← Female Sports Nutrition: Sports Performance, Build Muscle, High Protein, Meal Prep Ideas, Meal Planning, Boost Energy, Strength Training
Female Sports Nutrition: Sports Performance, Build Muscle, High Protein, Meal Prep Ideas, Meal Planning, Boost Energy, Strength Training
Ep. 32 My Go-To Protein Balls Recipe For A Quick and Healthy On The Go Snack
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- [00:01]
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How many times have you been out somewhere and needed a snack and you want a snack that's actually going to help to maintain your muscle mass, not detract from it? You either wind up eating nothing or being at the mercy of what's in the vending machine, which is not ideal. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you my favorite Go to Protein Balls recipe. This recipe is so quick and easy, it'll take you less than 10 minutes to make a week's worth of high protein snacks. This recipe is also very versatile, so you can make it your own. The best part is it's only four ingredients and you probably already have them on hand. So grab a spatula and let's go.
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Do you wish you could look like you train as much as you do? Are you sick of scouring the Internet for sports nutrition tips only to find information tailored to men? Do you wish there was a simple solution to fueling your body for your activity level? Are you ready to find freedom with food? It is possible to have balance between fueling your body for your sport and for enjoyment, and it's not as complicated as you may think. Can we say hello, food freedom? There's a way to have it all and eat your cake too. And I'm going to show you how. Hey, I'm Kristen, a former multi sport athlete, a sports dietitian, personal trainer and Jesus lover. In this podcast you will find practical, sustainable fueling tips for female athletes that will set you free from diet culture. An ever changing set of nutrition rules. Under Fueling and Underperforming, you'll learn how to put together a fueling plan that works for you, that doesn't require all the rules. Tracking every morsel of food you consume, letting food consume your every thought with Jesus at the center of it all. If you're ready to find a sustainable nutrition plan that works for you with your active lifestyle and is tailored to your unique physiology, break free from diet culture and finally feel comfortable in your own skin. This podcast is for you. Whip up that smoothie, lace up your shoes and let's jump in.
- [01:50]
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How often have you found yourself in this conundrum where you have needed some type of snack and you want it to be a well balanced snack. Something that's going to give you energy but it's also going to give you some protein so that it's helping to build muscle and maintain your muscle but there's just nothing around or you don't have anything available with you. I'm going to share with you my favorite protein ball recipe with you today. And it is just a quick and easy recipe. You don't even have to cook it or bake it or anything like that. It's just simply you throw it together and you put them into little balls. Super easy. This is something that I make probably, you know, once a week, once every other week, just depending on the week. And I keep these in the refrigerator and then I'll bring them with me to wherever I'm going as my snack. They're super tasty, really easy to eat. Even my kids will eat them. They're great. So without further ado, let's get into it. This is my favorite protein ball recipe. So all you're going to need is three cups of rolled oats. I personally use the certified gluten free oats that I get from Costco because I have celiac disease. But you can use just regular plain rolled oats. That is fine. You're going to need three cups of that and you're gonna put that in a big bowl. Next you're going to add a protein powder. So this is your choice in terms of what protein powder that you're going to use. You can either use a whey protein powder, you can use a brown rice protein powder, a pea protein, whatever, soy protein, it doesn't really matter. You just want some type of protein powder in there. And like I said, it doesn't matter what you use. And it really honestly doesn't matter what flavor you use. You can mix it up and get different flavors with these protein balls. I typically just use vanilla or chocolate, but that's completely up to you. It's going to completely change the flavor depending on what you use. So you're going to add in two scoops of your protein powder and that's going to be roughly about a third of a cup, you know, maybe a half a cup, something like that of protein powder. You can add a little bit more to increase the protein content if you feel like you can. It tastes good like that and you and you like it. If not, you could just stick with the two scoops like I said. Next up, you're going to need some type of nut butter and this is basically what's going to hold it all together. So you can use almond butter, you can use peanut butter, you can use nutso, which is a bunch of nuts and seeds, whatever you like. If you want to make your own cashew butter, it doesn't matter. You just need some type of nut butter and you're going to use about a cup of nut butter. So I typically buy the, you know, peanut butter that I get from Kaso that doesn't have anything added to it. It's just ground up peanuts that naturally separately separates. And that's what I put in there. So it's no added sugar. It's not like Jif peanut butter where it has, you know, added sugar and hydrogenated oils and all the other things that you don't want. It's just