Yummy Homemade Protein Balls/Bars

As I mentioned in my post about the book I read called New Rules of Lifting for Women, there are some simple and great recipes in it.  One of them that really caught my eye was this homemade protein bar recipe.  It's suuupperrr easy to make, and it tastes great without all the added sugar, fat and chemicals in ready made protein bars sold at the stores!  And you can make a bunch of them at once and leave them in the fridge for later.

All you need are protein powder (preferably chocolate flavor - I use Isopure by Nature's Path), peanut butter (I like crunchy for some texture but creamy will work too), ground flaxseed, and water!  I guess you can even do without the flaxseed but I think it's a great addition for the omega 3s.

Really there is no measures for this recipe, you just mix a couple scoops of the protein powder with 2 tablespoons or so of peanut butter and about 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed.  Then slowly add water as you stir the mixture to get it into a paste.  And then you can just use your hands and form the paste into whatever shape you like!  You know, bars, balls, cookies, whatever!

I find this consistency is best for forming shape:

The first time I made it, I added too much water.  You really only need like 1/4 of a cup so go easy on that, depending on how much powder and peanut butter you have.  If it looks like this, it probably won't retain shape very easily:

So yeah, if your mixture looks like the first picture, you are good to go.  I just grab some with my hands and roll into a ball shape.

I make as many as I can with the mixture I have, and refrigerate the rest!  

When I've made this, I used 2 scoops of protein powder which is 200 calories and 50g of protein.  2 tbsp of peanut butter which is about 190 calories, about 16g of fat, 6g of carb and 8g of protein.  And 2 tbsp of flaxseed which has about 80 calories, 5g of fat, 5g of carb and 3g of protein.  

I divide that into approximately 10 balls, which means each ball has under 50 calories, 6g of protein, 2g of fat and 1g of carb.  So really you can eat like 4 or 5 of these for a snack.  Lol.  I love that you know exactly what you are eating with this recipe, and it seriously tastes great!