How much fat do I need to eat?

[Elizellen]

Originally Posted by Elsie150

Make sure you get your vegies in...consider it a MUST. Minimum 8 cups a day...more is better.

I agree with Elsie - get the veggies in!!
But I assume the '8 cups' was a typo - induction amounts are 3 cups!

[Sveltesse]

Thank you so much everyone that has replied to me, I really appreciate it. x

[ZOESMOM]

oh goodness this has totally confused me. i thought i was watching my carb and sugar intake, i'm supposed to be watching my fat intake also? my meals have been consisting mainly of meat, poultry, seafood and some pork. i have a salad daily with cheese, jalapenos and blue cheese dressing. am i in trouble? i'm still new at this so forgive me if my question is senseless. i'm on day 9 of induction.

[not2late]

Originally Posted by ZOESMOM

oh goodness this has totally confused me. i thought i was watching my carb and sugar intake, i'm supposed to be watching my fat intake also? my meals have been consisting mainly of meat, poultry, seafood and some pork. i have a salad daily with cheese, jalapenos and blue cheese dressing. am i in trouble? i'm still new at this so forgive me if my question is senseless. i'm on day 9 of induction.

All animal proteins have fat. The "leaner" cuts contain less fat than the non lean cuts, but they still contain fat. The fat in the animal proteins count towards the daily fat count. As does the fat in the cheese, butter/oil, dressings, egg yolks and other fat containing foods.

You really don't need to add "alot" of fat to your diet because even 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise will alter your fat intake considerably. There are 2 general problems Newbies run into concerning fat: either they are trying to do a "low fat" version of Atkins or they overdo the fat considerably.

You might want to open a free account at fitday.com to track your food intake.

Also, you should be eating more than a salad of vegetables. You are to eat 3 cups of veggies total for the day. And you really should spread those veggies throughout the day.

[Elsie150]

LOL! Yep....8 cups was a typo!!! It should be 3 cups.

ZOESMOM...during induction you really don't have to worry much. Eat until you are satisfied. By the look of your menu you aren't too far out of line anyway. But you should be having another salad and another cup of vegies. Eat them...they will help to bring your fat % down after induction as you are climbing the rungs. Do use www.fitday.com as it is a very helpful tool!!

[loriv19]

Originally Posted by not2late

During Atkins Induction, we receive 65% of our total daily calories from fat, 30% from protein and 5% from carbs.

sourcegramscals%total
Total: 1596
Fat:123 1110 70%
Sat:68 615 39%
Poly:6 54 3%
Mono:40 356 22%
Carbs:20 72 5%
Fiber:2 0 0%
Protein:100 401 25%
Alcohol:0 0 0

This is my caloric breakdown for yesterday, Nov. 7...

For the past week...

sourcegramscals%total
Total: 2445
Fat:213 1916 78%
Sat:112 1007 41%
Poly:16 141 6%
Mono:71 643 26%
Carbs:21 78 3%
Fiber:1 0 0%
Protein:112 448 18%
Alcohol:0 0 0%

I've been trying to keep my calories down and really only started monitoring them yesterday.

Anyones, input would be greatly appreacated.

[HeathrowinjectionVictim]

Hey Loriv,

I would also like to know the exact situation with calories.. while i know we dont need to count them with all the cheese and mayo i am frequently around 1500 a day and im getting a bit concerned... i normally like to keep it down to 1100...

If anyone can explain how to work out the calorie intake please let me know!!!!

[not2late]

Originally Posted by loriv19

sourcegramscals%total
Total: 1596
Fat:123 1110 70%
Sat:68 615 39%
Poly:6 54 3%
Mono:40 356 22%
Carbs:20 72 5%
Fiber:2 0 0%
Protein:100 401 25%
Alcohol:0 0 0

This is my caloric breakdown for yesterday, Nov. 7...

For the past week...

sourcegramscals%total
Total: 2445
Fat:213 1916 78%
Sat:112 1007 41%
Poly:16 141 6%
Mono:71 643 26%
Carbs:21 78 3%
Fiber:1 0 0%
Protein:112 448 18%
Alcohol:0 0 0%

I've been trying to keep my calories down and really only started monitoring them yesterday.

Anyones, input would be greatly appreacated.

