Weight training and pylometric workouts have always seemed to resonate with me and thankfully this is what Alex focuses on and he has never once mentioned that dirty word "diet" and leaves me to make my own food choices which I feel I am more than capable of. I like eating clean and I like high protein, low carb and not a fan of processed food so clean eating is quite easy for me.
My man has been hitting the gym quite hard over the past few months and was getting pretty despondent because he has not gained any weight, he has gained musle and muscle definition and really leaned up but there is not much difference on the scales. As a bit of experiment I calculated his caloric intake for the day and it was only 1500 calories- this surprised us both, he has a physically demanding job and does an hour of gym a day. 1500 calories is about the amount I can have in a day if I want to maintain my weight so clearly not enough for him to gain wait let along maintain his, even if you add on the 200 or so calories in protein powder he would have after gym. Now we realise where he's going wrong we are both concious about making sure he increases his calorie intake in a nutritionally balanced way. So with that in mind I did some research into high protein snacks. He loves my little well naturally protein bars- about 10g protein for 80 calories so with that in mind I did some googling for protein snack recipes, I came across a few protein cookie recipes but they were all a little bland sounding or had oats in them, I like oats just not in cookies. So I came up with my own recipe, now to be clear I am not saying that my recipe is the most clean or healthy recipe- all I am saying is that they are super yummy and they have more protein than the store bought cookies that he takes in his lunch box. You could make this recipe a lot lighter in calories if you wanted by substituting the sugar for splenda and using olive oil instead of butter but did I mention I wanted these to be yummy? Its also easy to make all in the one bowl- less cleaning up woo hoo!
100g butter- room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup self raising flour
1/3 cup plain flour
1 cup chocolate protein powder
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
2 eggs
choc chips
tsp vanilla essence
Cream butter and sugar together with beaters, add vanilla essence, eggs and cocoa powder and beat well until all combined. Add sifted flour and protein powder and mix with spoon until well combined add as many or as little choc chips as you want- mix in well.
Roll balls and place about 2 inches apart on a cookie tray lined with baking paper- cook for 15-20 mins at 175 degrees- fan forced, until cookies slightly firm to the touch and golden brown. Place on wire rack to cool and then nom nom nom!!!
Dave loves them!
