General Diet Plans and Questions - New, and very confused

Hello there. I've recently jumped on the Slim Fast bandwagon and had a couple questions. The main question is that I've read a lot of things about eating low fat. But Slim Fast is more low-cal than low-fat. I mean on low-fat, you could eat a bag of sugar, which is fat free. Could someone tell me the difference between low-cal and low-fat, which I should concentrate on, and how much fat does one need to eat? Thanks a lot

For what its worth, this is my opinion . . .

I think you shoud keep an eye on all of it. I've been counting calories for over a year now and I find that the only way to fill up well enough on my lower-calorie level is to eat low-fat and lower sugar levels. Basically, if you eat a small enough number of calories, you'll lose weight but in order to feel fullfilled (and more likely to stick with it as a result), I'd suggest limiting the fat and sugar too. A good tool is www.fitday.com where you can input your daily foods and it will let you know how you're doing :)

From what I've heard one should eat no more than 30% of their calories from fat and no less than 10% from fat (one needs SOME fat in their diet!). I try to aim for between 20% and 25% fat myself.. Its tough sometimes but I actually feel much better when I'm not eating that extra fat!

I aim for around 1400-1500 calories a day so that should work out to be like between 30 and 40 grams of fat a day.. give or take a couple.

Hope that helps.. I've got my 2 cents all over the place tonight.. so just tell me to shut up if I'm babbling ;)

Christine
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