Too much left over fat!!

canela023

I need help with trying to eating foods with more fat than calories. By the end of the day, i am usually left with a minimum of 10 grms of fat or more? Does anyone have any tips on adding fat and not calories?

Acg67

not sure what you mean, since fat is about 9cal per gram of fat

tbudge

peanut butter?

tigersword

Eat more fat. Oils are great for that, olive oil in particular.

DopeItUp

Oils and nuts. Or eat more beef and pork!

jjs22

There's no such thing. Any edible fat has calories in it. So if you want to increase your intake of fat, look through your diet and cut back on something else that is mostly carbs : especially refined sugar (anything sweet other than fresh fruit) and refined wheat (bread, pasta). For health reasons and for successful dieting, its better if the carbs you do eat are very slowly digested, like unprocessed whole grains, and fruits/veggies with lots of fiber.

The only problem with cutting back on carbs is that some people feel intense cravings for them. Apart from that, you can eliminate as many carbs as you want without worry. Most people (not just overweight) eat way way too many carbs, and they cause a whole lot of health problems. And the reason we eat so many is that highly concentrated modern carbs are very addictive. If you try cutting way back for a while, you might find that the cravings diminish and healthier food starts to taste better.

As for what kind of fats to add, definitely try to stick to natural ones. Your body NEEDS fats, and there are many different kinds, so its good to eat a wide variety. The main thing you should take extra care to include is "Omega 3" fats : fish like salmon has plenty, but unfortunately modern grain-fed beef and other meats don't have as much as they would naturally. A great, cheap source is flax seeds or flax seed oil. I buy the seeds in bulk at a health food store for super-cheap and grind them to a powder in one of those little coffee grinders.

For other sources of healthy fats... Olive oil is awesome for cooking, unsalted unroasted nuts are a great snack, avocados, seafood and fish, and yes, even the things that they once said were bad for you ; dairy, eggs, and red meat.

The only fats you should absolutely avoid like poison (because they ARE poison) are trans fats, often described as "hydrogenated" vegetable oil. These are molecules made in chemical plants that do not exist in nature, and the few that have been studied closely are linked to cancer, neurological impairment, and increased risk of heart disease. These dangerous fats are everywhere : most fast foods, most packaged foods in the supermarket which are baked or fried (cookies, chips, ...), and a whole lot of "diet", "lo-cal", and "heart healthy" foods !

ChristieisReady

I eat way too much fat... so if you want to add some to your diet, take a look at my food diary. :drinker: In all seriousness, avocados, nuts, vegetable oils and olives are all great sources of good fats. You will have to reduce your carb intake if you want to stay at the same number of calories with a higher fat intake, however. Carbs and protein only have 4 calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram.
This chart, put out by the united states figure skating council, gives a minimum to maximum range, tohugh you will have to do the math to get your recommended intake.

http://www.usfsa.org/content/Fat_How Low.pdf

The minimum, according to this is 14.9% of your daily calorie intake. Low-fat (above minimum) is 30%.

I did the math for you, Canela, and you need between 21 and 42 grams of fat per day. Before you work out. More calories burned = more fat needed.

For everyone else, the math is (daily calories) x .1489 = (daily fat calories) THEN (daily fat calories) / 9 = (daily fat grams)
If looking for low fat, not minimum, multiply by .3015 instead of .1489

tigersword

There's no such thing. Any edible fat has calories in it. So if you want to increase your intake of fat, look through your diet and cut back on something else that is mostly carbs : especially refined sugar (anything sweet other than fresh fruit) and refined wheat (bread, pasta). For health reasons and for successful dieting, its better if the carbs you do eat are very slowly digested, like unprocessed whole grains, and fruits/veggies with lots of fiber.

The only problem with cutting back on carbs is that some people feel intense cravings for them. Apart from that, you can eliminate as many carbs as you want without worry. Most people (not just overweight) eat way way too many carbs, and they cause a whole lot of health problems. And the reason we eat so many is that highly concentrated modern carbs are very addictive. If you try cutting way back for a while, you might find that the cravings diminish and healthier food starts to taste better.

I just want to point out that there are a couple of misleading statements here. For one, calling some carbs fast digesting and others slow digesting is misleading in ordinary day to day life, because as soon as you eat any carb with any other food it changes the digestibility of the carb. A "fast digesting" carb like sucrose becomes slow digesting the minute you use it to sweeten a sauce and put it on a steak. Same with pasta, as soon as you mix it with sauce and meat, it becomes a much slower digesting carb.

Also, people do not crave carbs because "modern carbs are addicting." People crave carbs because they are the body's preferred energy source, and the human body has evolved to crave carbohydrates for fuel.

jjs22

I just want to point out that there are a couple of misleading statements here. For one, calling some carbs fast digesting and others slow digesting is misleading in ordinary day to day life, because as soon as you eat any carb with any other food it changes the digestibility of the carb. A "fast digesting" carb like sucrose becomes slow digesting the minute you use it to sweeten a sauce and put it on a steak. Same with pasta, as soon as you mix it with sauce and meat, it becomes a much slower digesting carb.

Hi, I'm not an expert on nutrition at all. Like many here, I am just learning. But I am a career scientist (physics) and I'm very curious about this. I might be wrong, but I think that what you are saying isn't accurate. The glycemic index (GI) is measured by consuming 50 grams of a carbohydrate food and measuring the blood glucose level for 2 hours. By definition, the response from eating sucrose is 100, and every other food is relative to this.

It is true that if you mix 25 grams of sucrose and 25 grams of insoluble fiber, and then run the test, you will see only half of the blood glucose as before, and hence the GI of this mixture is 50. In layman's terms, it may be tempting to say that you now have a food which is slower digesting because the GI is lower. But this isn't really true. All you have done is reduced your intake.

From the reading I have done, "mixing" foods of differing GI works just like in this simple example. In particular, protein has no affect at all on how quickly a GIVEN AMOUNT of carbohydrate is converted to blood glucose, even if the calculated GI is lower. And while fats do seem to have an effect, it is mainly just a delay, not a reduction in the glucose level.

So, even though I'm not an expert, I still stand by the idea that for health and successful dieting, its better if the carbs you eat are slow digesting. Glycemic index is a useful tool, but its important not to read too much into it.

Also, people do not crave carbs because "modern carbs are addicting." People crave carbs because they are the body's preferred energy source, and the human body has evolved to crave carbohydrates for fuel.

It's natural for people to crave carbohydrates, because in nature they are relatively scarce. Even after the development of agriculture, most people ate grains that were relatively unprocessed. It's only in the past 100-150 years that very highly refined white sugar and white flour have been available and affordable to ordinary people (as opposed to the extremely well off). So when I say "modern carbs", of course I don't mean that somehow the molecules are new, but that the ability to eat very, very high density of carbohydrates with no fiber or anything else hindering their immediate uptake by the body is new. The resulting rapid spike of insulin to high levels is new. And I think it is fair to describe the response that many of us have to this as addiction. There is the (very dangerous) bodily response of insulin resistance. And there is the common experience of anyone who has ever eaten a pint of Ben and Jerry's or a huge plate of cookies, and so on. Some of us don't have much trouble saying "I'm not going to eat many/any refined carbs" and sticking to it. But for others, the cravings are intense and unpleasant. I don't think people experience the same thing with wild rice, quinoa, steel cut oats, and so on.

ChristieisReady

How did we end up on carbs?