How Much Fat Should I Eat? (edited for correctness) 4

This post has been a long time coming. This is a living document so please send your commentary. I already had to change the spreadsheet thanks to some very important feedback from Erin which reduced the fat and caloric content of the meals. I also added a sample menu based on values from either food I had in my kitchen or got values from the USDA Nutritional Database. Here are the notes from the spreadsheet:

• The purpose of this spreadsheet is to give a person who is new to the Paleo way of eating a general idea of how much of each macronutrient to eat. You will probably have to tweek these according to your own personal situation. I used calories because I thought it was more clear than saying “eat this much protein, this much carbs and the rest in fat.” To be clear, fat loss with this way of eating is NOT dependent on counting calories, in addition, eating less calories than necessary, could lead to reduced fat loss, yes, eating less calories can, in some cases, reduce your fat loss or make it difficult to sustain fat loss.
• Tweeking means changing either the protein (some recommendations are as low as 66% of BW) and/or fat ratios. Obviously, if your carbs are all from sugar instead of vegetables, you will be less successful. Increasing carbs will very likely lead to a reduction in fat loss, or worse, fat gain. I cannot over-emphasize how important compliance is. In particular, carbs absolutely cannot come from grains or grain-based foods. Each exposure to grains can set you back as much as two weeks, forcing you to essentially start over.
• For more information about what exactly to eat, please visit http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/
• I got the formula for total calories from Robb Wolf’s Nutrition Seminar. I use 11 cal/pound of BW to find total calories (he says 12 is ok too, but start at 11). He recommends less than 30 g carbs for women and less than 50 g carbs for men per day. The formula I used looks like this for a woman who weighs 130 lbs: (130 lbs*11) – ((130g protein + 30 carbs) * 4 calories per g of carb and protein) = 790 calories / 9 calories per gram of fat = 88 grams of fat. I am almost certain that everyone will have to tweek a little. You will be able to tell if you are eating too much, if you don’t look, perform and feel better. If you are like me and you forget to eat or don’t eat enough, you may find yourself with one or more of the following symptoms: Cold all the time, uptight and cranky, unfocused or spaced out, preoccupied with food, craving sweets, hungry, reduced energy, reduced libido (that’s what the book says, I’m just repeating :-)). To address the previous issues, add more fat first, then more meat, if necessary, carbs always stay the same for the fat loss phase.
• Macro Nutrients percentages do not equal 100% and it is not necessary that they do because they serve only as guidelines.
• These macronutrient ratios are meant for fat loss not necessarily maintenance. You should plan on eating like this for 3 months and then reassess. It is common that when you clean up your diet, your digestion becomes more efficient and you will need less protein.
• I have created this with information gained from Robb Wolf’s Nutrition Seminar, reading several books and websites; however, if you don’t lose fat as expected the most likely error is my faulty interpretation of the information not the information itself.
• You should expect to lose a few pounds the first week and settle down to 1 or 2 lbs per week. If you don’t, we need to start food logging. No one wants that, so just do the right thing.
• Finally, it takes from 2 – 4 weeks to teach your body to burn fat instead of carbs. Your workouts, especially the short intense variety, will almost always suffer during this time. However, after that they should get markedly better.

Here is a sample menu:

A woman who weighs 140 should eat about 100 grams of fat per day and 1 gram of protein/lb of BW for a 1540 cal/day diet. I would start here and tinker with fat, then protein (if necessary) if you aren’t losing the fat you want to.

The majority of the fat will probably come from the 20 ounces of protein you’ll eat per day. For instance, both a 6 oz hamburger and 3 eggs have about 25 grams of fat. Butter, coconut and olive oil all have about 12 grams of fat per tablespoon. In addition, avocados are about 20 – 25 grams and 2 tablespoons of almond butter is about 20 – 25 g (my tablespoons are big).

Breakfast: 3 eggs (22g fat/20g protein), veggies and 3 oz 85% lean ground meat (12g/ 20g protein) and 1/2 grapefruit – about 35 g fat and 40 g protein. Cook in butter if you need more calories.

Lunch: Salad with roasted chicken leg, with skin, 6 oz (23g fat/44g protein) and 2 TBS olive oil and lemon (24g) – about 50 g fat and 44 g protein. Add some chopped up pecans or avocado if you need more calories.

Snack: 2 oz Sliced Turkey and 1/2 apple – about 2 g fat and 10 g protein. More turkey or salami or better yet steak or hamburger from the night before is never a bad idea.

Dinner – 6 oz Costco Sockeye Salmon (15g fat/ 36g protein), steamed veggies and 1 TBS butter (12g fat). – about 30 g fat/ 36 g protein. More butter or maybe lay a piece of bacon or two over the salmon while cooking if you need more calories.

That is about 110 g fat and 130g protein with about 90 extra fat calories putting you all the way up to a whopping 1630 calories. Start there and adjust as necessary.

spreadsheet
PDF of spreadsheet
USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference