I suspect I’m not alone in looking after my family but sometimes not looking after myself as well as I could. You know how it is, we’re busy looking after kids, working etc and I often sit down at the end of the day and realise I’ve not eaten as well as I could and I’ve not done the 40 minute strength training I planned. Well I’ve decided it’s time to make small changes and try to look after myself a bit better.
I’m not talking major changes that aren’t realistically going to work but small changes like exercise snacking (fitting short bursts of exercise into my day) and making sure I’m eating enough protein and fibre. This article is going to focus on how I plan to eat a bit more protein in my diet.
Ad – This post is sponsored by Naked who sent me their chocolate whey protein powder to try. All photos, words and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
Why we need to eat enough protein
I recently read a book by Emma Bardwell a nutritionist called The 30g Plan. I love the book and there are loads of great tips for adding more protein to your diet through food and a bit about protein powders too. It also goes into lots of detail about why protein is important especially for women including women over 40 like me.
Ways to increase your protein intake
Since reading the book, I’ve been thinking about how much protein is in my diet and I don’t think it is always enough. I’ve started incorporating some of the ideas from the book into my diet but I can’t always cook a different meal for myself. Sometimes I need an easier way to add more protein.
For me this often looks like adding protein powder to my breakfast. A simple way that can add an extra 25g of protein to my day. If I do fit in a strength training workout, then it usually is first thing so a high protein breakfast afterwards is important to me.
I’ve been adding a scoop of chocolate protein powder to my porridge and I’ve really enjoyed the chocolate flavour. Naked only use three ingredients in this particular protein powder; grass-fed whey protein, organic coconut sugar, and organic cacao. There are no artificial sweeteners, colours of flavourings which is something that is important to me. Naked Whey comes from grass-fed cows raised on small non-GMO dairy farms.
As someone who is new to using protein powders I love that they have lots of recipes on their website to try. You can find all the recipes here – Naked protein powder recipes. They also have advice on fitness, diets and wellness generally on their site.
I decided to try some of the breakfast protein powder recipes as I have a habit of sticking to porridge and berries every morning. I started first by adding some protein powder to my usual porridge bowl. Apart from the chocolate flavour, I wouldn’t know there was any protein powder in it! The flavour is great and there is no gritty texture at all. I now love chocolate and berry porridge for breakfast.
Next I tried the pre-workout chocolate mocha overnight oats from the recipe section. Again the powder mixes with the milk and yogurt well, leaving no textures or clumps and the flavour is great.
Of course, the simplest way to use it is to make a protein shake but I don’t like milk! Yet another reason why I need to be creative and find ways to either disguise milk flavours or increase my protein intake in other ways. If you like protein shakes, then simply add 38g (2 scoops) with 300ml of water or milk. You’ll get 25g of protein from this shake!
I also tried adding a scoop into my usual breakfast pancakes and the chocolate pancakes turned out great. Who wouldn’t love chocolate pancakes?
If you chose the plain whey protein powder then I imagine you’d have even more options for using the powder in meals without flavouring it. You can then choose to add your own flavours.
Buy your chocolate whey protein powder here.