What do I do with all this fat???

glowgirl14

I'm having diary difficulties.

I have been trying to get my macros back in check after a vacation. I used the mini restart to work out some kinks I've been having with my plan...

I unlinked my fitbit from MFP, and set my calorie goal here to TDEE-% with no exercise logged.

Fitbit has me at about a 400 cal/day deficit from what I'm actually eating, so I'm pretty happy with my calories...

BUT. I'm having a hard time with the macros. I'm getting protien/carbs/fiber pretty close - but always seem to have a ton of leftover fat. I could lower the fat on my list...but I'm going to cry if someone tells me I have to eat more protein, and I don't think I need more carbs.

Currently, macros are set at: 35%protein/35%carbs/30%fat
This gets my protein to 120g a day (close-ish to 1g/lb of body weight).

Sooo. I've prelogged my dinner. Everything looks good. Except for the fact that I have logged only 1300 calories. I need 1400...but the only thing I have left is 26g fat! Short of drinking oil, or adding a 3rd cocktail (on a Monday night!)...I need suggestions. I could replace some of my PB2 with actual peanut butter...But after being programmed to avoid fat for my entire life, I'm not sure how to get it on purpose. (Well. I could get it easily. But I'd be adding a ton more carbs that I don't need, as my carbs are at zero most days!)

This may sound stupid, but what does fat do for you anyway? Energy wise, I mean...I know I'm hungry with a 500 cal deficit, and I'm not going to be hungry anymore. I don't have to be hungry to lose.

But what else can I eat? How do I add in fat without adding so many carbs?

sympha01

...But after being programmed to avoid fat for my entire life, I'm not sure how to get it on purpose.

(Edited because I pushed the post button before finishing)

I hear you sister! I'm always really low on fat too, and for the same reason: I "programmed" myself in the past to avoid fat because they used to tell us to. And now "healthy" fat is good for you! Being way too low on fat can -- over time -- cause serious health problems, for instance gallstones. Healthy dietary fats are necessary for proper body function in a number of ways, including digestion and transport of materials throughout your bloodstream. It's also great for keeping your skin, hair, and nails healthy (vanity check!).

Here are some things that I eat that help me keep my fat between 25% and 30% of calories.

1. Yes, peanut butter. I eat a tablespoon of peanut butter almost every day now, specifically to help keep my dietary fat up.
2. Cook with olive or canola oil. (Like you, I've trained myself to use a pretty light hand, but a teaspoon here and there will add up fast). For instance, one of my favorite things is a sweet potato, cubed and tossed with 1 tsp olive oil, and then roasted. Sweet potato oven roasties! High in fiber and vitamin A, and some healthy fat. (Or the same thing with a regular potato for less vitamin A). Or toss your favorite hardy vegetable (I like brussels sprouts, but I get other people don't) with olive oil and roast.
3. Oily fish like salmon or sardines. YUM!
4. Whole eggs a couple of times a week.
5. In moderation: a couple of pieces of dark chocolate once in a while.

ironanimal

Fat is important for hormone regulation.

I would recommend milk or cheese.

erickirb

...But after being programmed to avoid fat for my entire life, I'm not sure how to get it on purpose. (Well. I could get it easily. But I'd be adding a ton more carbs that I don't need, as my carbs are at zero most days!)

How about change your cabs to 40% and fat to 25%, though I'd sue that fat intake as a min, and carbs as a max.

The_Enginerd

If you are eating lower/reduced fat items, replace them with full fat items. Like the aforementioned replacement of PB2 with real peanut butter.

For instance, today you are having "Near East Couscous - Roasted Garlic & Olive Oil (Prepared With No Oil)", prepare it with oil!

JTick

Fats are goooood!!! Bacon, cheese, avocado, PB...all good options for some fat. It is hard to kick the "fats are bad!" mentality, but you really do need them.

Also, kicking your carbs up to 40% wouldn't be the end the world. I think fats are supposed to be somewhere around .35g/lb bodyweight? Protein at 1 g/lb bodyweight? And then let carbs fill up the rest. (I'm not confident on those numbers...perhaps someone else can confirm them.)

anaveryisland

Getting enough fat is extremely important. You should do some research, because there are a plethora of reasons why eating enough fats on a daily basis is vital. To give you one, oversimplified, reason: If you don't eat a solid, natural fat everyday, your body holds onto the fat that you do have (because it's scared it won't get anymore anytime soon). If you eat them consistently, your body will take what it needs and release the rest.

I eat 1/2 an avocado a day. Or, I substitute that amount with raw (unsalted) nuts, raw organic tahini, or raw ground almond/peanut butter.

