Understanding fat intake.

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eversosquidly
eversosquidly Posts: 59 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, so.. I found a few topics on here about TDEE. Specifically this one: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets?page=1

And where it says to figure out your macros, my math is coming back saying I'm supposed to be taking in 40% fat? Is that accurate? My protein is expected to be 30%. So the remainder would be carbs, which would be the last 30%, I think. But regardless, I don't understand how having more fat is a good thing.

Am I misunderstanding something?

I'm brand new to TDEE. So any help is welcome.

Replies

  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Dietary fat does a lot of important things for your body. It helps with hormone balance, vitamin absorption, cell regrowth, and gives you healthier hair and nails. It also helps keep you fuller and more satisfied throughout the day (along with protein and fiber). Dietary fat was demonized during the low-fat crazes of the 90s because fat comes with a higher caloric cost than protein or carbs, but it's actually important not to cut too much of it out of your diet.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    Fat is important. Not eating fat =/= not having excess fat on your body. But I only eat about 35-40% of my WEIGHT in fat. If you are overweight or obese then you can use lean body mass. I do the same for protein, basing it on my weight and not calories. If you want you could do 50% fat or 80% or whatever you want, but 30% of your weight is usually the lowest you should go. But trial and error.
  • eversosquidly
    eversosquidly Posts: 59 Member
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    Okay. So the 40% thing is right, then? I mean, I love butter and avocados and EVOO, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot here.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    You should visit your doctor. He'll be able to tell you what sort of foods you should be eating and give you a nice calorie estimate, maybe refer you to a nutritionist, if he thinks you need it.

    Nobody but your doctor can give you the right advice for you.
  • eversosquidly
    eversosquidly Posts: 59 Member
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    I'd rather just do my own thing. A doctor is a huge waste of time and money in my opinion and experience. But thank you!
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    You can go into goals and choose custom. I raised my protein to 40% at the recommendation of some other members, since I'm working on building muscle. Everyone is different so you will have to decide where you're going.
  • disasterman
    disasterman Posts: 746 Member
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    Others will chime in but there is no universal "correct" setting for your macros. Much depends on your goals e.g. weight loss, weight gain, body re-composition, maintenance as well as your activity levels and what kinds of workouts you're doing.
  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
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    What is your TDEE and your current weight?
  • mrbyte
    mrbyte Posts: 270 Member
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    nothing wrong with fat. I eat a ton of fat and I'm 10% bf. I eat 25% carbs so the rest is fat and protein. I frequently hit 50% fat and I get leaner. Just as long as you get fats from good sources as well. I eat a lot of nuts and it throws my fat macros up.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,831 Member
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    Okay. So the 40% thing is right, then?

    The answer in the 3rd quarter of 2014 is that NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE! You'll have to embrace ambiguity with this one.

    Right now there's a paradigm shift in the works. The low-fat-is-better mantra turned out to be less correct than was thought. It turns out type of fat consumed is more important than amount. Even that is still being questioned as more studies are done.

    This site is frequently updated to reflect the latest state of knowledge on the issue in terms we non-scientists can appreciate: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
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    You should visit your doctor. He'll be able to tell you what sort of foods you should be eating and give you a nice calorie estimate, maybe refer you to a nutritionist, if he thinks you need it.

    Nobody but your doctor can give you the right advice for you.

    You have a lot of faith in doctors...

    A general practitioner has next to no training on nutrition unless you know they've actually gone out of their way to gain extra training on it.

    A Dietician is better, because they're specifically trained and registered regarding nutritional advice, but even they are limited by their own training, which is generally based off of the USDA and AHA guidelines, which are motivated far more by politics than by actual science (fun fact -- the AHA wasn't pro-low-fat until Ancel Keys became a board member). Again, unless they've gone out of their way to keep up with the actual science.

