I'm on month out from surgery and found these little snacks balls to be super useful to have around and they keep for a long time. I mixed the following in a big bowel (you can play with the ratios of things as you like):

* creamy peanut butter

* oats

* honey

* vanilla protein powder

Then ball them up into little balls and refrigerate. When you want a little snack; just grab one and pop in it! They travel well too for work and stuff.

Only my opinion, cuz they may work for some. But I call those candy. And during my WLM, I didn't indulge in stuff like that cuz I wanted to be sure that I would get to goal or as humanly close as I could. Those are dangerous delivery systems for sugar (honey) and grains (oats) and nutbutter (which I didn't eat a whole lot of cuz I wanted to keep calories low). My view was that I had all the scooby snacks I need strapped and trapped on my ass--I had no business eating more that would have to be burned for energy before my body would tap into its own "scooby snack" on my booty.

The reason I have a problem with them beyond being potential triggers for some is that our goal (especially early out) when our restriction is maximum, is to eat calorically LITE while eating nutritionally dense. So if I'm gonna spend 70 of my calorie budget on something--I'd rather it be a hard boiled egg, or a turkey rollup, or a string cheese. Cuz it's a better bang for my protein and calorie buck. And with the candy, the calories will add up VERY VERY quickly for very little protein. Especially since they are so small!

It worked to my advantage within 9 months.

If I were at goal? And it wasn't a trigger for me, and helped me maintain, then I would go for it for sure! There "may" be a different set of realities in maintenance from losing phase.

Edited September 9, 20196 yr by FluffyChix

I can appreciate that -- perhaps, I should lay off them and see where it goes.

I’m in agreement with fluffy.We see all these foods lately that have the word protein in them as though that suddenly makes them healthy and slimming. Most of the time they are just as high in calories as other processed foods but people fall for the con. Marketing has a lot to answer for.

We even have foods that are naturally high in protein get the protein labelling. eg.

Protein milk

Protein peanut butter ?

45 minutes ago, elcee said:

I’m in agreement with fluffy.We see all these foods lately that have the word Protein in them as though that suddenly makes them healthy and slimming. Most of the time they are just as high in calories as other processed foods but people fall for the con. Marketing has a lot to answer for.

We even have foods that are naturally high in protein get the protein labelling. eg.

Protein milk

Protein Peanut Butter ?

YES!!!! Sooooo much this!!! ^^^^^

(Also look at "all things cauliflower" and 99% of them are packed with processed crap and high glycemic starches, flours etc that make them higher glycemic than table sugar or regular flour/white bread! LOL! Delicious? Yes. Healthy? Healthy my Aunt Fanny! Talk about downright deception and cognitive dissonance! Right? ?

Edited September 9, 20196 yr by FluffyChix

And all of the Protein ice cream. I am diabetic and most of them are filled with sugar. They advertise as 20 grams of protein and only 350 calories in the entire pint! They don’t tell you that the entire pint has 80 carbohydrates.

3 hours ago, grommie said:

And all of the Protein ice cream. I am diabetic and most of them are filled with sugar. They advertise as 20 grams of protein and only 350 calories in the entire pint! They don’t tell you that the entire pint has 80 carbohydrates.

YES! I am not even a huge ice cream fan but my husband is and before my RNY, we had been doing a keto WOL for 15 months so I looked up a few recipes for easy keto ice cream and EVEN using real whipping cream, what I made for him had less carbs, LESS FAT and less calories even then the 'retail' items being billed as 'low carb' or lower carb.

I just get blown away trying to figure out where the BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP did all the 'bad numbers' i'm seeing on the nutrition labels of these products come from????

I wonder if you could substitute liquid blue. agave -- honey seems like concentrated sugars to ME but YMYC!

I eat those kinds of things occasionally - and in small quantities - now that I'm in maintenance, but I didn't when I was in weight loss mode.

I also like to have some easy grab snacks available, but mine are mini-quiches, meatballs, small salmon patties, sugar free mini cheese cakes. They have about 70 cal each, but 6-10 gm protein.

7 hours ago, Frustr8 said:

I wonder if you could substitute liquid blue. agave -- honey seems like concentrated sugars to ME but YMYC!

Blue agave syrup is THE WORST. LOL. It's a liver bomb, and more dense high fructose content than either honey or karo syrup. But you know...it's "natural" so it must be healthy. ?

You can freeze premier protein drinks to make ice cream. The World According to Eggface has recipes.

I just didn't do "Scooby Snacks". I didn't want to reinforce the habit that was highly responsible for getting me to the Obesity Ball in the first place. To me that's the definition of insanity. So I never "planned" for snacks. But still--I'm human. Snacks DO happen. So when they did I tried to make them protein only, less than 100cals, > or = 10g protein...and rather than call it snacking or grazing, I tried to keep them as mini meals. Six mini meals a day on a schedule and no snacking in between.

My mini meals were like @AZhiker's minimeals:

Hard Boiled Egg

Deviled Egg

Turkey Frigo Light Cheese Rollup or a Boar's Head Lacy Swiss and Turkey rollup

String cheese

Greek yogurt with PB2 powder in it and Walden Farm Syrup

Cottage Cheese with a tbsp of applesauce (or now, berries)

Protein Drink

Tuna Pouches

Tuna Salad (made with cottage cheese and hard boiled egg and Greek yogurt and Dijon and dill relish)--also good with canned chicken and salmon.

Egg Salad (made the same way as the tuna salad without the dill relish).

I tried really hard not to feed the sweet tooth or the inner carb monster with sweet treats or crunchy snacks. But I would use Kraft 2% Deli Deluxe slices and would make cheese crackers to eat the tuna salad and egg salad. Later on down the road when you can have raw veggies, radish and cucumbers are great "crackers".

16 hours ago, FluffyChix said:

Only my opinion, cuz they may work for some. But I call those candy. And during my WLM, I didn't indulge in stuff like that cuz I wanted to be sure that I would get to goal or as humanly close as I could. Those are dangerous delivery systems for sugar (honey) and grains (oats) and nutbutter (which I didn't eat a whole lot of cuz I wanted to keep calories low). My view was that I had all the scooby Snacks I need strapped and trapped on my ass--I had no business eating more that would have to be burned for energy before my body would tap into its own "scooby snack" on my booty.

The reason I have a problem with them beyond being potential triggers for some is that our goal (especially early out) when our restriction is maximum, is to eat calorically LITE while eating nutritionally dense. So if I'm gonna spend 70 of my calorie budget on something--I'd rather it be a hard boiled egg, or a turkey rollup, or a string cheese. Cuz it's a better bang for my Protein and calorie buck. And with the candy, the calories will add up VERY VERY quickly for very little protein. Especially since they are so small!

It worked to my advantage within 9 months.

If I were at goal? And it wasn't a trigger for me, and helped me maintain, then I would go for it for sure! There "may" be a different set of realities in maintenance from losing phase.

Always so wise FC! I've been lurking not posting... your wisdom has no bounds! You rock! xx

I used to make these types of treats as well in the post VSG because they were made from whole foods. ?

I would make a batch then freeze the majority to either gift or use at a later date.

Ditto what Alpaca said, YOU are A Bariatric Super-Star, you always have a new insight as you go through this Experience we are sharing. As for NATURAL it was NATURAL for me to have Arthritis since Age 25- but I don't recommend IT and would just?to Download IT on all my Enemies! Got me a New Motto
IF IT TASTES THAT SWEET- IT WON'T BE MY TREAT!