How many fat grams a day should people be getting? How can you figure it out? I looked and I'm getting anywhere from 30-50 each day. That sounds awful high to me.

High? LOL! Somedays when I am slacking I hit the 70s. (I generally stay around 45-55)

I think the American Heart Association recommends 35 grams per day, but it really depends on your weight I think.

Do a search online, and I am sure youc an find a calculator for it, I have in the past.

I wouldn't go too low. My mom did a drastically low (below 35 grams per day) fat diet and started losing her hair, noticeably.

Most of the time I've seen it framed in terms of percent of your overall calories. Many recommendations are between 20-30% of total calories. There are 9 calories in ea gram of fat (protein and carbs are each 4 calories/gram).

So, if you eat 1500 calories/day, between 300 and 450 should come from fat, or 33 - 50 grams!

So, you can calculate for your own caloric intake...

OK..I read on several articles you should consume no more than 20-30% of your calories from fat as well...

This article is interesting, and also includes a calculator towards the end of it.

http://www.dietitian.com/fatlower.html

Back in Novermber I did a lot of reseach about how much fat you should have in your diet. (I had my gallbladder removed and had to go on a very fat restricted diet.) From what I remember the average American eats between 70 and 120 grams of fat a day. WOW!

I think that it is recommended that you eat between 20 and 35 % of your daily calories from fat.

Thanks girls! I'm about 1200-1500 cals most day so I am about right on then. Cool. I thought it looked high.

That calculator says I should eat 1200 cals and 40 g of fat. I eat too many cals then.

I really struggle with my fat intake. Some of my days are still in the 70s and up because I keep sneaking in McDonald's here, Taco Bell there...And while I can stay within my calorie range, I end up totally blowing my fat. Bleehh. I wil get it eventually LOL.

I wouldn't take those calculators too seriously. Keep the amount of calories you were using if you were succesful with it, and let Fitday tell you the rest. It figures up your % of fat, carbs, protien, and alcohol.

You don't necessarily eat too many calories! Calculators are just estimates -- please don't take them too seriously!

How much are you losing, on average, and are you really recording EVERYTHING you eat?? If you want to be healthy about it, you don't want to dip calories too low -- it's hard to get in enough nutrition, you have nowhere "lower" to go. Plus, I think if you feel you are really restricting yourself by not eating much that you will be more likely to feel deprived, go off track, and quit altogether!

So, it might help to eat so that you are losing 1-2 pounds a week. That's considered healthy. If I read your weight right (192?) then 1500 might be a great number!

sockmonkey and I posted at the same time, and agree with each other!!!

Well, all I can say is fat makes you fat. The more fat calories you have in your diet the less likely you are to lose unwanted pounds.

For example, let's say you consume 1500 total calories in day and 70 fat grams. A simple calculation: 70x9=630 fat calories. That's 630 fat calories for that day. Now, let's see what per cent of those calories come from fat: 630x100/1500=42% fat. What! 42% of your total calories that day was F-A-T. Not good.

If you eat a balanced diet and keep your total fat grams per day to around 20-30, I guarantee you will lose weight. There's really no danger of getting too little fat in your diet. I mean, when a tablespoon of butter has 12 grams of fat, a tablespoon of mayo has 11 grams of fat and a tablespoon of peanut butter has 8 grams of fat, that's 31 big fat grams right there. And you've not even counted fat grams from milk, meat, fish, poultry, cereal and other foods you might be eating through the day. So, there's no way in hades you're going to not get enough fat in a typical day. On the contrary, you will be getting too much and that's why you have to choose those fat grams carefully.

Fat makes you fat. The trick is in getting the balance right.

Hey TG07!

Too much food of any kind can make you fat. Overconsumption of carbohydrates is more responsible for high cholesterol than consumption of fats. That said, you're right--it's easy to overeat fats because they are so packed with calories.

I had been eating 30% fats to lose, which came out to 46 grams at just over 1300 total calories. Different weight loss programs use different numbers. For example, comparing protein/carbs/fat ratios (these are percentages, not grams):

p/c/f %
Zone: 30/40/30
Low Fat: 25/60/15
Low Carb: 40/25/35
Very Low Carb: 45/10/45
Moderate: 25/50/25

One thing that many dieters come up short on is protein. Protein is really important, especially if one is exercising.

Jay

The research backs Jay up. You can keep your fats low and still gain weight if you eat too many calories overall.

Another issue to consider is the KIND of fat. While we all need fat in our diet, we don't necessarily need a lot of saturated fats. And we generally get too many omega-6 fats and not enough omega-3s. That's why you'll hear a lot of people talking about "good fats" -- the kind that comes from fish, or olive oil, or nuts, or even avocado, and "bad fats" -- from butter, and red meat, etc...

Thanks for the welcome, Jay.

Of course too much food will make you fat. And of course too many carbs will make you fat. But too much fat, whether it is "good" fat or "bad" fat will also make you fat or maybe even fatter.

The OP asked about fat and how to figure it out so I put in my 2 cents. And I did mentioned balance.

Yes you did, TG07! And thanks for your reply--we welcome having many views and lots of information!

Jay