If you are adding fat to your food (salad dressing, mayonnaise, butter, etc.) remove 1 or 2 tablespoons of that fat and you'll see a big difference the percentages. You can easily do that on fitday. Just play around with the numbers, like I did with the examples I gave in this thread. Remember, 1 tablespoon of butter or oil is about 100 calories. So, play around with fitday, and you'll see you don't need to "drown" your food in butter or fat to make that 65%. 1 whole egg has a ratio close to 65/30/5. So adding butter or mayo to that egg is really more for taste rather than getting in fat.

At this point you really don't need to "monitor" calories. Once ketosis kicks in, your appetite will naturally decrease and you will be satisfied with your meals with less food overall. Dr. Atkins hoped that with the appetite suppression of ketosis, we would re-learn our appetite cues. If you watch a newborn baby eat, he will only drink the amount of milk/formula he needs. As he grows older and learns outside influences (within weeks), he will drink the amount of formule his Mother thinks is satisfying for him. So if you un-learn all of your bad eating habits and re-learn your natural cues, you won't need to count calories because you will only eat the amount of food your body requires, not the amount of food your brain thinks you need.

[not2late]

Originally Posted by HeathrowinjectionVictim

Hey Loriv,

I would also like to know the exact situation with calories.. while i know we dont need to count them with all the cheese and mayo i am frequently around 1500 a day and im getting a bit concerned... i normally like to keep it down to 1100...

If anyone can explain how to work out the calorie intake please let me know!!!!

First off, cheese is limited to 3 to 4 ounces daily during Induction, that's not really "alot". Depending on the cheese, that's about 300-400 calories.

You don't need to "drown" your food in mayo or butter or oil, especially if you are eating the fatter cuts of meat. If you are eating the leaner meats, like chicken breast or fish, you'll need to add fat to your diet. But it's not "alot" or fat. Again, if you have a fitday.com account, play around with the numbers and you'll see that 1 teaspoon of butter or olive oil will change the percentages greatly.

[segamartinez]

I'm not sure I agree with the whole philosophy of getting a specific percentage of fat in every meal, or a particular meal, that you eat. The USDA or the typical low-fat diet makes this same claim about getting a certain percentage of calories from fat, except they're telling people to shoot for 30%.

And I thought this was a big reason why the percentage of calories from fat argument was flawed.

Consider an example of a food that is 120 calories and lists 6 grams of fat.

Let's say that the food is a granola bar. 45% of your calories are coming as fat in that snack scenario. Not good for the food pyramid folks.

Stick that bar on a plate and add a baked potato to your meal.

Now you have a meal that contains:

280 calories
6.2g fat

Now that meal has 20% of its calories coming from fat. Does adding a baked potato really make me healthier?

John Yudkin brought this up. Imagine a plate with steak, salad and potatoes. And maybe the meal's 40% fat. Now, remove the potatoes, now you have a meal that's 60-75% fat.

So are people saying that if you remove the carbohydrates you're going to create heart disease? All you've done is say "don't eat the potatoes," your meal has gone from something that is relatively copacetic as far as the health community is concerned to a high fat diet by virtue of omission.

So is a potato an anti-heart attack drug? Add the potato and you'll lower the fat content in a meal and therefore make it healthier?

Gary Taubes (a writer for Science) brought this up when I spoke with him a little while back and pointed out that these are the kinds of things that in another science would say 'ergo, there's something wrong with this whole philosophy (of calories from fat).'

I think you can say the same thing about adding a tablespoon of mayo or olive oil to a meal to make the percentages look more appealing.

During induction, it would seem to me that the goal on the Atkins diet is to keep carbohydrate consumption down to a level where the body will start using ketones for energy. That seemed to be the bottom line for Dr. Atkins, at least for induction. Also, the diet is about controlling insulin, so the less carbohydrates you eat, the better you can control or keep insulin levels down. Further, fat consumption will not affect insulin levels and protein can affect insulin (relatively minimally) so I would believe Atkins would not be hung up on percent of fat in a given meal, but would encourage people to eat fat without inhibition - and if someone was getting 75% of their calories from fat (and not 65%) it wouldn't be a critical concern to him. As long as people are getting the requisite amount of protein to be in nitrogen balance, they should be fine, no?

I've read the DANDR book, but I know I'm not as knowledgeable about the intricacies of the diet so I may be off-base, but I think the Atkins diet is probably the best to follow in terms of overall health (mostly because of the fact that the diet keeps insulin down and does not allow for a significant consumption of carbohydrates, most notably refined carbohydrates).