Protein Bars

Note: I meant to post this a while ago, but for some reason it didn't. I just found it in my drafts.

I've been trying to make my own protein bar recipe recently. At first I thought I'd make my own recipe, that turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it'd be. Ingredients included almonds, cheerios, nutella, peanut butter, and olive oil. I baked it for about 30 minutes. The thing tasted horrible, and didn't even turn into a solid :


My next try was going to be a modified version of a recipe I saw online. It was mainly protein, strawberries, and chocolate, which sounded delicious to me. The strawberries had to be freeze dried in order to be preserved in the bar. I attempted to freeze dry the strawberries on my own. First I put something that would absorb water on the bottom of the jar - rice. Next I cut a paper so that it would fit in the jar, and hold the strawberries above the rice. I put the strawberries in the jar, and sealed it, and left it in the freezer for a week.
From there a couple things went wrong. I didn't have a negative pressure in the jar, so not all of the water exited the strawberries. Also when I was getting the strawberries out of the jar, the rice got all over the strawberries and stuck to them. The strawberries tasted like rice. I decided this recipe was a failure.

My last  try was a version of the recipe my Mom used to make her own cereal bars. They tasted pretty good, and could be made in a day. The only variation I made to it was adding protein powder.

Update 4/28

The protein bars taste like... protein. They really aren't very good, but they also aren't that bad either. There are 16 of them, each one contains 25 grams of protein! Most people need between 20g and 30g after a workout, so I decided I'd go with 25g per bar.

 I've been trying to figure out how to work Imovie, but getting the video from the Ipad onto Imovie is really difficult, and frustrating. I think that I'm going to have to buy a video editor for the Ipad if I can't figure it out by tonight. 

Legs are continuing to gain strength. I'm not sure how my upper body is doing, because I haven't lifted upper body in a week now. 

Update 4/26/15

My training schedule has changed quite a bit. I'm finished with my "bulking" and moving on to tennis specific until States (5/28). This may mean that my lifts will level out, or even drop slightly. After states, I'm going to be dropping body fat somewhat. The lifts will go back up then, and is when I hope to reach the goals I set at the beginning of this project.

Squat: Goal - 345 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 315 lbs, 4/26/15 330 lbs,  

My body weight has grown from 165 (in the morning), to 182 (in the morning) over the last 8 weeks. I'm the heaviest and strongest I've ever been after this two month period, but its time to change gears. I estimate that I drop down to about 176-178 after this month.

Current schedule: -Strength lower body + core every 3 days
-Agility training every 3 days
- Injury prevention + Shoulder (rotator cuff specific) 2 out of 3 days
-Tennis 2 out of 3 days

Videos:
I've just gotten filmed what I need to finish my video about how I make my protein bars. I'm going to edit it into a video tonight. My Dad and I also had a push up contest, and filmed it. Those will be my first two videos, and then I think my third will be a tutorial on how to hang clean. Expect the first video tonight, the 2nd by mid week, and 3rd by end of the following week. Note that some videos may be much more simple than others.

All subjects working on plan!

A little later than I expected, but all subjects are now working on their plan. Some have modifications to their diet, others have a certain routine built into their training. I will be reassessing them two weeks from now on May 4th. Hopefully there will be two reassessments total, and one final evaluation before my project ends.

I'm going to make a page for each subject. As the time goes on, I will edit the pages to show their progress.

Strength Fitness goals 4/16

4/16/15

Strength: One rep max

Deadlift: Goal - 355 by 6/1/15

 3/1/15 295 lbs, 3/16/15 325 lbs

Squat: Goal - 345 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 315 lbs,

Bench Press: Goal - 245 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 200, 3/26/15 215, 4/14/15 225

Overhead Press: Goal - 165 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 135, 3/26/15 145

Wise Marking Period Self-Evaluation

Hands on experience - 2.5
I'm training myself and using the information I've learned which gives me enough for 2.5, but I'm just getting to the hands on part of my project. I'll be using the information I've pulled together much more in the next month when helping my subjects and creating videos.

Research - 3.5
Research has been the bulk of my project this far, and I've done a ton! In the beginning I created a document with a title for every subject I wanted to learn about, about 10 in total. Now, about 8 of those documents are 1.5 - 2 page papers with good information. I didn't do the documents about endurance training, because I figured that would broaden my field of interest too much.

Journaling - 3
I have 19 quality posts at this time. In total I've been posting a lot, however, I need to do it more consistently. My posts usually come in flurries of two or three within two days.

Weekly Mentor Meetings - 4
Coach Parker and I have been meeting every Friday 7th period. I get something out of each meeting, usually based around meeting my deadlines.

Time commitment - 3
I would have given myself a 4 if it hadn't been for this week. I've put in a ton of time because I am super interested in what I'm doing. This week, I just slacked off for some reason. I need to get back up to where I was. If I stay at the level I was, time commitment will be back up to a 4.

I'm proud of the work I've done so far. Its not quite excellent, but its more than satisfactory. Hopefully by the time I'm done it will be excellent.

Wrestling and how I became interested in Nutrition

This year during wrestling season my weight class was 162 lbs - Meaning I had to weigh under 162 at the time of the weigh in, usually in the morning. This was difficult because I walked around at 170 lbs. To maintain 170 lbs I ate only until I was just full, and hardly ever had any food high in fat or sugar. The 8 pounds between 170 and 162 was where it got difficult, and to me in a way it was interesting, because it was like a strategy game - making decisions on what to eat, and when to do cardio. Most of the time, I would start the game 3 days out. In this time there was absolutely no junk food, the only liquid I would drink would be water, the amount of carbohydrates and fats I consumed would be limited while my protein would stay high, and on the last day I would cut out sodium, fiber, and weigh my food to match the last few lbs I needed to drop. The last night and into the morning usually were horrible because I would be hungry, thirsty, and thus very grumpy. However it was always worth it for some reason I couldn't really understand back then.

The funny part about all this was that I wasn't a very good wrestler. Not many at my level would put as much into their diet as I did. I really wanted to get some wins as a wrestler, but that wasn't where the bulk of my motivation to do all this came from. The motivation mostly just came out of my own interest. These tricks I could pull could change my body to how I wanted it to be, it was new, and really cool for me. From there, I just kept learning, reading articles online, talking to my nutritionist mom, and watching video after video on YouTube. 

One night I found myself watching videos on nutrition, instead of doing homework due the next day. I realized something very simple, yet still difficult to realize: I liked learning about nutrition, I did not like learning about chi squared tests. I don't know why I like one, and not the other, but for some reason I do. There will always be things I don't want to do that I must do, but as my crossroads approaches, I've got a chance to decide on what I do and don't like. In this first experience with nutrition, its not just nutrition I've learned about, but also understanding passions.