How much fat do I need to eat?

[not2late]

Hi everyone. I'm getting a bit concerned about how much fat everyone thinks we need to eat.

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

All animal protein contains fat. That fat is figured into the 65% fat calories for the day. "Lean" meats contain fat. Per fitday.com, 3 ounces of a broiled, boneless, skinless chicken breast contains 2.97 grams of fat.

Here's a example of a meal of chicken breast and 1 cup of green beans with a tablespoon of butter.

4 oz broiled boneless skinless chicken breast: fat grams = 3.97 grams, calories from fat = 35.6
1 cup green beans: fat grams = 0.132 grams, calories from fat =1.19
1 tablespoon butter: fat grams = 11.52 grams, calories from fat = 1.03

For this meal, fat makes up 45% of the total calories.

2 tablespoons of mayo has 21.9 grams of fat, and 197 calories from fat.

If you add 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to this meal, the fat calories are up to 67%. In fact, the fat/protein/carb ratio for this meal is 67/29/4 which is pretty close to the 65/30/5 ratio.

How much is 2 tablespoons? It's not a large quantity at all. If you use standard cooking measures, 2 tablespoons is roughly the size of 2 tea bags. Many of us don't measure properly to begin with and probably stick a spoon in a jar and scoop out a "heaping" tablespoon. A "heaping" spoon is usually estimated as twice the spoon size. In other words, a heaping teaspoon is about 2 properly measured teaspoons and a heaping tablespoon is about 2 properly measured tablespoons.

You don't need to "drown" your food in mayonnaise, olive oil or butter to do Atkins properly---especially if you eat higher fat proteins.

Let's look at this meal of 4 ounces broiled skinless chicken thighs and 1 cup of green beans with 1 tablespoon butter.

4 ounces broiled skinless chicken thighs: fat = 12 grams, calories from fat = 135
1 cup green beans: fat grams = 0.132 grams, calories from fat =1.19
1 tablespoon butter: fat grams = 11.52 grams, calories from fat = 1.03

For this meal, the fat makes up about 60% of the total calories. In other words, you don't need to add anymore fat to this meal. And if you wanted to anyway, you wouldn't need to add 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, oil or butter.

I hope this helps everyone get a better idea of the amount of fat you need to add to any particular meal.

By the way, the ratios are for the daily total calories. So you don't have to make the ratios for every meal/snack you eat.