I want a low saturated fat diet - but find it hard to maintain a good calorie intake - any help?

jordanoye101

Hi - need some advice!

I am trying to eat a healthier diet to what I was eating about a year ago (2 / 3 pizzas a week, microwave burgers etc...) I was borderline overweight and my saturated fat intake was high - regularly close to or exceeding 20 grams in a day.

I would like to try and reduce my saturated fat intake but I am finding it hard to get my recommended calorie intake of around 2,100 for the day.

I hear allot of conflicting reports on saturated fats! Is it safe to regularly go near the 20 gram reference intake? or is it more wise to reduce it right down to less than half that in a day or even a quarter! I was concerned about my LDL cholestrol levels because what I ate was exceeding the reference intake, quite often 3 or 4 days of the week would be more like 25 - 30 grams of saturated fat.

Basically I am on a budget with what I can afford both money and time wise and I understand there are allot of really nice foods out there - but some of them are expensive to commit too

I currently weigh around 70 kg , am 183 cm and 20 years old and would like to maintain that weight now.

Any thoughts on what I could eat - or whether saturated fat is fine daily as long as it is below a certain level?

What do you think? I hope I haven't made it too complicated!

Tried30UserNames

I'm a big fan of saturated fat, particularly the saturated fats from pastured animals, but I do try to avoid most (not all) types of trans fat. I think butter is a health food. However, if you want to cut down on saturated fat, try eating more things like olive oil, nuts, seeds, and fatty fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel. Those things are pretty high in calories so a few tablespoons of olive oil or a couple handfuls of nuts should help you get those calories up.

jgnatca

If getting enough calories is an issue, get yourself some unsaturated fat, like a big bottle of olive oil. Teach yourself to make your own vinaigrette for salads.

mmapags

Why avoid saturated fat? A certain amount is important for brain and hormonal health. Calories are what matter for weight loss, not avoiding saturated fat.

lemurcat12

Yeah, saturated fat is fine so long as it is below a certain level, even according to those who still warn against sat fat: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2012/06/21/ask-the-expert-healthy-fats/

Major sources of sat fat are red meat and dairy fat (like in butter, cheese). So if you want to reduce sat fat, eat less of those and more chicken, fish, legumes, olive oil, avocado/avocado oil, nuts and seeds. It shouldn't affect the budget or total calories much. AHA says around 5-6% of calories from saturated fat (I'd base that on your maintenance), so if your maintenance is, say, 2500, even the AHA would say around 150 calories from sat fat (or around 16 g) is fine.

My cholesterol is fine and always has been, so I sometimes watch sat fat, but mostly ignore it and focus more on an overall nutrient-dense diet (lots of vegetables, not too much in the way of highly refined carbs/added sugar), but based on current recommendations, especially if cholesterol is a concern, not going too high on sat fat makes sense to me. My dad lowered his cholesterol just by limiting red meat and high fat dairy (and staying a healthy weight and being active--he wasn't overweight before, and he was active, so in his case I do think it was diet related, but for many people it isn't so much).