Eating Fat Won’t Make You Fat

Fat is easily the most misunderstood macronutrient.

Heck, you can walk into any gym around the world and meet people who either believe you should avoid it like the plague, or people who believe you need start shovelling lumps of butter into your morning coffee.

I mean fuck, it’s no wonder people are confused!

So let’s use the latest scientific evidence to erase the nonsense and get clear on exactly a) what fat is, b) what it does, and c) how much of it should be in your daily diet.

Why Is There So Much Confusion About Fat?

Fat’s reputation is still suffering from the damage it received in the 1980s.

Worried by the steep rise in obesity, fat was (wrongly) blamed for most nation’s health problems, and the National Dietary Guidelines even went as far as to label it “the root cause of heart disease and obesity.”

This caused absolute mayhem.

Food manufacturers scrambled to reduce the amount of fat in their products, creating “low fat” and “fat free” versions of everything you could possibly imagine, but they were also desperate not to lose the sweet taste (which fat provides) so would simply replace it with sugar, inadvertently kick-starting the sugar craze which has only gotten worse since.

Further complications arose when manufacturers who were unable to replicate the taste of their products via sugar decided to re-introduce trans fat. This is a manmade version of fat developed by German chemist Wilhelm Normann in 1901. It has the same calorie content and taste as regular dietary fat, but offers none of its nutritional benefits (think lard).

Fucking dumbasses.

To cut a long story short, by the end of the 1980s the nation’s cupboards were stocked with foods which either consisted of sugar, or of a sugar/trans fat combo.

And despite all of this hoopla, obesity continued to rise!

The real culprit behind the 1980s’ obesity crisis was poor lifestyle choices.

Regardless of whether people were earing foods which contained fat or not, the fact is we were eating more food than ever before. To make it worse, these foods were calorie dense and in some cases quite addictive (a decade which saw the popularization of fast food and junk food) causing us to over-eat, and people were also being lazier fuckers than ever before.

We had to wait until the mid-90s for nutritional research to confirm that overall calorie intake (and not fat intake) was the deciding factor in weight loss/gain, but sadly the damage had already been done to fat’s reputation.

You see, such was the extreme level of publicity it had received during the early 1980s, most people never got the memo and still believe the old “eating fat will make you fat” stuff.

Fast-forward to 2015, and fat received a long overdue apology when a detailed meta-analysis (which looked at the entire body of research on this topic) from Scottish researchers slammed the original 1980 dietary recommendations and claimed that “they were made without sufficient evidence.” (1)

The Benefits Of Dietary Fat

More and more studies have shown us that eating fat is fucking awesome.

Specifically, the Omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish and also used in supplemental form) have some crazy plus points:

• Better muscle retention
• Better memory
• Better mood
• Delaying the physical signs of aging
• Lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)
• Improve the anabolic response to insulin (= more muscle growth!)
• A small increase to net calorie burn for greater fat loss (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

We don’t want to miss out on any of those.

The 4 Types Of Dietary Fat Explained

We can break fat down into four subcategories:

1. Monounsaturated
2. Polyunsaturated
3. Saturated
4. Trans

Now, the awesome Omega-3 fatty acids I mentioned earlier are classed as a polyunsaturated fat, but that doesn’t mean you need to focus entirely on that.

You see, just like fat itself suffered from an unjust bashing in the 1980s, one particular type of fat (saturated) took the brunt of the beating. New research shows that there’s no reason to cut it out of your diet at all; in fact, athletes who are consuming a balance of saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fat are able to maintain higher levels of free testosterone and production of IGF-1 (both of these are key markers in how much muscle you can build). (7)

Don’t worry too much about trying to strike a perfect balance between the three, instead just focus on getting plenty of variety in your daily diet and hitting your overall fat target.

The only form of fat which I recommend avoiding entirely is trans fat, for reasons discussed earlier.

So How Much Fat Should You Eat Per Day?

I recommend setting your fat at 0.4 grams per pound of body weight.

With that in mind, a 180lb guy would shoot for about 72 grams of fat each day.

This target is sufficient enough to unlock all of the health/training benefits discussed above, but also small enough so that it can fit into your daily diet without taking a huge chunk out of your calorie intake (e.g. 72g fat is 648 calories, so if our guy is eating 2200 calories per day he still has over 1500 left to spend of protein and carbohydrates).

While you can increase your target higher if you wish, there doesn’t appear to be any additional performance benefits to doing so. (8, 9)

The Worrying Trend Of High Fat Diets

Why do people have to ruin every-fucking-thing?

