When you are following a healthy eating plan, hunger and cravings are probably your biggest barrier to success. When hunger or cravings strike, willpower can disappear and leave you reaching for unhealthy snacks like chocolate, cookie, candy, or chips. Therefore you may notice that you are not losing weight despite your best effort of eating healthy and working out.
If weight loss, or muscle gain is a matter you want to be mindful about, then reaching for a healthy snack will keep you on the right track. PLUS...great news is just because it's healthy and satisfying doesn't mean you have to sacrifice taste. This energy bar is tasty, healthy, convenient still satisfying with it's easily digestible calories and natural sugars.
Making your own energy bars can be a fun and easy way to not only enjoy what you are eating but help you stick to your diet because they help stop hungry pains and cravings dead in their tracks.
Many commercially prepared foods are high in fat, salt, sugar and preservatives. The side effect of food preservatives can range from weight gain to chronic heart and brain diseases.
When we prepare our own food, we know exactly which ingredients, and how much of each, are going into our food.
Cooking at home can jump-start your healthy lifestyle! By discovering healthy recipes, learning about food, creating and sticking to a meal plan, you and your family can be inspired to living a healthy fit life.
If you buy energy or protein bars from the grocery store it may be a convenient, but they are not necessarily conveniently priced. You can potentially save money by buying an entire box of 12 or 24, but if you purchase one bar at a time, you could be paying up to two dollars, or more, just for one bar!
Homemade energy bars are made with your choice of nuts and dried fruits, this way you can avoid any allergies, intolerances or overall dislikes you have by making them yourself.
No-Bake-Date Energy Bars
Nutrient Information:
Yields: 12 servings. Per Serving: Calories: 270; Carbs 36g; Fat: 13g; Protein: 5g; Fiber: 6g; sugar 23g.
Tips:
If using fresh coconut, crack open to remove the white meat inside then shred in a food processor
Using your hands instead of a spatula makes it easier to control while mixing. Try rubbing some coconut oil in your hands before mixing to prevent the mixture from sticking to your hands.
Place plastic wrap down on the baking sheet before spreading the mixture to allow easier removal of the bars after they have set and cooled.
Ingredient Facts:
Dates (or Prunes) Bringing natural sweetness to these energy bars, dates also act as the binder to these bars. Look for whole, large Medjool dates in the produce section of your grocery store. These usually contain pits, so make sure to remove them before adding them to your food processor. Some homemade energy bar recipes suggest soaking the dates to soften before adding them to the food processor, but we found that step unnecessary plus made the bars too sticky. Dates are a good source of various vitamins and minerals, energy, sugar, and fiber plus contain calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and zinc.
Oats Due to their high fiber content and antioxidant compounds, oats are unique as they can help remove cholesterol from the digestive system that would otherwise end up in the bloodstream.
Coconut and Coconut Oil Using coconut oil adds natural saturated fats in to your diet. Saturated fats not only increase healthy cholesterol (known as HDL) in your body, but also helps convert the LDL, “bad” cholesterol, into good cholesterols. Increasing the HDL's in the body helps promote heart health, and lower the risk of heart disease. Using fresh coconut meat helps to restore oxidative tissue damage and contains a source of healthy fats, proteins, and various vitamins and minerals.
Seeds High in fiber, vitamin E and monounsaturated fats, seeds can help keep our hearts healthy and improve our immune system as well as provide great sources of protein, minerals, zinc and other life-enhancing nutrients.
Enjoy & Happy Eating! Check the blog often for #mindfuleating recipes.