Hey Alice, I don't count fat grams, but I do try to get a good amount of healthy fat a day. My problem is getting ENOUGH healthy fats! I try to cook with olive oil, add avocado to my salads and sprinkle nuts in my oatmeal. My goal is 25%-30% of my daily calories from healthy fats, but when I was tracking it carefully in Fitday, 20% was a good day.
Alice
The doc and dietition/nutritionist told me FOR ME. I should be taking in total 23 to 25% fat or .025 of total calories which ever is less. Saturated 8 to 11% of total fat.
I don't worry about it as long as my saturated fat is under 10%. More and more research is showing that it's not how much fat, it's what kind. So, I limit saturated fats and I don't consume man-made trans fats (except perhaps unknowingly at restaurants.)
I usually end up in the 20-35% range, but if I go over and it's healthy fat I don't worry about it.
Thanks for all your replies! That helps to kind of give a gauge...currently I eat about 20 - 25g of fat, which I guess seems to be okay! zenor, good point about the kind of fat....
20-20 grams of fat a day sounds a little low (although I'm not a nutritionist, of course). I went on a radically low fat diet in college (admittedly, my goal was 10 grams a day) and I skipped a period for the only time in my life and lost hair by the handful in the shower. I definitely think you should avoid BAD fats, but the good fats in salmon, olive oil, avocado and nuts and nut butters is really and truely GOOD for you.
I'm coming up around 20 grams (give or take) each day - and about 900-1000 calories after eating dinner. So I've been eating something before bed (which I hate to do) for another 200-300 calories. I'm losing weight, and I feel great, but I do think I have some fine tuning to do for sure!!!
One of the problems with eating so few calories - where do you go if your weight loss tapers off?
If it makes you feel any better, I used to get home from work really late. By the time I made dinner, it was usually 8:30 or so. Sometimes, I had a snack after dinner and was in bed by 11 or so. Eating late had no apparent effect on my weight loss. I still eat at night if I'm hungry - hasn't stopped me from keeping the weight off!
I would look at percentages vs grams of fat. It gives you a better over all picture. For instance, yesterday I ate 73 grams of fat (seems high right), but that was only 36% of my total calories. Granted, I'm maintaining so I eat around 2000 calories.
When I was losing I never had to go under 1500 calories and 30% of 1500 calories would be 50 grams of fat. So 20-25 grams does seem low.
Also, when I first started losing I figured that super low-fat was good. I ate between 15-20% of my calories from fat. My skin dried out, I was moody, and I started to lose hair. Upping my fat fixed all those problems. I think it's worthy to note that too low in fat can be just as bad (if not more) then high fat.
yeah, i guess it does seem kind of low.....i will have to take another look at what i am eating and try to get more of those "good" fats in my diet :-)
How many grams of fat are you eating?
