Protein is your friend.

I loooove protein! I've been trying to up my intake recently as I've increased my exercise and I get very sore very easily! You can get protein from lots of different foods: meat, fish, eggs, beans, nuts and seeds. So, I get to eat more chicken? Cool! My protein obsession of the month is hard boiled eggs. I make a batch at the beginning of the week and they make great snacks throughout the day or after a workout. Also extremely tasty with a salad or a few slices of toast. Yay for eggs!

I would also get nowhere without my protein powder! Although I love chicken, I don't actually eat a lot of meat so this acts as a great substitute and has so many different uses. At the moment, I have Holland and Barrett's banana flavoured whey protein. It has 83 calories per scoop and 16.6g of protein. I think it's great because it tastes really good and Holland and Barrett always have offers on. Perfect if you're on a budget like me!

There are so many great ways to incorporate protein powder into your diet. My favourite so far is protein 'pancakes'. I've always had a very unhealthy obsession with pancakes and although these aren't quite the same as the classic pancake, they are a great substitute and are very filling! The recipe I use is here (thanks for the referral Cassius!) I usually have the rest of the banana, some blueberries and maple syrup over the top.  I'd be interested to try them with different flavoured protein powders, like chocolate or cookies and cream!

Another great protein fix is, of course, the smoothie!! I cannot get enough of smoothies. They are so delicious and there are so many flavour options! My favourite would have to be banana and peanut butter, even better when you add some protein powder. You can pretty much mix anything in a blender with milk and it tastes delicious! Great for breakfast or pre/post workout too.

Another protein recipe that I recently discovered is mixing the powder with fat free greek yogurt, bananas and berries. You've probably noticed that I have a slight penchant for bananas... I'm trying to keep it to no more than one a day! With the greek yogurt, I add a bit of honey or maple syrup just to make it slightly sweeter and I find the ingredients gel together better. You can buy greek yogurt with honey already added too. I wouldn't use a whole scoop of powder unless you're using A LOT of greek yogurt because it starts to go really powdery and not very nice if you do. I love having this for breakfast because it's low calorie but it fills me up all morning.

I'm always on the look out for new recipes to make use of my powder and my next step is to buy more flavour options to mix things up a little. If you haven't tried it yet, I would highly recommend buying some!