I have had a sweet tooth my whole life! Chocolate is my go to craving. There are some days that I inhale the first chocolaty sweet, that I can get my hands on. But now that I am a little older, these binges are a lot harder to work off. Last year I decided that I needed to make some changes in my eating to loose a little weight. My clothes were getting way too tight to breath! I decided to try to lower my carb intake. I didn’t completely cut out my carbs, but really watched the carbs that I ate and tried to make sure they weren’t just empty calories. This made my sweet tooth binges a challenge, since most were high calorie chocolaty carbs. From all my reading about weight loss, I knew that increasing my protein was part of the solution. I knew peanut butter had protein in it and learned that flax seed is high protein. In fact, 1 Tablespoon flax seed = 8 grams of protein. Next, I looked for recipes that had this combination. I found several but none really satisfied my craving so I started adding some of my own concoctions. . . until I made these Protein Balls. They are so yummy and satisfying! So here is what you need if you would like to try them. . .
2/3 Cup peanut butter
1 Cup Rolled Oats
1/4 Cup ground flax seed
1/4 Cup whole flax seeds (You can also just do 1/2 cup of either the ground or whole but I like the two textures mixed.)
2 TBSP honey
1/3 Cup coconut flakes
1/4 Cup mini chocolate chips
Mix all ingredient and form into balls about 1 - 2 inch in diameter.
I keep these yummy protein balls in my refrigerator. They satisfy my crunchy, chocolaty, peanut butter craving while adding to my protein intake for the day. Finally a sweet treat with less guilt!