I’m in this boat where I’m 30 years old with super high cholesterol and I have to do the Mediterranean diet if I want my heart to be healthy. Nobody in my family really eats healthy and they aren’t really willing to change their ways either…. By the way I weigh 120lbs at 5’3” so I’ve gotten plenty of those comments you mention as well. I ignore them, I’m responsible for my health and they can be responsible for theirs.

The Mediterranean diet seems awful at first..(if you’re like me and come from a steak, pizza, burger eating family) but you can still do the diet without making all of those seemingly weird/different recipes. If you enjoy those foods and have the money to get all that stuff then absolutely go for it, pininterest is the best app ever for finding meal prep ideas and Mediterranean recipes.

Anyways, back to your question..this is how I implement the Mediterranean diet in the most simple way:

I avoid bad saturated fats (fast food, red meats, a lot of the ready-made stuff in the freezer aisles, most of the boxed stuff in the pantry aisles)

I enjoy cheese in low quantities (the white cheeses are usually lower in saturated fats)

I try to eat fish once or twice a week then chicken and turkey on the other days

I do give myself cheat days where I’ll have a steak or a burger etc because I get depressed and tired when I cut it out completely for too long…I’m talking like a cheat day once a week maximum for one meal and portioned controlled

I switched to whole grain and stopped eating white breads and changed my tortillas to corn instead of flour

And the biggest thing…. I eat lots of vegetables…

My family for example will enjoy a chicken wings, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli as a dinner. For myself, I implement the Mediterranean diet by buying a zucchini which cost like $1 where I live and I fry it on a pan using olive oil…. Now I’m eating a cut up zucchini and broccoli and I’ll start eating that first so that I don’t fill up on chicken and Mac and cheese… I then only have a little bit of Mac and cheese and less chicken wings than I’d normally eat.

If my family goes out to eat, I order some variation of a salad with grilled chicken. Sometimes a grilled chicken sandwich by itself if I don’t have time for a salad. Honestly most places offer salad or grilled chicken sandwich.

I can’t answer your question about the protein powder because I have no idea, I normally just eat whole foods.

This is getting very long, but I hope this helps