This fake full bar recipe is definitely not something you could eat on the gastric bypass diet, but it might be something to try if you need a bit of help losing weight on your own, without weight loss surgery . I’m a bit skeptical myself, but at least with this recipe you can give it a try without spending a fortune.
You’ve probably seen the advertisements for the new diet bars sold under the brand Fullbar®, which were developed by Dr. Michael A. Snyder, a weight loss surgeon. According to Dr. Snyder’s website, people who eat two of these bars every day lose an average of 40% of their excess body weight in just three months.
Do they work?
There’s really only two ways to find out – spend almost $200 to buy a case of real FullBar cookies from the doctor’s website, or just make some yourself using this fake full bar recipe.
If you listen to Dr. Snyder’s explanation of why the bars work, you can’t help but remember something your mother said:
“Don’t eat that cookie right before dinner – you’ll ruin your appetite!”
Yes, a gastric bypass surgeon took that simple concept and is now selling it as an alternative to weight loss surgery.
The weight loss products he sells on his website do not contain any “diet” ingredients. He makes that clear in his video and in the text on his website. In fact, this is almost an anti-diet, because he wants you to do the things that everyone warns you about. Basically, he wants you to eat your dessert before you sit down to your two biggest meals of the day.
And, he claims, this will “ruin your appetite,” just like your mother said it would.
The testimonials on Dr. Snyder’s website are glowing. However, reviews on other blogs and sites are mixed, to say the least. One of the biggest complaints against the bars is that they’re too expensive.
The other complaint is that people tend to use them incorrectly, and then discover that they aren’t losing weight.
- Dr. Snyder does not suggest that you eat one of his FullBars whenever you feel the urge for a snack. But that appears to be what many people are doing. Naturally, they don’t lose any weight. They may even gain some weight, instead.
My own concern is that both the real ones and bars made from this fake full bar recipe may contribute to sugar cravings. And although they don’t contain any cane or beet sugar, they do contain brown rice syrup and honey. Anyone who is diabetic should talk to their doctor before buying the real FullBars or making up the recipe for the fake ones on this page.
The basic premise behind his concept is that you eat one of these bars and drink a full glass of water, about 30 minutes before lunch and dinner. Then when you sit down to eat you will already be full so you won’t be inclined to eat too much.
This will not automatically prevent you from raiding the fridge between meals or in the evening, as many people on blogs have pointed out. It isn’t a substitute for self-control. There isn’t anything magic about the bars, and they don’t contain any special appetite-suppressing herbs or products.
They just “ruin your appetite” if you eat one before your meals. Supposedly…
The bars made from the fake full bar recipe contain about 170 calories, so they can only work if you eat at least 170 calories less during your meal than you normally would, and you don’t make up the calories during snack time. My main concern is not about the bars themselves (they’re really just cookies, after all) but in the way most people will end up using them.
The bars are made from puffed wheat, and sweetened with brown rice syrup and honey. I looked at the ingredient list on his bars and came up with the following recipe that you can use to try out this idea for yourself. You can get all the ingredients at your local health food store.
I’m not making any claims that this fake full bar recipe is a miracle cure for obesity -
In fact, I have serious doubts. But if you want to try this idea, it sure makes economic sense to make these bars yourself. The recipe below is not an exact duplicate of the bars sold under the brand name FullBar – that recipe is owned by Dr. Snyder’s company. I simply reverse-engineered the recipe using the ingredients list.
Many people have mentioned on blogs that the FullBar cookies don’t taste all that exciting, probably because they don’t have any regular sugar and because most people are not used to eating whole wheat products.
But frankly, I don’t think the bars that I made myself are all that bad. And they would get a lot better by the addition of a few extra ingredients, like dates or nuts. I’ve given some suggestions below the recipe.
I did make a few notable changes to the ingredient list for the bars I made myself:
- I used coconut oil instead of canola oil, because recent research studies have indicated that this is a healthier alternative.
- And I left out the soy protein because there is an increasing amount of concern among nutritionists about the health benefits and safety of soy products. Dr. Snyder claims the protein is an important part of the recipe, so if you want to add it back in, just throw a tablespoon or so of soy protein powder into the syrup before mixing your bars.
