Ooooey Goooey Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Oatmeal Protein Bars

• Yield:4 servings
• Difficulty:Moderate
• Time:30 minutes

These bars are a just a little more involved than my other bar recipes because we will be making our own no-carb chocolate coating! Now before you recoil in fear, it only takes about ten minutes from start to finish…and there is (drum roll please)… NO COOKING! If you want to save calories, you can leave out the first step. Or simply use less and save the rest of the chocolate for next time.

Both coconut oil and cocoa powder have a ridiculous amount of health and fat burning benefits, so it may be wise to use a teaspoon per bar. If you regularly eat bars, the money you will save by making your own will blow your mind! Plus, these have no high-fructose corn syrup or other junk in them. They taste so good and are so “ooooey-goooey” and chewy, you’ll be very glad you made them!

As far as carbs go, oats are a staple bodybuilding favorite. So, it’s a loss when you can’t eat them and want to build your body. A popular local bodybuilder wrote a diet for me a few years ago that included oats for breakfast every day. All of a sudden, out of the blue, every time my body started to digest it, I ended up rolling around in pain until the afternoon. And, I even have a pretty high tolerance to pain. Through the process of elimination, I figured out it was caused by my beloved oatmeal! So, I stopped eating it for a couple of years. Every so often I’d try to eat oats again with the same result: Pain, pain, pain….

About a year ago, I began regularly taking EFX Sports GlutaZorb (buffered glutamine) on a daily basis with the specific intention of building muscle. After 3 years of not eating oatmeal, something told me to just buy some (trust me, this ties in with glutamine). I bought quick oats because they are a little easier to digest… lo and behold…no pain whatsoever! Last week while doing some research, I stumbled upon an article about glutamine. It stated, “Glutamine is one of the most important nutrients for your intestines. It has the ability to ‘repair a leaky gut’ by maintaining the structural integrity of the bowels.”

I’m not sure why all of a sudden everything got better for me. And I’m also NOT even slightly making any flagrant medical claims here about the efficacy of L-Glutamine supplementation. It, coincidentally, just happened to heal shortly after I started taking it. If anything, that’s my anecdotal evidence for the week; hope you have enjoyed it!

Ingredients:

No Carb Chocolate coating:

• ¼ cup extra virgin coconut oil
• ½ scoop of chocolate Training Ground Pure Whey
• 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1 packet of stevia

Bars:

• 1 cup oatmeal
• 3 scoops vanilla Training Ground Pure Whey
• ½ cup peanut butter powder
• ¾ cup almond milk
• 1 packet of stevia
• Wax or Parchment Paper

Directions:

Bars:

Put the whey, oatmeal, stevia, and peanut butter powder in a large bowl. Separate the almond milk into two equal parts. Pour in half, and stir (TIP: If you stir with a fork, it will be easier than a spoon). The mixture will be too dry right now, so slowly add the rest of the almond milk by sprinkling some, stirring, sprinkling some more, stirring, until you feel the consistency is right to form bars. Wet your hands and roll them like you are making clay logs (you did this when you were little, right?) and put them on wax or parchment paper. Wet your hands again, and press them into bars.

Now, make your no-carb chocolate. If you are not making the chocolate, simply put the bars in the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You should store them in the freezer (chocolate or not) until a few hours before you want to eat them, then put them in the fridge.

No Carb Chocolate:

Place all of the ingredients in a small bowl. Microwave for 20-30 seconds and stir. Then, pour it slowly over the bars. (See? I told you it was easy.) Separate the chocolate in half, and freeze half of the mixture to use for your next batch of bars.

Nutrition:

References:
“The Healing Nutrients Within”, E R Braverman & C C Pfeiffer, Keats, 1987.

Elia M, Lunn PG. The use of glutamine in the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders in man.
Nutrition, 13;7-8:743-747 1997.