If ‘build muscle strength’ is on your to-do list of life, read this. 

Long story, short

Muscle strength is built in three parts: work your muscles at least twice a week, eat enough protein across the day, and give yourself time to recover. A scoop of protein powder can make the eating part easier. The squats, sadly, are still on you.

Let's talk about muscle strength. Not the kind measured in personal bests on the leg press (although if that's you, carry on). The everyday kind. Lifting a suitcase into an overhead locker. Carrying the shopping up two flights of stairs. Getting up from a low sofa without the small, involuntary noise that announces you've entered a new decade.

Building muscle strength is in the spotlight for women more than ever before, and rightly so. Muscle isn't decorative. It's what keeps you steady, mobile and independent, and from midlife onwards it has a habit of quietly packing its bags unless you give it a reason to stay.

So, can you scoop strength training into a shaker? No. But the weights are only one part of the story.

First: give your muscles a reason

There's no way round this bit. Muscle responds to being asked to do more than it's used to. The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend activities that build or maintain strength on at least two days a week.

That doesn't have to mean a gym membership and a heroic amount of Lycra. Resistance bands, bodyweight squats, Pilates, heavy gardening and carrying the shopping on purpose all count. The trick is progression: when something starts to feel easy, make it slightly harder. Your muscles are, in this respect, rather like a teenager. They only rise to the occasion when they have to.

Next: supply the raw materials.

If exercise is the signal, protein is the building material. Your muscles are constantly being broken down and rebuilt, and protein provides the amino acids (the individual building blocks) your body uses to do the rebuilding.

The UK reference intake for adults is 0.75g of protein per kilo of body weight per day. Plenty of us hit that number on paper, but not always evenly. A generous dinner after a breakfast of toast and good intentions is a familiar pattern. Building some protein into each meal is a good habit, and an easy one to forget.

This is where BEAUTY PIE comes in

The squats, regrettably, remain your department.

Protein-Tastic Vegan Plant Protein Powder is formulated with a blend of pea protein isolate, brown rice protein isolate and hemp protein. Together they provide all nine essential amino acids, the ones your body can't make itself and has to get from food. That makes it a complete protein: 17g per 30g scoop. Protein contributes to a growth in muscle mass, and to its maintenance. It also contains calcium, which contributes to normal muscle function.

Shake it up after a workout, stir it into porridge or blend it into a smoothie on the mornings when breakfast would otherwise be a coffee and a vague sense of purpose.

It isn't strength training in a jar. Nothing is. But it makes the eating part of the plan considerably easier.

Then: let it happen.

Here's the slightly counterintuitive part. Muscle isn't built during your workout; it's built afterwards, while you recover. Which makes sleep and rest days less of an indulgence and more of a job requirement. Skipping them is a bit like ordering bricks and never letting the builders on site.

What to remember

• Move: strength-building activity at least two days a week, getting gradually harder.

• Eat: enough protein, spread across the day rather than saved for dinner.

• Rest: muscle is built during recovery, so sleep counts.

• Top up: a protein powder is a convenient helper, never a substitute for the work.