Since I joined, I've been reading a lot posts with people adding this to smoothies and such... what does it do? What are the advantages?

Yep I am keen to know too...thanks for posting this Stina - I am interested to know as well

Protein in general is just REALLY good for your body: it builds the framework of your body including muscles, organs, etc. it helps your body digest food, tells your body when to use food as energy and when to store it as fat, it transports oxygen through your blood to your muscles and organs and helps prevent illness.

If your goal is to burn body fat, you want to build muscle and protein is a key player when it comes to that, in terms of dietary intake (testosterone is also a major player, and why women have to work that much harder to bulk up than men, but short of steroids, you can't really boost that through supplements or dietary changes).

Whey protein (powders) are a high quality form of protein that helps you build muscle and burn fat and has a low calorie footprint, so it's a pretty common protein supplement.

Keep in mind; however, that your body can only process so much protein at a time (20-30g average per person, but that can vary wildly). It takes effort for your body to break protein down into a form it can use (digesting protein supposedly burns twice as many calories as digesting carbs), any excess literally gets pissed away, so if you eat 150g of protein in 2 sittings, odds are your body is only really getting less than half of that, so space it out!

Ah, protein! It's something I've learned that I need to love... if left to my former bad devices, I eat carbs/fats and little protein. That behavior was NOT my friend, it got me fat.

So now I eat plenty of lean protein. Some in the form of whey or whey/casein powder. Most in the form of whole foods though, chicken, turkey, beef, fish, shellfish, tofu, etc...

I try to limit the protein powders to one or two meals a day (bearing in mind that I eat 5-6 meals a day).

Muscles need the protein for repair and building... so it's important to get enough, especially if you are doing resistance and weight training. Some good things... your body burns more calories digesting protein than it does for either carbs or fats, that's known as the thermic effect.

In smoothies, having protein powder with fruits will slow the digestion and intake of all that sugar as well as help keep insulin from spiking. If you are needing a low carb meal, have the protein powder with some healthy fats, like nuts for instance.

Whey protein by itself is fairly fast and easy for the body to digest, I like to slow it down a little for smoothies by also adding some plain fat free yogurt or cottage cheese to the mix.

Whey protein mixed with water is great for right after a workout! Quick digesting protein straight to your muscles right when they can use a little boost!

Whey protein is a supplement to increase the amount of protein you are getting on a daily basis. Before adding supplements to your diet, make sure you're already aware of what you're eating and what your macronutrient profile is. Track this daily on a site like fitday.com for a few weeks and figure out what you average.

If you're doing weight training and trying to build muscle, you will need at least 1g of protein daily for each lb that you weigh; supplement if necessary. If you are supplementing, the best time is immediately following your workout, with a little carb as well as it will speed and improve the efficacy of the protein absorption.