One of my favourite things from Summer 20/21 was getting into strength training and trying to build some muscle. Further research into the topic of building muscle revealed that having a sufficient protein intake in your diet is one of the ways to efficiently build muscle. I looked back at the MyFitnessPal to late 2019 when I was religiously tracking my calories (thank goodness I’m over that) and realised my protein intake was not near what my body needed for my current muscle building goals and I have decided to change that.

The first thing I did was to establish a baseline – so I tracked my normal meals for a week and I was still very short. The bottom line for me was that I couldn’t get to my daily intake protein goal just from my normal diet, I had to look into protein based “supplements”. Here is what I have been adding to my diet to get me to my daily goal.

You will notice that I haven’t shared any of my numbers – this is because protein goals are specific to the person and I urge you to do your own research to find out yours.

MacroMixes
I was so happy when I found out about this brand, I decided to first buy the pancakes and then followed up with the vanilla porridge. The pancakes provide 15g of protein per serving, they are delicious and easy to make. I usually top them up with but butter and some berries.
I found the porridge to be way too sweet – sheesh! I really struggled to get through it the first time I ate it. How I eat it now is I add it to my oats to make an oats/porridge mixture. I won’t be buying it again in the future.

Protein powders
I had a really hard time trying to find unflavoured protein powders until I found this one from My Wellness and I’m quite happy with it. I usually add it to my oatmeal or I add it to my smoothies or I dissolve it in juice, water or coffee.
I also took collagen religiously since the beginning of the year (I have since stopped) and that also has a fair bit of protein. The collagen that I was taking had 15g protein per serving.

Protein snacks
In this category I usually go for biltong, protein bars. I have experimented with a variety of protein bars and I found my favourite to be the Kauai ones, my favourite is the Vanilla Chocolate Chip flavour. Dischem has a wide variety of protein bars of varying protein content and price.
I buy biltong now and again, I don’t get to eat much of it though because my daughter loves it and consistently asks for it if she knows we have some in the house.

Protein drinks
This is quite new for me – I came across these protein drinks at Woolies and at Dischem. I was intrigued enough to buy them. This is a super convenient way of getting that protein boost.

One thing I’ve realised is that meeting my daily protein intake this is expensive! None of the above food items are cheap. So I decided to crunch the numbers and I worked out that protein powder is the cheapest option coming in at R9 per 20g of protein for the brand that I buy compared to say R40 per 20g of protein in a protein bar.

Going forward I will use protein powders as my main protein supplement as well as protein pancakes because they’re delicious :). The other items I will buy when I’m feeling rich – I won’t depend on them to supplement my daily intake.