Newest Experiment Idea

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a little while. I actually got a little discouraged a couple of times over the last few weeks. That first batch I made was great. Everyone that tried them loved them. Ever since then, however, I haven't been able to find the right balance of ingredients. I've been researching information about many of the energy bars that are currently on the market and have honestly become a little overwhelmed with all the different ingredient possibilities.

With that in mind, I have decided to do a little experiment. I have never really payed attention to how well any one energy bar boosts my performance, if any, over any other bar..until now. Starting this week I plan to ride twice a week. Once I will ride having eaten an energy bar 15 minutes before I start, and the second time I will ride not having eaten an energy bar at all. I'll list some of the details of the experiment in a second, but the hope is that each week I will notice, and document, the benefit I feel from using one specific energy bar over not using any. Each week I will try a new bar and record my results. After I find the energy bar that has given me the best results then I will use some of that bar's ingredients in my own.

Sound confusing? Good.


Here are the details of my experiment:

Independent Variable - Choice of Energy bar, or lack thereof.

Dependent/Responding Variable - Resulting performance

Constants - (These may be difficult) Route. Diet prior to excercise. Amount of sleep I get the night before. Amount of water I drink. Weather.



My belief is that if I eat an energy bar before I go mountain biking, then I will notice an increase in my performance. My hope is that I will be able to notice a difference between an energy bar that is made of natural, organic ingredients and one that is not.


I will post prior to riding which bar I have chosen and it's ingredients.

New Ideas/Opportunities

So my wife and I went to the store and bought lots of new ingredients for some different flavored energy bars. We came up with a list of the general healthy ingredients that we want in each bar, ej. protein powder, flaxseed etc., and then picked out some other ingredients in order to create some unique flavors. Here is a list of some of the ideas that we came up with along with a couple that were suggested to us:


Pumpkin Spice
Mango Blueberry
Cinnamon Raisin
Chocolate Chunk
Kiwi Sunflower
Berry Good (See post below)
Cranberry Apple
Dark Chocolate Coconut






So those are some of the new ideas. Please feel free to leave a comment if you can think of some others.

Also, something exciting happened today. I've been speaking with our logisitics manager here at work and we've been discussing the possibility of creating a package and a label with nutrition info and everything. My interest was piqued about the possibilities of selling the bars so I decided to stop by the gas station here near my work. They told me that they actually allow some items to be sold on consignment, meaning they wouldn't purchase my bars but they would take a portion of my sales.

Obvously I would need to create a package first, which may take a while, but it sounds like a fun challenge!

The First Try

'Berry Good'





Ingredients:

-Health Trim® - Berry Meal Replacement Shake
-Açaí
-Almond Butter (Raw Almonds, Safflower Oil)
-Fresh Honey
-Oats
-Flax Seeds
-Dried Cran-Strawberries
-Sliced Almonds
-Chopped Dates
-Coconut





So I think these taste great. I brought a few to work and so far everyone has liked them.


Next Bar: Chocolate Chunk

Inside My Brain

My wife and I ran in the Utah Valley Half Marathon this last weekend and had a blast. Sophie had run in one before but it was my first. To be honest I have never really enjoyed running until just recently. I've always considered myself an active, and fairly fit, person. I love to mountain bike, rock climb, hike, or play pretty much any sport but the idea of running, just for fun, never really appealed to me. Recently, however, I have enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment and the overall healthy feeling that comes from a long run. Training for our half marathon gave me the chance to put in 5, 6, even 7 mile runs fairly frequently.

Towards the end of our half marathon my wife and I noticed that we started to get cramps in our legs. Sophie had a moment where she had to stop and stretch her legs to prevent larger cramps from coming on and my calves were getting tighter and tighter each minute. At the finish line there were dozens of companies offering their products for free. Energy drinks, powders, mixes...even free pizza and fries (which we thought was pretty funny). It was at that point that we realized that we hadn't really prepared well for the race. We had gone to Olive Garden the night before but we didn't eat anything the morning of. No energy bars, water, nothing. It was there at the finish line that I looked at the ingredients of one of the energy mixes. There were a bunch of healthy ingredients and they were all things that I could find at the local grocery store.

Finally I'm getting to the point of this blog! I realized that it would be fun to create my own energy bars! An energy bar at the gas station costs anywhere between $1.50 and $3 and, along with some healthy ingredients, includes artificial flavors, preservatives and a lot of added sugar. My goal now is to create a healthy energy bar, one with no preservatives, artificial flavors or added sugar, and have it cost less than a dollar per bar.

Wish me luck!