Instead of buying fancy exercise bars how about this..

1x heaped table spoon/laddle of self raising flour
1x heaped table spoon/laddle of plain flour
1x heaped table spoon/laddle of oats
2x table spoons of white sugar
2x table spoons of either raisins or currents or both
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of mixed spice or similar
1x med/large egg
¼ mug of semi/skimmed milk [2oz]

Okay beat up your egg and mix with the milk add a drop of almond flavouring if you wish, drop in your salt and spice.

Mix up your flour, oats and raisins, add the sugar and then pour in your egg/milk mix and beat up until you have a nice smooth batter like paste which is quite thick and not runny.

Get a good non stick frying pad and pre heat with 1x table spoon of good quality oil.

With a large spoon, put some of the mix into the frying pan. You should be able to get three to four good size spoons into the pan.

Set the heat of the pan to low, the lowest it will go and cook for a about 90 seconds then flip over and repeat.

Repeat again until all of your mix is used up.

When cooked, take out and allow to cool down on some kitchen tissue.

You now have a simple, cheap pre-exercise snack that can be eaten about 30-45mins before exercise, during exercise and post exercise.

It has the following make-up –

· Flour has lots of carbs.
· Oats have lots of carbs, lots of protein and loads of fibre.
· Milk has calcium and some fat
· Eggs have loads of protein
· Raisins have loads of carbs and fibre
· Sugar is pure carbs
· Salt is pure sodium

This now translates into –

· Sugar, don’t treat this as the enemy,, giving you an instant fix for food, it hits the blood stream very quickly and rids you of cravings and will be burnt up very quickly as soon as you start to raise your heart rate from training.
· The flour and oats give you a good mid exercise source of energy
· Oats have loads of protein in them and with the eggs are a simple source of muscle repair food. They also have a lot of fibre in them so this is good for the digestive system
· The raisins give you a good endurance source of energy
· The milk is good for bone density
· The eggs give you a source of iron and is good for hormone reproduction and this is good for your skin because when you exercise your skin pores open up to allow you to sweat and you need something to help the body take advantage of this hydration process. Eggs are also a good source of protein and protein is important when it comes to muscle building and repair.
· The salt helps regulate the electrolytes in your body and aids the ingestion of fluid to your body as you sweat and thus reduces your body’s cravings for sweet drinks whilst exercising or straight afterwards.
· Cooking oil,, all cooking oil is fat but in this case it is used as a frying pan lubrication not as a source of heat for cooking,, most oils contain some vit E and this is good for the skin also

Think that’s about it,, all in all a pancake like snack that can be eaten hot or cold, is cheap and quick to produce at home. Most important is the fact that a couple of these before you exercise and maybe a one during a short exercise workout or two over a longer period, with an appropriate amount of water while working out, will give you the energy your body needs to exercise without digestive fatigue or muscle energy starvation,, try it and see and let me know what you think.

To put this into perspective, I, aged 48, weigh 190ibs and exercise every day, when I have four of the above with about 32oz of water and nothing else for breakfast, find it easy to do a one hour workout where my heart rate peaks at 10bpm below my max [205bpm] heart rate and is kept at an average of 85% of max heart rate through out that one exercise program.

I am not left feeling totally drained or feel any desperate need to go and seek out food. Of course I do make sure that I have a full and proper meal [repair food] within 90 mins post exercise as this is the best time to replace your energy needs after you have been exercising.