Hi and welcome, you'll find great support here! Are you eating Paleo just to lose weight or are you planning on taking advantage of all other benefits with this way of eating?

For me calories are not so much a concern and fat is my friend, so I usually don't count because I eat the same types of food and the macros are etched in my brain
I usually consume about 1400 - 1600, which some would say is low, but I don't have much of an appetite. I know upping them will cause the scale to move, so I try to add healthy fats, but it can be a challenge at times.
Don't be afraid to up the cals and the fat, it's all about changing your way of thinking. It took me a while to come to terms with it, but I got it.

Yeah, I'm at around 50% for a few years and it's working well. Some people are up even into the 70s.

Hi and welcome! This is the best place to be.
(People in this group are some of the nicest I've found on this site.)

As a reformed low fat 1000 calorie a day dieter, I can say I enjoy eating.all.the.food. and being healthier.
Now I eat like 2100+ on days I workout hard then calm it down a little when I just walk my dog.

P.S. I don't know if you lift but that has been the ticket for me to get/keep the shape I want.

Nayners21 wrote: »

GrokRockStar- thank you for the info! I DO have a fear of eating more fat...so this is something I have to get used to. Fear that eating HEALTHY FAT will make me FAT. I am trying to stay around 1400 calories too.

Akimajuktuq- Thank you! I hope eating the HEALTHY FAT will do me wonders compared to what I think it will do. My entire day is usually around 50% fats (olive oil, almonds, eggs). Is 50% a normal thing while eating Paleo?

Thank you guys for the help!

Don't forget coconut oil, ghee, lard, and tallow! These are all healthy fats, too!

The only unquestionably bad fats are artificial trans fat (hydrogenated oils), with industrial seed oils a close second (seed oils are your typical vegetable oils, which aren't bad because of the fats in them, but because the process of getting those oils oxidizes the fragile polyunsaturated fats, turning them bad).

Polyunsaturated fats should be used sparingly and in non-heat conditions when alone. You can generally get sufficient polyunsaturated fats from whole foods, like nuts and oily fish, as well as the incidental amounts found in other sources of fat.

Monounsaturated (olive oil) and saturated (coconut oil) fats are arguably the best, though save the monounsaturateds for cold uses, so they better retain their beneficial properties. Saturated fats are great for cooking.

Keep in mind, too, that the so-called "saturated fat" sources (namely animal fat) aren't actually wholly saturated. In fact, they only contain about 50% saturated fats, with about 40% monounsaturated fats (which is, by the way, about the same ratio that human fat is). This is actually why animal fats are only semi-solid at room temperature -- the monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, while the saturated ones are solid, resulting in a semi-solid mixture. (The Lauric Acid in coconuts is unique in that its melting point is only 72F, which is very low compared to other saturated fatty acids.)

I highly recommend watching Dr. Peter Attia's talk on the history of the whole low-fat thing and how it's based entirely on politics as opposed to science.

If you are worried about cholesterol and other labs, I can tell you from direct experience that eating lower carb/Paleo/high fat had kept me in great numbers and a great ratio. My doc once told me I had the best ratio she had ever seen in practice. At my work biometric screening, the portable machines couldn't read my bad or good cholesterol because the good was too high and the bad too low. THEN I forayed into Gluten Free garbage, starch, fast food. I had a bit of an identity crisis. Within a month, my numbers suffered, fasting glucose rose, and I felt the effects. You CAN have perfect labs on a high fat diet, and I proved to myself that it was my diet that supports this.

GrokRockStar wrote: »

Chiming in from personal experience with cholesterol and eating lower carb Primal. My numbers are normal “although” I eat 2-3 eggs every day, high protein and high fat. When I was eating the SAD my bad cholesterol was off the charts!

I eat 3 to 4 eggs minimum a day sometimes more, eggs do not create issues with cholesterol, grains on the other hand...

Nayners21 wrote: »

homesweeths wrote: »

I lost weight with about 1400 calories a day when I started Paleo eating, but as I lost weight, MFP kept decreasing my calories, eventually down to 1200. (No problem, with paleo I am almost never hungry.) I plateaued. With advice of some here, I increased calories to a minimum of 1500 and started losing again.

I have gained some weight back, what with moving to a new house and getting in the habit of eating fast food while we didn't have a kitchen, and then holiday food. Am working at eating healthy again but not quite in the groove yet.

Yes, 60% fat is actually a good idea, at least I have found it so.

I feel that is why I have plateaued as well. I was eating at such a low calorie intake that my body is purposely hanging onto fat. I too have read that increasing calories slowly to get your metabolism up... then try to cut back again. I really enjoy being able to eat more fat. I prefer that over carbs. However, when you are doing weight training a decent amount of carbs should be consumed. This is where I am torn.

Awhile back people here discussed carb cycling. The concept helped me get past a plateau. It involves eating low carb (under 50g a day) most of the time, with one or two high carb days (but not two in a row, at least for me). I think the reason it worked for me was because my body got used to low carb eating, and one day a week of 100g of carbs sort of kicked it out of a rut.