    Doctors are not some mysterious fountains of arcane knowledge. Medicine is a huge field, and if any doctor claims to know more than a tiny, tiny fraction of the field, run for the hills, because they're probably lying. The best doctors are the ones that understand that they're only human, too, and don't have all of the answers, because when they acknowledge that, they open themselves to learning more and being even better doctors.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Okay. So the 40% thing is right, then? I mean, I love butter and avocados and EVOO, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot here.

    It's not a matter of "right" or "wrong"...your macro ratios are largely going to be as per your personal performance and whether you're following any specific diet (i.e. low carb) or have medical conditions, etc. Personally, 40% fat would be too high for me...I'm about 25 - 30% fat on my macro ratios.
  • eversosquidly
    eversosquidly Posts: 59 Member
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    Using this: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

    My TDEE is 2411. Then you take 20% out of that and it's 1929. My weight, however, is 261 right now.

    Then I did:
    1x261x0.5=130.5x4=522 calories divided by 1929 = .27 etc, so I rounded up to 30%.

    0.35x261=91.35x9=822.15 divided by 1929 = .42 etc which I rounded down to 40%.

    I mean, I was originally set at 1,240 calories a day. And then if I felt like eating back exercise calories, I could. Doesn't mean I always did. And the being super hungry and grumpy had hit the point where I was like ~why not try TDEE. It's better than being hungry and unhappy. So. That's why I'm asking for help. Definitely not expecting definitive answers. But I'd rather be in the ballpark than eating that low anymore.

    Thanks for all the responses, by the way. I really do appreciate all of your help.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
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    I'd rather just do my own thing. A doctor is a huge waste of time and money in my opinion and experience. But thank you!

    Agreed. Weight loss isn't that complicated. Good on you.
  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
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    Using this: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

    My TDEE is 2411. Then you take 20% out of that and it's 1929. My weight, however, is 261 right now.

    Then I did:
    1x261x0.5=130.5x4=522 calories divided by 1929 = .27 etc, so I rounded up to 30%.

    0.35x261=91.35x9=822.15 divided by 1929 = .42 etc which I rounded down to 40%.

    I mean, I was originally set at 1,240 calories a day. And then if I felt like eating back exercise calories, I could. Doesn't mean I always did. And the being super hungry and grumpy had hit the point where I was like ~why not try TDEE. It's better than being hungry and unhappy. So. That's why I'm asking for help. Definitely not expecting definitive answers. But I'd rather be in the ballpark than eating that low anymore.

    Thanks for all the responses, by the way. I really do appreciate all of your help.

    Your math looks solid. Try those macros out, and if you find yourself needing/wanting more carbs, I think you'd be safe to drop the fat down to 35% if you desire. But nothing wrong with it being that high either. You could also redistribute some of it to your protein.

    ETA: I realized that I basically just said "yeah, put it to your fat, or carbs, or protein". :laugh: What I'm trying to say is that it's fine to be that high. But setting your macros is definitely personal preference to a point, and you're well within the realm of possibility but still have room to move stuff around if you choose to do so.
  • eversosquidly
    eversosquidly Posts: 59 Member
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    Using this: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

    My TDEE is 2411. Then you take 20% out of that and it's 1929. My weight, however, is 261 right now.

    Then I did:
    1x261x0.5=130.5x4=522 calories divided by 1929 = .27 etc, so I rounded up to 30%.

    0.35x261=91.35x9=822.15 divided by 1929 = .42 etc which I rounded down to 40%.

    I mean, I was originally set at 1,240 calories a day. And then if I felt like eating back exercise calories, I could. Doesn't mean I always did. And the being super hungry and grumpy had hit the point where I was like ~why not try TDEE. It's better than being hungry and unhappy. So. That's why I'm asking for help. Definitely not expecting definitive answers. But I'd rather be in the ballpark than eating that low anymore.

    Thanks for all the responses, by the way. I really do appreciate all of your help.