Seriously, we just get rid of the old myths about fat, and already silly people are going in the complete opposite direction and eating nothing but fat!

It seems every workplace has a guy who wraps his food in bacon and gives all his meals unnecessarily macho names like protein bombs, bulletproof coffee, and ballistic fucking soup!

Don’t copy “that guy”, because he hasn’t got a fucking clue what he’s talking about. You see, while there are no additional performance-related benefits from going higher than the suggested 0.4g/lb, there are certainly more health risks!

For example, a 2018 study found that high fat diets can spike LDL cholesterol (a signpost for cardiovascular risk factors) by as much as 44%, and what’s even crazier is that participants saw this increase in just 3 weeks! (10)

A 2021 study then re-confirmed this:

“The elevated LDL cholesterol should be a cause for concern in any young, healthy, normal-weight women who follow a low carb, high fat diet.” (11)

A List Of The Best Sources Of Dietary Fat

Now that you’ve set your targets, you’re good to go!

If you’ve followed my nutrition plans before, you’ve probably heard me refer to fat as a secondary macronutrient. By that, I mean you can go a long way to reaching your daily target just by focusing on hitting your protein target (because many protein-based foods are also high in fat, like beef).

However, here’s a handy list to help you do the rest.

Nuts/seeds	Fat (per 100g)
Macadamia nuts	75g
Brazil nuts	66g
Walnuts	65g
Hazelnuts	61g
Almond butter	59g
Almonds	50g
Mixed nuts	50g
Cashews	43g
Flax seed	42g

Legumes	Fat (per 100g)
Peanut butter	50g
Peanuts	49g
Soy beans (cooked)	9g
Hummus	8g
Tofu	5g
Edamame beans	5g

Dairy	Fat (per 100g)
Cheddar cheese	33g
Eggs	11g
Greek yogurt	10g
Ricotta cheese	10g
Cottage cheese	4g
Whole milk	4g

Fruit	Fat (per 100g)
Avocado	15g

Fish/sea food	Fat (per 100g)
Eel	15g
Mackerel	14g
Salmon	12g
Arctic char	12g
Sardines	12g
Crab cake	8g

Meat	Fat (per 100g)
Lean ground beef	17g
Filet mignon	17g
Pork chops	14g
Beef tenderloin	8g
Cured ham	8g

Poultry	Fat (per 100g)
Turkey breast	17g
Lean ground turkey	8g

Further Reading:

If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.

>> The Rules To Ripped
>> Russ’ Guide To Supplements
>> Workout Programs Now Available On RussHowePTI.com!

References:

1. Harcombe Z., et al. Evidence from randomised controlled trials did not support the introduction of dietary fat guidelines in 1977 and 1983: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Open Heart (2015).
2. Smith G. I., et al.Dietary omega-3 fatty acid supplementation increases the rate of muscle protein synthesis in older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr (2011).
3. Smith G. I., et al. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids augment the muscle protein anabolic response to hyperinsulinaemia–hyperaminoacidaemia in healthy young and middle-aged men and women. Clin Sci (2011).
4. de Barros T. T, et al. DNA damage is inversely associated to blood levels of DHA and EPA fatty acids in Brazilian children and adolescents. Food Funct (2020).
5. Yu Y-H., et al. The function of porcine PPARγ and dietary fish oil effect on the expression of lipid and glucose metabolism related genes. J Nutr Biochem (2011).
6. Muldoon M. F., et al. Serum phospholipid docosahexaenonic acid is associated with cognitive functioning during middle adulthood. J Nutr (2010).
7. Mínguez-Alarcón L., et al. Fatty acid intake in relation to reproductive hormones and testicular volume among young healthy men. Adian J Andol (2017).
8. Heald A., et al. The influence of dietary intake on the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system across three ethnic groups: a population-based study. Public Health Nutr (2003).
9. Whittaker J., et al. Low-fat diets and testosterone in men: Systematic review and meta-analysis of intervention studies. The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2021).
10. Retterstol K., et al. Effect of low carbohydrate high fat diet on LDL cholesterol and gene expression in normal-weight, young adults: A randomized controlled study. Atherosclerosis (2018).
11. Buren J., et al. A Ketogenic Low-Carbohydrate High-Fat Diet Increases LDL Cholesterol in Healthy, Young, Normal-Weight Women: A Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial. Nutrients (2021).