How much fat per day to lose weight? A Sensible guide for getting lean

So if you intend to have a lean body for life then you really need to start learning about the fat in your diet and knowing for example how many fat grams per day is recommended to lose weight and stay healthy.

Fat over the years as we know has been completely demonized and if like me you started training in the 80´s and 9o´s fat was to be avoided at all costs if you wanted to lose body fat. I followed this approach right up to about 6 years ago when I discovered that all fat wasn´t bad and in fact some fats where healthy and important to my body.

Note- I am not anti low fat diets as I know many people follow them with good results however I just don´t think that they are the most effective way to lose weight. Not only that but you lose out on the amazing health benefits that essential fats can give and the great taste they can add to your meals. In fact healthy fat sources such as olive oil, avocados and nuts have become some of my favorite things to eat. I could not imagine life without them now.

Why need a certain level of grams of fat per day

This knowledge has been a revelation not only to my health but in terms of getting lean. There is a huge amount of information about essential fatty acids and why we need them in our diet and if you want to know more here is a great article to get you started. Why you need Omega 3 Fats

To summarize we need good fats also known as essential fatty acids (note the word essential) or omega 3´s to help with such functions such as;

Improved joint health- very important if you are like me and getting to an age where your start to creak a little.

Better looking skin – I haven´t met a person yet that didn´t want their skin to look healthier.

Superior energy production – With so many of rushing around trying to fit everything having enough energy is vital and essential fats can help with this.

 More efficient Oxygen transfer – helps improve the level of oxygen that is transferred into our cells to keep them functioning and healthy.

If that wasn´t enough then they also assist to burn fat and build muscle, control blood sugar level and boost your metabolism. Yes essential fatty acids are really that good for you and if your don´t include them in your diet you need to seriously think about doing so. This is why I take this omega 3supplement -  Krill Oil

Ok so we know that good fats are vital but let us remember they are still a form of fat so overdoing them will result in stored fat in places that we don´t it.

So with that is mind here is my simple and practical plan that shows you how much fat per day to lose weight you need in your everyday diet.

Eliminate Trans fats completely – Trans fats are deadly for your waistline and deadly for your health. To remove them from your diet avoid any deep fried fast food, high fat products that have been baked and anything that has “partially hydrogenated” on the label.

Note – Please start taking time to read labels and actually find out what you are putting in your body. It astounds me that people will buy foods without even considering how much fat or sugar it contains then moan about why they are struggling to lose weight.

An even simpler way to do this is just avoid as much as possible anything that is from a package, tin or box because then you know exactly what you are eating.

Avoid most cooking oils found in supermarkets and switch to monosaturated types such as olive and coconut oil. Also when cooking or dressing salads using these oils be careful not to overdo them if you are trying to lose weight. Just those extra few glugs can take you over your daily calorie and fat limits and slow down your progress.

Use butter sparingly.- Although butter does less harm than a trans fat or processed oil it is still saturated fat and if you eat too much it will damage your fat loss efforts. Try to cut it down to an absolute minimum and if you must have it pick a low fat/light version.

So at the same time you are reducing all the bad fats in your diet you need to be replacing them with the good ones.

To do this start eating foods that are high in essential fatty acids. These include fish such as salmon, trout, mackerel and sardines plus other foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and natural peanut butter.

How many grams of fat per day  – The math for losing weight

Once you have changed the type of fats in your diet then it is all about finding the right level that you need to eat if you want to lose weight.

As I noted above I don´t think low or very low fat diets are the way forward when it comes to weight loss therefore I recommend that you don´t go below 10% of total daily calories coming from fat sources.

That said too much fat in your diet healthy or otherwise will stop you losing weight unless you are following a very strict low carbohydrate diet so if you’re not doing this then don´t go over 30% of total calories from fat.

Therefore I believe for effective fat loss then you need to be eating somewhere in the region of 15-20% of total calories from fat.

This means that for the average guy who should be consuming 2000 calories a day for steady fat loss the total grams of fat per day required is approx 33-44 grams

For the average woman who is eating about 1500 calories per day to lose body fat then the total grams of fat per day is approx 25-33 grams.

If you have to reduce your carb intake down to  low levels to lose weight then it may be ok for raise healthy fats to between 20-30%. Again these figures are only approximates and you should expect to experiment with what levels work for you.

Note – Important to remember is that you don´t want to be increasing fat levels of any types or when your carb consumption is high because this is a recipe for storing fat.

In summary

Do not be afraid of eating small amounts of healthy fats regularly because they will improve your health and help you lose fat more effectively.

Going zero fat or extremely low fat is not the way forward for weight loss but then again I don’t believe very high diets such as the Dukan diet are the answer as well. Both these diet approaches may work in the short term for a small number of people but for most of us they are hard to commit to on a long term basis and in the end are not particularly healthy for your body.

For that reason if you want to know the figure of how much fat per day to lose weight most people should follow then I would say 15% and 25% of total calories. If you manage to cut all the bad fats from your diet and replace them with good fats and keep your intake within this range then I am confident you will feel and look lot better.

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