Peanut Butter Protein Snack Mix

I’ve been thinking a lot about my New Years’ resolutions lately. I’m not really the type of person who comes up with a list of resolutions each year. Instead, I prefer to make daily, weekly, and monthly resolutions to constantly try to be a better person in many aspects. But this year, I’m kind of feeling the list.

I saw a great suggestion the other day to come up with a short-term and a long-term goal for three aspects of your life: personal, career, and health. This seemed like a doable idea for a list that won’t get too long, and I can be specific in each category. My idea of long term though is “by the end of 2014″…I’m also not one of those people who has a 5 year plan.

One of my health goals is to really stay on top of my healthy eating, and not make any excuses to binge eat (my biggest problem). With the help of meal planning I have already started to reach this goal. I am also a HUGE snacker. I have five to six meals a day, which keeps me from getting too hungry and over eating at any of those meals. I have a morning and afternoon snack, and sometimes a healthy dessert after dinner. Now, I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but I have found that it works for me.

I just returned to Mexico from two weeks in the States, and I definitely overindulged one too many times. I’m starting to get back on track, but I’m at the beach now, so I won’t be able to really get back into my healthy eating until I am back in Oaxaca city in a few days.

Before I left for my trip home though, I threw together this awesome Peanut Butter Protein Snack Mix to munch on during all my flights and time in the airport. This snack mix is a hybrid of trail mix, chex mix, and muddy buddies (sort of, there is no chocolate). It is a very adaptable recipe, and you can easily substitute any kind dried fruit or nuts that you prefer. I decided to use pretzels, air popped popcorn, dried cranberries, and pecans as my base.

The next step is to coat the snack mix with natural peanut butter. I used homemade peanut butter because that’s all I had, but if you have a store bought kind that is a bit on the runny side that will be best because it will coat your mix much easier. Then you will toss the entire mixture in protein powder and a bit of powdered sugar. That’s it!

This snack is a perfect balance of sweet and salty. Even better, it is a healthy and satisfying snack that will keep you full for a few hours, has a good balance of carbs, fat and protein, and will help you stay on track for your 2014 healthy eating goals! I don’t think it gets much better than that!

What are your New Years’ Resolutions? Do you have a favorite go-to snack when traveling?