I was/am trying to lose weight, but that wasn’t why I started eating loads of protein.

I actually started eating loads of protein for my mental health! It was only when talking to someone else about it that they mentioned the Atkins diet, and I remembered that protein is good if you are trying to lose weight. Somewhere along the line, possibly while looking into just what was Atkins’ diet really about, I read about protein good for stabilising blood sugar, but again, that’s not what brought me here.

What brought me here was trying to find out how come, despite eating a massively reduced calorie total, I’m still not losing weight!
(I’m still eating around 1000 calories a day. )

Hi and welcome. There could be many reasons for not losing weight – here are a few 😀

Protein is good but too much increases the glucose in the body, just like carbs.
Carbs – how many grams are you eating? Reducing to 50, some have to go lower – but less than 100 should see your weight drop.
Have you cut out white, fast carbs I.e. Bread, sugar, rice, pasta, potatoes?
Are you drinking alcohol? That is a “baddie” for weight loss.
Are you drinking plenty of water? A couple of litres a day helps flush out the fat (teas and coffee also count in the litreage but remember to count any milk. You don’t take sugar do you.)

BSD is not the Atkins diet, it’s low carb, medium protein, higher good fats.

Also the recent heatwave has caused a lot of water/weight retention recently.

Hope that is of some help. Good luck with your progress.

Let us know what you are eating and I’m sure someone will come back with more targeted pointers.

Be careful with the amounts of meat protein you eat as it creates uric acid in the blood which can cause damage in the long term. I have just had my blood tested and had a telling off from my doctor. I thought it was caused by having lemon in water everyday and he said, no, it is caused by too much meat, especially of the processed type like ham or smoked meats or pates. You can get plenty of protein from other sources.

Completely agree what Annie says, and this is not the Atkins, which caused a lot of problems.

Thanks for the pointers AnnieW, I am keeping to most of them, but I have noticed that whenever I have anywhere near a normal portion of chips, I put on weight, thankfully it comes off again in a few days with no real effort. I haven’t eaten a significant amount of bread, sugar, pasta, or rice (or cake or biscuits) in ages though. Obviously chips are a no-no. 🙁

Just lately and until 5th July, I don’t have enough time/energy to spare for cooking, (and I shouldn’t really be sitting in front of the computer either!) so I’m currently off the M plan and relying on whey shakes, eggs and tinned fish for protein, and smoothies and occasional salad for roughage, with the occasional meal out. I’m doing surprisingly well on it, as far as energy levels and keeping weight and appetite stable goes, but I wouldn’t want to stick to it any longer than necessary, I’m sure to be missing some micronutrient or other.
I’ll get back to eating proper food next week, and I’ll keep a diary too. Normally I manage stir fried/sweated/stewed vegetables fairly often or broccoli or sprouts. I usually manage a decent portion of meat once a day, but I need to get into the habit of using spinach and pulses regularly; I haven’t used either for ages, even though I know a few recipes that use a lot of them.

It was a bit of a silly time for me to join here really, it was just such a relief to find that I was right about having to cut even more calories to lose weight. Calorie counting is just so ‘off’! Even when I was eating the typically recommended ‘balanced diet’, if I ate my RDI of calories, I would have gained weight steadily and fast. It’s really not how much (calorie-wise) that you eat, it’s WHAT you eat that’s important, and actually that whole ‘balanced diet’ pie chart is totally wrong for me.

Oh, Atkins, yeah, the level of carbs you’re supposed to stick to is not just unhealthy, it’s nigh impossible!

sunshine-girl, Thank you for your concern 🙂 but I think your doctor has put too many different things together under one umbrella there.
Uric acid is from purines which are found predominantly in organ meat, not regular meat.
Perhaps he was meaning urea, but that’s from any protein, including ‘other sources’. Ham and other cured meats are definitely to be avoided as they contain added nitrates which are not good for us as well as making even more urea.
For the ‘dangers’ of high protein diet, have a look at this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1262767/
My diet isn’t as high in protein as their definition either, anyway.
I think there is still a proven correlation between red meat and high blood pressure, but mine is still absolutely fine, so no worries for me there either.

eta I suspect the reason I need so very much more protein than recommended may be because I have ADHD

I did say meat products, especially processed meats, or as my doctor would say, chacuterie et fois gras. And it is uric acid or acide uree, I get my own test results by email so can analyse them for myself.