Nutty Energy Bars **RECIPE**

I've been training hard lately in preparation for the Superhuman Games 2016 and my team mate and I needed to find a snack that wasn't too heavy but provided us with a quick boost of energy. At the end of April I attended a Fitness expo and came across some nutty bars, but they were really expensive, and I thought easily made at home...

The bars are made of only natural ingredients, and most can be switched out to suit your preferences. They require the use of honey, for two reasons; the first is to sweeten (I try to avoid natural sweeteners where possible but actually liked the idea of these giving me the boost needed during training), the second reason is to hold the other ingredients together once set.

I'm not used to using honey, since it's not Whole30 compliant, so my first task was to figure out how to prepare it... Trust me when I say the preparing of the honey is quite a tedious task, but essential for the correct result, and oh so worth it! You'll need to purchase a preserve thermometer if you don't own one, I bought mine here.

Ready in... About 1 hour 15 minutes (25 minutes will be watching the honey mixture).

Utensils needed:

Preserve Thermometer

Weighing Scales

Large Bowl

12" x 8" tray (or similar)

Baking tray

Grease Proof Paper

Ingredients you'll need are (or you can play around with your own choices):

100g Almonds

100g Cashews

85g Unsweetened Coconut Flakes

50g Gluten Free Oats

40g Pumpkin Seeds

170g Honey (sourced locally if possible)

4 Tablespoons water

Pinch of Salt

Teaspoon Melted Coconut Oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c and line a baking tray with grease proof paper. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and then cover the baking tray evenly with the mixture. Put the bowl to one side to use again later. Pop the tray into the oven for 10 minutes, rotating the tray after 5 minutes to ensure the dry mixture toasts evenly. After 10 minutes allow to cool before adding back to the large bowl.

Also line a 12" x 8" x 1" baking tray with grease proof paper.

Place the honey, water and salt into a small pan and stir well. Put the thermometer into the pan and heat the honey mixture on a low heat . This is where it gets quite tedious, the mixture will begin to simmer, then bubble, and you'll need to make sure you don't get any spillages! Occasionally stir. You need to keep an eye on the mixture and the temperature, it takes around 20-25 minutes for the mixture to reach the desired heat of 135c/275f (over hard ball temperature). Once the temperature reaches about 260f it generally only takes another couple of minutes, and the mixture will have settled down to a gentle simmer again (no more volcanic honey)!

It's important to remove the mixture from the heat as soon as it reaches the correct heat, to stop it turning brittle after setting.

Pour the honey mixture over the dry mixture in the large bowl and mix thoroughly until all dry ingredients are coated. Tip immediately into the 12" x 8" tray you lined earlier, as evenly as possible. Dip a spatula or tablespoon into the melted coconut oil and firmly press the mixture into all corners and edges, really pressing down and compacting it as much as possible (the coconut oil is just to stop the mixture sticking to the spoon so use as much or as little as you need).

Leave to set at room temperature for 40-45 minutes, or until the nuts seem firmly stuck together but the slab isn't rock solid. Turn the mixture out onto a chopping board and with a sharp knife cut into 24 equal bars.

Wrap each bar in grease proof paper and store in an air tight container.

Enjoy!

Calories per bar = Approx 101

Protein per bar = Approx 2.4g

I'm tempted to try this with some dark chocolate drizzled over the top as a really indulgent treat, but keeping it as clean as I possibly can in the run up to the games in a weeks time! If you try any other variations I'd love to hear about them!

Two Weeks to Become... SUPERHUMAN! **Pictures Added**

Over the past few months I've been lucky enough to have quite a few holidays, but for the last 8 or so weeks I've been progressing my training for the Superhuman event in Bristol in just two weeks time. Now holidays are lovely, but I must admit it's been tough to keep on track. In Canada and France I managed to keep active (snowboarding) and do extra exercise whilst maintaining a relatively Whole30 eating plan (lots of steak and chips), but a few weeks a go in Center Parcs I met my hardest challenge so far! I was faced with four nights away with five of my favourite people, alcohol and quite a few added extras thrown in (blame the bakery)!

To try and counter balance this way of eating, I made sure I ate a healthy breakfast each day (eggs) and once again opted for plenty of steak and chips for dinners, as well as choosing the healthier parts of the BBQ for my consumption, although some bread did slip through, along with more wine! 

My training didn't suffer too much though, I remained dedicated to the cause. I woke up earlier than the others each morning to get down to the gym for a 20 minute max calorie row (one of the Superhuman challenges) and even went for a hilly 5K, as well as the usual activities like lazer clay, field archery and a much needed spa break.

Since returning at the beginning of May I have been really good with my diet as well as upping my training each week. Every time I do a challenge I aim to see improvement, which generally I've been achieving. I'm struggling with upper body strength and stamina but I'm lucky enough to have a really strong and motivated partner for the games (here's me on the right)!

Yesterday we were tyre flipping and giving piggy backs to one another, today we attempted the beep test and achieved our personal bests, straight after we managed two of the 20 minute challenges, with ALMOST the weights needed on the day!

Here's what we need to do, I should say now that whilst we're both very competitive we are not Cross Fitters and have taken this on as a personal challenge (very much out of our comfort zones). Our goal on the day is to not score a big fat zero, which finally we feel confident in achieving (if you'd have asked us last week we would most likely have started crying):

The Challenges (you have 20 minutes on each challenge to complete as many rounds as possible):

1) 800m Sprint/Max Calorie Row. Person one completes 800m, tags person two to do their 800m and we'll then have the remainder of the 20 minutes to row as many calories as possible. We've hit the gym a few times to get our row on... Getting better each time but we still need to push harder as technically this should be our strongest event of the five.

2) 50m 160kg Tyre Flip/100m Partner Carry. Both ladies flip the tyre 50m before completing a 100m partner carry. We currently have a tyre to practice with but are unsure of it's weight!

3) 15 x 30kg Thrusters/30 x 16kg Overhead Kettlebell Swings. We can tag each other in as often as needed. We have practiced this a few times now and find this really hard due to flexibility, however we are improving each time and are now only 3kg off the weight needed for the thrusters on the day.

4) 15 x 40kg Atlas Stone to Shoulder/30 x Chest to Floor Burpees. We've been lucky enough to have a 20kg, 30kg and 40kg ball to play with at home. However, the 40kg only came out for the first time this week for a few reps, but today we succeeded with 4 complete rounds of this challenge with the 40kg (we'll take that)!

5) 400m Obstacle Course. 18 obstacles including traverse wall, balance beam, up and unders, monkey bars etc. We've not really practiced this but we have been doing extra gym work to hopefully make the monkey bars easier on the day. I guess we'll find out on the day what this involves! I've also rekindled my love for climbing as an activity as I thought it would help to improve grip.

Our bodies are in constant pain and there have been about a million times we've asked ourselves why we're doing this but we both agree we're really enjoyed the training and not only have others noticed the changes in us and think we're crazy, but we also feel fitter, stronger and healthier for it!

I'll add some training photos to this blog over the next two weeks (now added), as the adrenaline is well and truly starting to kick in! We're already looking forward to next year and hope we still feel this way in two weeks time... No doubt we'll take some time out to rest, relax and replenish but I have every faith that some of this style of training will remain in our workout routines, not as often as we've been doing but at least once a month, to keep our hand in.

If you are interested in chucking a quid our way, you can do so here, all money raised is split equally between Cancer Research UK and Stroke Association.

If you want something enough, you CAN achieve it!

More updates to follow...