peanuts and salt. And so I add that in and then I also add in a sweetener. So you're going to want some type of liquid sweetener. This is also going to help to hold it together as well. So this can be a maple syrup, real maple syrup. We don't want to use, you know, Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin or whatever. You want to use the real stuff. So you want about a half a cup of either maple syrup or honey. And there's a whole controversy on honey. If you don't know about this, I'll talk about it in just a second. But you want some type of liquid sweetener. So like I said, real maple syrup or honey. So what I was going to say on honey, and there is actually a controversy on the maple syrup as well. But honey is one of the main ones. There is a whole thing on honey where there's food manufacturers that actually combine real honey with corn syrup, which is a much cheaper liquid sugar or sweetener. So you're basically thinning out the honey so that they can sell it as real honey. But it is not all real honey. It's half corn syrup, half honey. And that way they can make more money and they're spending less money because it's not as expensive as real honey. But it doesn't have all the nutritional benefits like honey does, like antifungal, antibacterial properties to it. You know, vitamins, minerals, things along those lines. And so you want to make sure that you are getting real good honey. And there is actually a website for this. The website is called true source honey.com and you can actually see a little seal that is on the honey that says True Source certified to make sure that you are getting truly the real deal. That doesn't mean that if you're buying honey that doesn't have it that it's not the real deal. But you, you know for sure. Or you can of course, just get honey from a local beekeeper and know for sure that you're getting real honey. And it's the same thing with maple syrup. Maple syrup is there's this whole black market where they are going to combine real maple syrup with some type of cheaper sweetener like corn syrup, again, so that they can make more money and they, the food manufacturer is going to spend less money. So again, there's a website for this. Unfortunately, there is not a website for finding out if your maple syrup is real because maple syrup testing is a little bit behind of the honey testing. But what you can do is just buy your maple syrup straight from the source from, you know, a farm in Vermont or Canada or whatever to make sure that you are getting the real deal. And maple syrup has anti cancer properties to it, it has antioxidants, it's good for immune support, lots of vitamins and minerals, things along those lines. So pick one of the two, the honey or the maple syrup. Make sure that you're getting the real deal. And then all you're going to do is just mix all this up in a bowl. And if you want to add some different things like little mini chocolate chips or white chocolate chips, or maybe even some little nuts or raisins or whatever you want to add, you can mix up the flavor and add different ingredients to this. This is just basically the base recipe, but you can add different ingredients to change it up. You're just going to mix it all up and roll them into little balls about the size of a golf ball. And what I do is I store them in the refrigerator so that they don't, you know, melt and kind of fall apart on me. But each ball is roughly going to be about a hundred calories, about six grams of protein. And you can eat multiples of these. You don't want to just have one protein ball. I would probably recommend having about three of them as a decent sized snack. You can certainly have more than, but I would recommend having about three of them to give you a well rounded snack with enough protein, carbohydrates and fat in them. So when would I eat these protein balls? I would use them as really an anytime snack. You can use them as a mid morning snack, a mid afternoon snack. You can have them right before or right after your workout. They are going to give you all the nutrients that you need in terms of your carbohydrates, your proteins and your fats to fit the bill for pre workout, post workout or anything in between. I wouldn't necessarily use them as a meal replacement, but if you are going to be going a long stretch in between your meals or snacks, like four or more hours in between, this would be a great option. To include in there. And the best part about it is that it doesn't take up a bunch of space and you don't have to open some noisy wrapper if you're in the middle of a quiet spot. Not like a cracker where it's going to make a lot of noise when you're biting into it. It's soft and chewy and just delicious. So if you try it, let me know. I would love to hear how you liked it. But please, if you like this episode, please take the time to just write me a quick review down below on Apple Podcast. It really, really helps me to know what you guys like and if there's anything on future episodes you want me to cover. And I love hearing from you guys. So please just take a minute and leave me a quick review.
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Hey friend, if this podcast inspired you, encouraged you, or changed you, I would love for you to leave me a review and share it with a girlfriend who will find it helpful or inspiring. That is the best way you can thank me and help me share my knowledge so I can help more people just like you. I'm so thankful that you spent this time with me today and I'd love to connect with you. Join my Facebook group, Female Sports Nutrition, or send me a DM on Instagram or hop on over to my website, elitenutritionperformance.com I'll see you back here next week.