How many grams of fat are you eating?
 

I was wondering how many grams of fat most of your were consuming per day? Do most of you stick with the recommended 30% or do you go under/over?

Thanks for your help!

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.

Mine is generally 25-30% but it has been up to 35% before. It varies from day to day.
Edit to add-I have no idea how many grams it usually is though

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.

According to the Daily Plate, I'm eating around 30-40 grams a day.

I get around 30 grams a day, which is 25% or so.

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 try to stay close to 25% but my actual % (on average) is closer to 22%.

Since that is an average - I have had the occasional 15% days and the 40% days.

Lori

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 :-)

I did a bunch of research, and finally decided on a range of 30-60 grams of fat per day for myself.

I do think that 20 might be a bit too low.

OMG! I didn't even realize this until I saw your post. But in the past six weeks or so, since I have started eating healthy and keeping an eye on nutriants, I am not loosing alot of hair in the shower. I remember some days I would wonder why I wasn't bald becuase so much hair was coming out in the shower. I guess thats another reason to never wanna go back to my old McDonalds and Pizza Hut diet.
As far as fats go, I am trying to keep mine around 23% of my daily intake. No evil transfat's and I keep the saturated as low as I can. But with the kinds of food's I am eating now, it isn't too tough to keep that low. My cholesterol intake has also been low. I go in about a month to have blood work and get all that tested. About a year ago my bad cholesterol and trigylcerides (sp) were in the 'High Normal' range and my good cholesterol was low. I really think there will be some improvement, my body seems to be rewarding me for my efforts.

I don't count it up, but try to be conscious of not including high-fat foods in my diet too often. I'll use olive oil to saute my veggies, for example, but just one or two turns around the pan; I'll use no-sugar-added fruit spread on my toast instead of butter; and if I want an omelet I'll use two eggs' worth of Egg Beaters plus one whole egg to cut down on fat and calories. When I lost the bulk of my weight at age 41 - 11 years ago now - I lost over 50 lbs. by following Susan Powter's "Stop the Insanity" program, which is very low fat, and I don't remember losing any hair. I just remember how much better I looked and felt, and that the weight came off steadily with no plateaus. I kept most of that weight off for a number of years, but now that I am going into menopause, I find that my metabolism has slowed such that I need to do something specific - cutting calories and exercising - to get 10 or 15 pounds off that has crept back on.

I don't really worry about the grams but I use FitDay to calculate the percentage of my calories that come from fats. Oddly enough, I've discovered that I will actually lose more steadily and have fewer of those "up" fluctuations on the scale if I keep the percentage from fats just a little higher than carbs an proteins. I do make sure that I have zero trans fats and that saturated fats never go over 10% of my total calories but, lucky me, I eat avocados once or twice a week and keep a bag of raw almonds or walnuts in my desk for "emergencies".

This morning my breakfast was 363cal/6g of fat....it's been about 200cal/3g of fat. I agree with the posts that I may not be eating enough fats (20ish grams) but I feel like I just way overindulged this morning. I'm definately not stuffed, but as I was preparing my breakfast, I kept thinking...wow - this is a TON of food!!!

1/2 cup REAL oatmeal
1/2 cup pumpkin
1/4 cup soymilk
1 slice low-cal whole wheat toast w/ half of a laughing cow wedge
Coffee w/ 3 tbs FF creamer

Does that seem like too much?? Or am I crazy?? I sometimes feel like when I make something with several different ingredients (instead of just eating plain oatmeal), it makes me think that I'm eating too much....that's kinda weird I guess ;)

Sounds like a pretty decent breakfast to me. You will probably compensate later in the day by eating a bit less at your other meals. Some days I wake up ravenous and just have to have a hearty breakfast. Other days, I don't feel like eating much at all, and have a bit more at lunch when I really am hungry. This morning, all I had was a whole grain English muffin for 140 calories plus 3/4 c. orange juice. I just didn't want more. Another day, I might have a feta and spinach omelet with that muffin, and have a smaller lunch instead.

I just feel like I am eating SO much food just to reach 1100-1200 calories. I feel like I did nothing but eat yesterday and I was at 1140cal/21g of fat at the end of the day. I guess I just need to get used to the fact that by eating healthy...I can actually EAT!!

Thanks for the response :)

I have no problem getting to - and beyond - 1200 calories, LOL! My problem is keeping the count down...which is why journaling my food intake is so valuable to me. It's easy to eat more than you mean to when you don't write it down.

If I wasn't counting/logging my food...I'd get to 1200 and beyond....EASY! I think because I am logging it, and thinking ahead to the rest of my meals for the day (and wanting to be able to eat them!), I'm making extremely low-cal/low-fat choices....maybe even too low-cal/low-fat. I usually get there with my calories, but not so much with fat. For lunch today, I had pasta salad lightly dressed in olive oil, so I'm already at 24 grams...I guess that's a good thing???? This is taking some getting used to, but I definitely love that I'm doing it ;)