I put myself into a bit of a chocolate coma today.... but all a good cause, or least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. You see, I don't really eat chocolate or sweets but our shipment of protein bars arrived and, well, I just had to try one... of course... naturally.
One is a triple chocolate fudge bar and that should have been enough of a warning for me... nope.
The second was labelled chocolate peanut butter and what foreign kid can resist peanut better?! Exactly. I onced joked that there was nothing a spoonful of peanut butter can't fix but a peanut butter and jam sandwich with banana slices in it has certainly become comfort food for me. Snickers knows if I am ever feeling homesick because I make myself one of these bad boys (and refuse to even so much as share it).
Refraining from eating the peanut butter protein bar was inevitably an impossible task (so I didn't even try) but I shouldn't have ate the fudge one.
... all for a good cause, I mentioned this right? Right.
I've never been one to be a promoter of protein bars though I must admit I am a huge fan of protein shakes after a workout. I am pro REAL food but in an attempt to help encourage more of our members to eat after exercising I am trying to branch out and make more options available for them.
For many of our members, besides Korea's obsession over fried chicken and it's abundance of it everywhere, their problem isn't with what they eat but with what and when they AREN'T eating. Most don't eat after training, convinced that their worked-out tired body surely must be feeding off their fat and not the muscles they just exhausted. Hopeful thinking but not a reality and eating bad food is just as bad as eating no food.
Initially, Snickers wanted to sell homemade chicken salads at our juice bar instead of actual protein shakes. The problem with this though is fresh produce expires fast and may expire faster than we sell it, thus costing us. But the protein shakes, it's brilliant. Protein powder has a good shelf life and by blanching the spinach and buying frozen fruit, I'm able to prepare the juice bar a good month in advance. The only thing I have to frequently buy is milk.
We now have an additional edible option at our juice bar -- Egg Ding-Dings. It's a two egg white treat with seasoning that is made as ordered. All it really requires is a full stock of eggs so I have 60 fresh eggs stored under the juice bar. I used to sell E-Pop bars but have since stopped on account that blending prunes and dates stresses our blender. The peanut butter I make using the blender stresses it to but with the high demand of it in our shakes and now selling Hulktastic peanut butter for members to buy and take home, it's worth the added pressure on our blenders. Well, blender -- one has already blown out.
These days many of our members are young students or office workers who come straight from school/work. Many of them sit at the juice bar and sip on a coffee they've bought to hold them over through training and give them a burst of revived energy. The triple chocolate fudge protein bar would be good for them. It's relatively small so it won't fill them up but it's sugar and gluten free and has 9grams of protein. As for the peanut butter bar, they'd be for those members who continually linger at the club after training, consequently missing that vital post-training meal.
I had an interview today -- two young university business students who specifically searched me out to ask me about our juice bar for a business proposal project they're working on. One of the questions they asked me about was what I wanted to do next with our juice bar. I have a lot of ideas, I'm always thinking up more, but these are some of my short term and long term ones in my head:
1. Put in a small counter display case.
2. Take-out cups for our protein shakes.
3. Make more clean eating snack menu options.
4. Make a "shake-of-the-month".
5. Make a "clean-eat-of-the-week" snack option.
6. Create a post-training meal plan option members can add on to their monthly membership fee.
7. Monthly/bi-weekly Sunday sit-down club meal.
8. Take-out cups for our protein shakes.
9. Add a glass counter top and display articles and nutritional info under it.
10. Create a clean eats stamp card for members.
I'd be awesome if I could just attach and conquer all of these, make these ideas a reality over night, but I can't... not just yet. In addition to the juice bar, there ARE other parts to our club that also need work on.
The locker room needs the lockers fixed up -- a $1,200+ task.
The club floor needs to be redone -- a $3,000-5,000 task.
The equipment room needs to be painted and have additional shelves/furniture added -- a $500+ task.
The office counter, ceiling and closet needs to be worked on -- a $400+ task.
... and then there's the lounge. It's turned into the most unused part of our club so we are thinking of possibly turning it into a mini library/study area. If we do so, over sized couches would need to be purchased as well as a table and a whack of both English and Korean books.
All these additional tasks, which really is just a glimpse of the long list that everyday grows, involve just as much money as they do time and effort.
The work just never ends... but it's exciting and I love it!!!
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