Need advice Please

jennasjules
jennasjules Posts: 4 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I started my diet last September and to date I lost 53lbs. My routine was walking everyday at least 10,000 steps and staying at 1200 calories a day, some days went over but never going over 1500. I'm 44 and 5'6 my current weight is 161lbs. My diet at first consisted of a healthy variety of foods but quickly went to packaged snacks, frozen diet meals and peanut butter. I know peanut butter is good for you but I was having about 3-6 servings a day, everyday for the last 6 months. To make this long story short, I went to the doctors for my annual and my cholorestol was boarder line high and I have to go back for a re test in 6 months. Now I have to go on a low fat diet and I'm confused on how much of sat fat is too much, I'm staying on a 1200 calorie a day diet, is 7grams of saturated fat too much.
Thanks in advance

Replies

  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    edited June 2015
    There's new evidence to suggest that eating saturated fat doesn't raise your LDL cholesterol. In fact, certain fats have been found to raise your good (HDL) cholesterol levels. I eat all of the things that you mention and when I had my cholesterol levels tested recently (twice, once at the doctor and once at a work wellness fair) my LDL and triglycerides were really low and my HDL was great.

    Cholesterol problems can be hereditary. My brother-in-law has high cholesterol and triglycerides in the 900 range (my triglycerides are around 40 for comparison) and it's just something that runs in his family. He tried the low fat diet route and it didn't help at all. He gets help controlling it with medication.

    So, all of that said, if you really want to try to lower your saturated fat intake, I think MFP's daily goal for saturated fat is pretty close to what has been recommended lately. I'm a bit surprised that your doctor didn't give you a goal.

    The American Heart Association recommends aiming for a dietary pattern that achieves 5% to 6% of calories from saturated fat. That means, for example, if you need about 2,000 calories a day, no more than 120 of them should come from saturated fats. That’s about 13 grams of saturated fats a day. For your 1200 calorie diet, you should be getting around 7 or 8 grams.

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