As for ways I eat these fats:

1/2 avocado: Lunch salad, or dip raw veggies in avocado/lemon/sea salt
Raw nuts: Eat them by the handful, or stir them into your favorite cooked dishes
Tahini: I make a tahini sauce out of tahini/lemon juice/sea salt/water and use it for salads, or as a veggie dip



Keep in mind that eating a whole, natural fat will ALWAYS be better for your body (easier to digest) than a processed oil, or processed peanut butter.

resistance_freak

you can add in fat without adding carbs with meat. And to answer your question about "what does fat do for you anyway? Energy wise"? Fat contains more than twice the energy per gram than carbs do. Fat is the best source of energy you can get. And if you condition your body to consuming low amounts of carbs (<25% of total calories) and higher amounts of fat then your body will begin to produce more of the hormones necessary to burn fat as its primary fuel rather than burning carbs.

bcattoes

Nuts and olive oil do it for me. I am almost always over on fat. I try to control it, but everything tastes better with fat. I just don't seem to be satisfied with a low -fat meal. I cook or dress most foods in olive oil, and I eat nuts every day. That, plus the little fat naturally in foods always has me going over, even tho I go for lean meats and reduced fat cheeses.

kkcruickshank

Have a tablespoon of coconut oil!

gamerkiwi

Fat's super important for hormone regulation. You definitely need lipids in your diet, or else you'll die (it's called rabbit starvation, but that's EXTREME case of low-fat). With your fats how they are, you might have enough (if not, I doubt it's going to pose a huge health issue), but if you wanna make sure:

Cook your foods with plenty of healthy oils (virgin olive and coconut oils are great choices!), switch to full-fat everything, eat nuts. Also eat fatty fish like Salmon.

Those are the healthiest choices for you. Remember that you'll have to adjust the rest of your eating to compensate for the added calories from fat. Just take out some carbs and you'll be fine.

Also, bacon's a great source of fat, it's just not the healthiest of fats.

lysslax

Good fat carries fat-soluble vitamins around the body, it helps maintain healthy skin...omega-3 fats helps promote heart health and reduce the risk of clogged arteries!!

Like a previous poster mentioned, add some olive oil when you're cooking.

Eat seafood high in omega-3s like salmon or tuna.

Full fat cheese and sour cream will also add fat without carbs.

You can try adding bacon to things or using beef in the place of chicken for some additional fat as well.

gamerkiwi

Have a tablespoon of coconut oil!

YES!

It's all saturated fats, but it's what's called a "medium-chain triglyceride" which is very efficiently used for energy by the body. Absorbed nearly as quickly as carbs, without the blood sugar spike. MCT oil's used on epileptics who are on ketogenic diets (switching the brain to using ketone bodies from fats instead of using carbs for fuel, which reduces seizures in many cases). It's also tasty to cook with.

lambchristie

Nuts, avocados, flaxseed oil (capsule form) OR fish oil capsule ...

Also posted a link on your comment in your news thread.

WakkoW

It sounds like the MFP entries might not be accurate. Be very careful when using user entered data. (data with an asterisk). I have found the carbs/protein/fat to be off on many items. Some users just don't care about the macros and only care about the total calories.

You write you have 26 grams of fat left. Each gram of fat has 9 calories. 26*9=234.

But you also write that you only need 100 more calories to make your goal. 100 calories of fat would be approximately 11 grams.

Something is amiss.

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

Mr_Knight

Sooo. I've prelogged my dinner. Everything looks good. Except for the fact that I have logged only 1300 calories. I need 1400...but the only thing I have left is 26g fat!

You only need 10g of fat. If you use all 26g, you'll be over your caloric goal.

lindustum

The "fat makes fat" myth had been a hurdle for me back when I started MFP in august. The first time I had 10% fat greek yogurt I was almost waiting to suddenly gain 10lbs, because it felt so forbidden.

I have reached my goal weight, am size small and still reshaping my body through weightlifting- and I easily reach 70-80g fat a day, if not more. Eggs, cheese, milk, greek yogurt, mince, beef, bacon, almonds are my primary fat sources. I just feel more comfortable with higher fat than higher carbs. It is a personal preference. You will find yours in no time!

rabblerabble

Nuts are a good source of healthy fats and have a modest amount of protein too. Might want to try whole fat greek yogurt too.

FXOjafar

I have a flax seed porridge with added chia seeds and full fat cream in the morning to get me started with good, healthy, filling fat.

Fat is an important energy source, I can't get enough of it. My macro is 65/30/5 fat/pro/carb. The weight just falls off!

DoingitWell

Season your greens with fat back.

glowgirl14

Thanks for all the responses! I'm usually a huge one for research, but am incredibly busy for the next couple of weeks- and the MFP community has come forth with its wealth of knowledge, as always! : )

First - I know that I can't eat all 26g of fat TODAY with only 100 calories. But many days I'm pre-logging, and run out of protein and carbs - but still have 1-300 calories left over. And the only group remaining is fat. If I were to use 2T peanut butter, instead of 2T PB2, I'd have twice the fat, and close to the same carbs/protein. I wanted advice on future entries, I just used today as an example.

My calories are so low, because I'm close to goal...and it's habit to find the least calories that pack the most punch nutritionally. High protein, low carb, low fat has been my mantra for months...I'm going to figure out how to replace some of my protein shakes with real food. (What a concept, right??)

