Protein Ice Cream

I eat three cups of ice cream nearly every day. I am a healthy adult that is well within the expected weight range for my height. I let my kids eat as much ice cream as they want as well. They are also healthy children. These words may sound totally contradictory to you. Ice cream is generally considered extremely unhealthy with the amount of sugar that is loaded into it. If you make your own ice cream though, you can control what goes into it.

If you have a pint of ice cream in your freezer, go look at the calorie number on it - it is probably around 130 calories or higher for ½ a cup of it. When was the last time you ate only half a cup of ice cream? More likely, you’re eating nearly that entire pint of ice cream which will run 500 up to 1000 calories. You could likely eat more as well if you had it. Now look how much protein is in that ice cream and how much sugar. Ideally, those numbers would at least be flipped (and if they were then you’d be eating way less calories).

We rarely buy ice cream at the store, and when we do it’s only frozen yogurt that has fewer calories. The ice cream we eat most days at home is a homemade protein ice cream. It’s loaded with protein, tastes pretty good, and doesn’t have anywhere near the calories that the ice cream from the store does. We’ll break the calorie numbers down below, but we can eat 3+ pints of ice cream and still have eaten less calories than in a single pint you buy at the store.

Is this ice cream going to taste as good as the stuff you buy at the store? Not quite. Is it going to taste disgusting? No. Many people have commented how tasty this really is considering what is going into it. Give it a try, experiment with it a little bit, and you may also be eating ice cream every day and still able to lose or maintain your weight.

Below is a basic version of what we like to make. You can modify this recipe according to what you really like. For example, instead of ice, you could use strawberries. Instead of chocolate protein powder, you could use vanilla - now you’ve made a strawberry flavored ice cream instead of chocolate. The goal is to keep the calories low though, so don’t go crazy with anything high in calories.

• 2 scoops chocolate whey protein (240 calories)
• 1/3 box fat-free chocolate Jell-o pudding (40 calories)
• 1/3 cup 0% fat Greek yogurt (50 calories)
• 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (25 calories)
• 1 tsp. guar/xanthan gum (don’t put too much as this causes the ice cream to expand when mixing)
• 1 tbsp stevia (or another no-calorie sweetener to taste)
• 3-4 cups of ice (more or less depending on how thick you want it)

Put it all in a blender and mix it for about 5 minutes. Stop and scrape sides as needed and make sure it’s smooth (all of the ice is blended). Once mixed, enjoy. This recipe will make about 9 cups of ice cream - yes, 9 cups. And in those 9 cups, there are just under 360 calories. That’s right, you can eat the entire 9 cups of ice cream for just 360 calories. Not only that, but you’re going to be getting 40+ grams of protein out of that 9 cups of ice cream. You can even put a little PB2 on top and still be at a pretty low calorie number.

It’s unlikely that you’ll eat the entire 9 cups of ice cream in one sitting (although it is possible to do), which is why this recipe is so great. Give your kids as much ice cream as they want - no sugar, high in protein, and they’re going to get full on it pretty quickly. You can do the same as well - you’re not going to be overeating because of your ice cream intake (although your body may feel like it has eaten too much). 

The recipe above is only 360 calories, so if you want to put a cup of frozen strawberries in, you’re going to go up another 100 calories. You’re now looking at 460 calories for the entire batch of ice cream - still less than a pint of ice cream from the store. If you’re not eating too much of it in one sitting (for example, only 3 cups) then the additional calories really aren’t a problem. You can try other combinations as well to find what you enjoy the most.

Losing or maintaining doesn’t have to be miserable. You can enjoy something that tastes good every single day if you want. Give the recipe above a try and let us know what you think.