The recipe easy – you don’t even have to bake them!
Fake Full Bar Recipe
Ingredients:
1/4 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup brown rice syrup (from the health food store)
3/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon cocoa (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 cups puffed wheat cereal (from the health food store)
Directions:
Measure your cereal into a large bowl. The bowl needs to be big enough so you can easily mix the syrup into the cereal.
Melt the coconut oil in a large saucepan. The syrup will bubble up a lot, so use a pan that has plenty of room.
Add the brown rice syrup and honey, (and cocoa if you’re using it), bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat. Add vanilla and pour syrup over puffed wheat cereal.
Mix well. Press into a greased 9X12 inch cake pan.
Press down on the mixture so it will all stick together. Cover with plastic wrap and cool completely.
Cut into 24 sqares. Each square will have approximately 147 calories.
For variety, you can add up to 1 cup of any of the following in place of an equal amount of cereal. Most of these changes will increase the number of calories:
Raisins or currants
Dried cranberries and walnuts
Shredded coconut
Chopped dates
Sunflower seeds
Chopped apples and walnuts or pecans
Chopped peanuts
There you have it – a simple recipe for puffed wheat cereal bars that may (or may not) help you lose weight. To be honest, I wouldn’t count on the real FullBars or this fake full bar recipe, because if they taste good enough, you’ll just eat more than you’re supposed to, and end up adding to your weight instead of losing it.
, about her personal experiences with sugar addiction.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I have never heard of this diet but I make my own protein bars at home. They are similar to this except sub the cocoa for raw cacao nibs and use Sun Warrior brown rice protein. I feel better eating these since most store brand proteins are loaded with sugars. I buy both of these products from RawNatureBoy.com because you I haven’t found either in stores
For some reason my local Whole Foods was out of plain puffed wheat, I had to use a honey puffed wheat instead. So, I omitted the honey in the recipe. Do you think that will be okay? The bars I made, following the rest of the recipe, turned out well. They are very sweet. Do you think they key to the whole fullbar concept is just the puffed wheat?
The honey puffed wheat I used had 110 calories per serving, and 15 grams of sugar per serving.
I personally think that any success that might come from these bars is in the sugar content. People tend to crave sugar because their own sugar levels have dropped below the level needed. The quick fix is more sugar. Low blood sugar can happen naturally just before a meal, but it’s most noticeable a few hours after eating a meal that contains sugar, corn syrup, or white flour, all of which go straight to your bloodstream. The full-bars are a sugar delivery system — even though there’s not as much glucose or sucrose in them as normal cookies, there’s enough to get your blood sugar back up. When your blood sugar is at a normal level when you begin your meal, you tend to eat less.
Just my assumption. In a perfect world, we’d just quit eating the foods that mess with our blood sugar, and we wouldn’t need products like full bars.
So the answer, I suppose, is sure – your puffed wheat should work just as well as the ones using the fake full bar recipe. If you eat too many of them, though, you’ll end up gaining some weight. That’s true of the real full bars, and the fake ones, too.
There’s a reason why you sometimes shouldn’t try to make your own items. The reason that there is soy protein in there is because it is the protein that gives you the feeling of fullness. Duh! I don’t need/haven’t had gastric bypass, but my brother has and even if he hadn’t, a simple nutrition course (just one) would tell you that eating a carb, a protein and a fat together gives you the feeling of fullness.
I actually use fullbars all the time. I did need to lose 11 pounds to fit in to my clothes and without changing anything else in my day…no additional exercise (really none except my usual daily activity, I don’t exercise per se), no “diet” portions or food, etc. When I ate the bar with 12 ounces of water before lunch and dinner, in about 2.5 weeks, gone!
Now, I use the full bites because there is a bit more protein in them, ergo, a longer feeling of fullness. But no, with bypass, not a food to use, but certainly a whole food to incorporate into your daily routine. Not affiliated, just a “user”.
I checked out my lical health store i cant find rice syrurp anywhere. Is there another option?
The rice syrup is what they put in the real full bars, but another type of sweetener would probably be just as good.
Hi Joe!
