Originally Posted by Mister Jeebus

If you're only doing toning (muscular endurance) training in the gym rather than muscle building you have no need to take a protein supplement. Even if you were doing muscle building I'd recommend trying to get your protein intake entirely from food sources, albeit that can be expensive. Whey protein is a by-product of cheese, for example cow's milk is about 20% whey and 80% casein. The best source of protein is from eggs - both the white (about 2/3) and the yolk (about 1/3). Animal sources of protein are generally better because vegetable sources lack one or more of the essential amino acids. The caveat is that a reliance on animal sources can lead to high saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet.
Anyway, you should be getting about 1.2-1.8g of protein per kg of your body weight if you are doing a lot of training, the more strength training the more protein. Even if you are only doing toning work you still need to repair the muscle so should take some protein as soon as possible after finishing training. No need to take it in supplement form, even milk would do (500ml of milk = about 15g of protein). And milk contains carbohydrates so is actually a good post-exercise drink. Not full fat though because it slows gastric emptying and therefore uptake of protein and carbs.

In general in terms of recovery, especially with endurance training, you should aim to replace the carbohydrate lost through energy use (muscle glycogen), the electrolytes lost (sodium, potassium etc.), and the fluid lost, as well as having some protein. Depending on the intensity and duration of exercise you should look to replace 1.0-1.5g of carbohydrate per kg body weight during the first 30 minutes, and the same every 2 hours for 4-6 hours after. Obviously this is going to come from food and not just drink! But for immediately after exercise bear in mind that if you drink 0.5-1.0L of a 6-8% carb solution (recommended for optimum gastric emptying, and incidentally the range of most commercial drinks) then you will replace 30-80g of carbs.

Just kind of free writing there so apologies if it's somewhat disjointed.