    Your math looks solid. Try those macros out, and if you find yourself needing/wanting more carbs, I think you'd be safe to drop the fat down to 35% if you desire. But nothing wrong with it being that high either. You could also redistribute some of it to your protein.

    Ahahahaha. It took me like…an hour and a half to make sure that math was legit. I majored in english, but I failed college math courses like..three times. Even now, it takes a while (and a calculator) to get certain things. So thanks!! That made my day.

    I probably will drop my fat to 35% and up my protein to 35% if I need to. I pretty much stay away from carbs if I can. I gave up sugar (cookies, candy, things that are addictive and hard to avoid, definitely not talking fruit here) for a year, but my downfall will likely be bread. So this watching macros thing should help even out my intake daily.

    Again, thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it.
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
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    Using this: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

    My TDEE is 2411. Then you take 20% out of that and it's 1929. My weight, however, is 261 right now.

    Then I did:
    1x261x0.5=130.5x4=522 calories divided by 1929 = .27 etc, so I rounded up to 30%.

    0.35x261=91.35x9=822.15 divided by 1929 = .42 etc which I rounded down to 40%.

    I mean, I was originally set at 1,240 calories a day. And then if I felt like eating back exercise calories, I could. Doesn't mean I always did. And the being super hungry and grumpy had hit the point where I was like ~why not try TDEE. It's better than being hungry and unhappy. So. That's why I'm asking for help. Definitely not expecting definitive answers. But I'd rather be in the ballpark than eating that low anymore.

    Thanks for all the responses, by the way. I really do appreciate all of your help.

    Your math looks solid. Try those macros out, and if you find yourself needing/wanting more carbs, I think you'd be safe to drop the fat down to 35% if you desire. But nothing wrong with it being that high either. You could also redistribute some of it to your protein.

    Ahahahaha. It took me like…an hour and a half to make sure that math was legit. I majored in english, but I failed college math courses like..three times. Even now, it takes a while (and a calculator) to get certain things. So thanks!! That made my day.

    I probably will drop my fat to 35% and up my protein to 35% if I need to. I pretty much stay away from carbs if I can. I gave up sugar (cookies, candy, things that are addictive and hard to avoid, definitely not talking fruit here) for a year, but my downfall will likely be bread. So this watching macros thing should help even out my intake daily.

    Again, thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

    It looks perfectly fine to me. I set it up in a handy little spreadsheet, so I can just enter my new body weight and body fat estimate, plus the calories I'm targeting and it spits out all the numbers. But then, I'm like that ;-)
  • SanteMulberry
    SanteMulberry Posts: 3,202 Member
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    I'd rather just do my own thing. A doctor is a huge waste of time and money in my opinion and experience. But thank you!

    I agree. Doctors have an extremely small about of training in nutrition and diet. They are about as ignorant as anyone can be on those topics. As a previous poster has stated, dietary fat is the source of essential fatty acids--the reason why they call them that is because they are just that--essential. In addition, the "satiety effect" is the highest for fat (by quite a wide margin) followed by protein. Carbohydrates, especially "simple" carbohydrates like starch and sugar, because they raise blood glucose quickly, cause insulin spikes and insulin spikes can be very deleterious to the body in many ways. In addition, insulin is the "fat storage" hormone--meaning that, when your blood sugar spikes after a carb-heavy meal, your insulin will also spike and take that blood glucose, turn it into triglyceride and shove it into your fat cells. When I was eating low fat (on the recommendation of my doctor) I kept getting flabbier, weaker and fatter. Since I set my macros to 55% fat, 25% protein and 20% carbohydrate, I have strengthened my musculature (I now have "definition" --yayyy!) and greatly reduced my "fat baggage". I have joined a gym and will be getting a lot more active in the fall. I will likely have to increase my carbohydrate allowance slightly--I will probably go to 55% fat; 20% protein and 25% carbohydrate (and I will increase my total calories slightly to make sure that I don't consistently net less than 1,200 calories--a no-no here at MFP).

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