A lot of good ideas in here. I just had 100 calories worth of almonds, and it barely effected the rest of my macros, but added 9g fat, and I'm not hungry. I cut 1oz from the meat I'm having for dinner and I'm now 21 calories from goal, and only over in carbs (2g). And if I eat a bit less popcorn, I'll be fine there...

I've added several of these items to my shopping list for this afternoon...Sort of excited to see how this works out.

Dragonwolf

High protein, low carb, low fat has been my mantra for months...

No, no, no.

Protein should be used for building blocks (building/repairing muscles, etc), not fuel. Carbs and fat are fuel sources. If you go low in carbs, then you must increase your fat, and vice-versa. Otherwise, you're not feeding your body the right fuel to be healthy, and you're forcing your body to use protein for fuel from your food intake, and depriving your body of the means to absorb nutrients properly, which fat helps with.

While going for nutrition-packed foods is definitely the way to go, keep in mind that carbs and fat are nutrients, too, and should be treated as such. Yes, even saturated fat (and cholesterol!) has its place. The only fat you should avoid is trans fat (ie - partially hydrogenated oils).

Avocados, nuts, dairy (ideally, grass fed and not homogenized - either or, but preferably both), the fat from meats, coconut oil, olive oil, butter, full fat varieties of foods. These are all ways to get more fat in, and will have a variety of fats (fat on meat isn't just saturated, but also includes monounsaturated fats, as well). They also have a number of fat-soluable nutrients in them, some of which you can only find in a given fat source.

Your protein should be about 1g per pound of lean body mass (if you're doing strength training, which you should be), and your fat should be at least .36 grams per pound of body weight, with the rest filled in with carbs and fat how you see fit.

tfleischer

Avocado is a very good source for healthy fat content.
Olive oil is too.
Nuts also have a good fat content: walnuts, almonds, etc. If you have salt issues, look for the unsalted kind.
Salmon and tuna both have the good fats.

This may be helpful for you:

http://www.uccs.edu/Documents/peakfood/hlthTopics/Meal Planning.pdf

Lizzy622

Drizzling a bit of olive, walnut or sesame seed oil over veggies adds great flavor and gives you lots of good fatty acids.

GingerLolita

Many MFP users (including myself) struggle with this because high-fat foods are typically high-calorie foods! I recommend sticking with unsaturated fats when possible. I have a Flat Belly Diet Cookbook, which really opened my eyes to the benefits of these healthy fats. Make sure you're not going over your saturated fat recommendation to reach your fat macro. Feel free to check out my diary for ideas, but most of my fat comes from oils, nuts and nut butters, whole eggs, avocados, and dark chocolate.

hoyalawya2003

Olives.

Dragonwolf

Many MFP users (including myself) struggle with this because high-fat foods are typically high-calorie foods! I recommend sticking with unsaturated fats when possible. I have a Flat Belly Diet Cookbook, which really opened my eyes to the benefits of these healthy fats. Make sure you're not going over your saturated fat recommendation to reach your fat macro. Feel free to check out my diary for ideas, but most of my fat comes from oils, nuts and nut butters, whole eggs, avocados, and dark chocolate.

A. Saturated fat is not the devil. In fact, they're necessary for hormone function and are a great fuel source for humans (the fats in human milk are nearly 25% saturated fats). Most of the rhetoric against saturated fat comes from highly flawed studies, most of which were so focused on the link of saturated fat to heart disease (of which there is no significant link, btw), that they completely ignored the beneficial properties of the individual types of saturated fats. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/80/3/550.full#sec-18 http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/importance-of-saturated-fats-for-biological-functions

B. While it is true that fat has more calories per gram than protein or carbs, that shouldn't be an issue as long as you set your macros and stick to them. If you stick to what MFP gives you, it's impossible to go over on calories, because the numbers MFP gives you are derived from a percentage of your total calories. It may seem like "less" food (ie - for the same number of calories, you can only have a tablespoon of full-fat sour cream, instead of 2 tablespoons of low-fat), but fatty foods are generally more satiating. So it ultimately takes less food to make you feel full (or at least "not hungry").

cfredz

peanut butter

gmthisfeller

Here are some things that I eat that help me keep my fat between 25% and 30% of calories.

1. Yes, peanut butter. I eat a tablespoon of peanut butter almost every day now, specifically to help keep my dietary fat up.
2. Cook with olive or canola oil. (Like you, I've trained myself to use a pretty light hand, but a teaspoon here and there will add up fast). For instance, one of my favorite things is a sweet potato, cubed and tossed with 1 tsp olive oil, and then roasted. Sweet potato oven roasties! High in fiber and vitamin A, and some healthy fat. (Or the same thing with a regular potato for less vitamin A). Or toss your favorite hardy vegetable (I like brussels sprouts, but I get other people don't) with olive oil and roast.
3. Oily fish like salmon or sardines. YUM!
4. Whole eggs a couple of times a week.
5. In moderation: a couple of pieces of dark chocolate once in a while.

+1

Especially adding peanut butter to the daily food intake, and adding a bit extra oil to salads and veggies.