from occasionally really wanting to hit the gym (not today, though, I really felt like I needed a day off), is the hunger. I'm still aiming for a bit of deficit at the moment, 2lbs to shift to be happily in the middle of my preferred range but it'll take a few more weeks to get there as I'm taking it slowly but it stall means that on rest days, the total is a bit low and I do get a bit hungry. I am careful to keep eating little and often, but sometimes it's a bit difficult.

There were a couple of new things I wanted to try today; my mid-morning snack came from a "kiddies" range by Eat Natural, called "lunchies". There are two flavours that I can find at the moment and today I tried the yogurt, strawberry and mango one:-


...which was absolutely delicious! There are very tangy berries in there that counteracts the sweetness of the yogurt; the only problem is that its over too soon! I guess the point is that it's a small portion for children. But at around 100kcals, it should be fine for an adult snack too. 5 bars in a pack, so it's a good thing that I like them.

The next trial was an afternoon fruit hit:-


...which also comes in a variety of flavours and is simply a mix of pureed fruit. No added flavouring, colouring, sweetener, water, juice... nothing. Not very filling, but it works out as 1.5 portions of fruit & veg and this one was certainly really nice. 2 other flavours to try and I think they may work -really- well as a Bellini purée with sparkling wine.

Having been a bit hungry all day, I opted for some comfort food for dinner in the form of a chorizo, chicken, courgette, butter bean and tomato stew with cous cous:-



Spicy (added smoked paprika) and garlicky. Very warm and filling. Hunger beaten :o)

Back to the gym tomorrow though!

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop and fruit compote
S - yogurt, strawberry and mango "lunchies" bar
L - salad: lettuce, sweet pepper, capers, chicken fillet, lemon juice and black pepper
S - "pulp", Apple Strawberry and Blueberry
S - beef jerky
D - stew: tinned tomatoes, courgette, butter beans, leftover roast chicken, chorizo, garlic and smoked paprika

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1382 1795]
Protein (g)	132.6 (39.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	138.8 (38.9%)
Fat (g)	31.7 (21.3%)
Fruit & Veg	9.8

Change of plan

With all of this weight maintenance, fat loss and staying fit there's a lot of planning involved. It's not just plain, simple and effortless you know! Anyway, the plan today was to head out to a birthday thing in a bar after a quite long and hard day and have a couple of cheats in some wine and a restaurant chicken Caesar salad. Except the bar was just far too difficult after today. So abominably loud that any conversation has to be yelled, plenty of places to sit if only everyone wasn't standing up and they serve food, but you can't eat it due to the aforementioned everybody standing up around the tables.

So I came home instead. And had a beef chilli and a bottle of wine because A. I'd planned for it as a mega-cheat and B. it's actually been quite a tough day.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop vanilla, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - Nakd bar - Berry Cheeky
L - salad; lettuce, sweet pepper, celery, capers, chicken fillet and honey&mustard dressing
S - a pear
S - beef jerky
D - beef chilli, couscous, peas, sweetcorn and a bottle of wine

Exercise - 49 minutes gym (HRmax 184, HRavg 160)

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2246 2207
Protein (g)	175.2 (33.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	194.2 (32%)
Fat (g)	27.3 (11.3%)
Alcohol (g)	73.3 (23.5%)
Fruit & Veg	9.0