Brown Rice Syrup is actually an ingredient that is very hard to mimic by other sweeteners because of its “stickiness,” so substituting it with another natural sweetener such as agave won’t do the trick (the squares will be sweetened but will not stick together so you’ll have something more similar to granola or trail mix). If you look at the ingredients in all natural “granola/crispy” type bars available at the natural grocery stores, you will almost always see brown rice syrup as an ingredient because, as I said, it’s pretty much irreplaceable!
I’m not sure where you live, but in Canada, Brown Rice Syrup is available at Planet Organic grocery stores (it’s in the section near other syrups like maple syrup & honey, not in the baking/sweetener aisle by the other sugars). If you are in the States, I would assume and almost guarantee Whole Foods carries it. If neither of those are an option, you can always order online!
Hope that helps!
- Brooke
My sister-by-marriage introduced me to Fullbars. We were at a class period for her and other patients who were getting ready to have Gastric Bypass surgery and they were told to bring a snack. Susan brought a peanut butter Fullbar for her and me and I really liked it!! The peanut butter ones are good, as are the chocolate bars. The caramel apple bars are “eh” but I hear the cinnamon bun bars are delish!!
I like the idea of making my own bars, but I need to be careful how I use them. I have found myself eating them AFTER a meal as a sort of dessert, and I have eaten more than one at a time.
I know I haven’t been doing what I am supposed to when using them, but I do like them and hope to use them more wisely. I don’t think they are that unreasonable, but again, I think I could like to try to make these myself. I’m pretty sure I would add nuts, like sliced almonds and peanuts and coconut sounds good too! I use Splenda and like it, I guess I’d just have to play around with the recipe and tweak it as I go.
Thanks for this idea!!
I have now lost 20lb by walking and eating Full bars as directed. I have a problem with eating late at night, I eat a half of a bar when it happens and a small glass of Soy Milk.
Really the bars work for making you feel full. I think there are people out there just angry about the price, so they do negative campaigns about it. If it’s too expensive don’t buy it and try an alternative. Personally I think the doctor made a great recipe and it works.
I’ve lost over 200lb in my life, this latest round the easiest. I hope to keep this off by using good eating habits, simple exercise, and the full bars.
I just tried that recipe, you really need to do that with unsweetened cereal. In my area I don’t have access to anything but sweetened cereal and the resulting bars, while very delicious, I know contain way too many calories and way to high of a Glycemic Index scale. I guess I’ll play with the recipe a bit.
Still even with unsweetened cereal, 3/4 honey and 3/4 cups of brown rice syrup is a lot of sugar just on it’s own. Anyone have a better mix?
try food addicts anonymous. i’ve lost 150 pounds.
Has it occurred to anyone that you could save both time and money by simply sprinkling a little sugar over a bowl of puffed wheat with soy milk? Or mixing some puffed wheat, a sprinkling of almonds and a squirt honey into a serving of Greek yogurt? Maybe this is too obvious….but I think it would have the exact same benefit (with even more protein)…without the added sugars and other gunk.
Thank you for posting this recipe! I’m going to try it. Full Bars have helped me lose some weight along with fairly strict dieting. I tend to get crazy hungry before dinner and if I come home and stuff my face with a full bar, it gives me chewing satisfaction and I definitely eat way less. It’s a good tool and the fiber helps in other ways. But at $2.50 a pop at the drugstore, I feel ripped off. I was going to just mix some puffed wheat with honey and make “balls” but this recipe looks good!
I have a better way to loose weight without all the money or cooking. Simply have a bowl of puffed wheat cereal with soy milk when your hungry (totals 120 calories and fills you up far more than the Full Bars).
I have one for breakfast with a small sliced banana (about 180 calories) then I have a sensible lunch and dinner and have another bowl (without the banana) as my after dinner snack (about 9PM when the cortisol starts giving me those cravings)… lost 10 lbs in 3-weeks and didn’t even starve myself or have to exercise.
I will be making these bars today, but substituting black strap molasses for Brown rice syrup, and agave nectar for honey, I will also put some ground flax in just for added fiber. Will let you know how it is.
As per previous comments about having puffed wheat in soya milk. Yes that is obviousas a nutritionist this is a healthier snack that can be thrown in your purse, or bag before leaving the house.
Good luck and Congrat to all u who have weightloss success and those in the process good luck and keep on it.