Eating Fat Won’t Make You Fat

Fat is the most misunderstood of the three macronutrients.

It seems people are programmed to believe that you should avoid it like the plague, or that you should shovel lumps of butter into your morning coffee, am I right?

Divisive, extreme opinions like this just cause confusion, so I’ve broken down all of the latest scientific evidence in this article to give you clear answers regarding what fat really is, what fat really does, and how much fat (if any?) should be in your daily diet.

Why Is There So Much Confusion About Fat?

The 1980s have a lot to answer for…

Not just the bad hairstyles and the crazy fashion choices, but also for the nutrition advice which was being handed out at the time.

This was the decade when obesity was climbing faster than ever before, and fat was labelled as the main culprit.

Heck, the National Dietary Guidelines even went as far as to call it “the root cause of heart disease and obesity.”

Ouch!

In the midst of this panic, food product manufacturers scrambled to remove fat from their labels and began offering “low fat” or “fat free” options for just about everything – but they were also desperate to retain the sweet “more-ish” taste which fat provides so instead they just added lots of sugar (!).

This inadvertently kick-started the sugar craze, which has only got worse in the decades that followed.

Even more complications arose when certain brands couldn’t replicate the taste of their product – even with more sugar – as this led to the re-introduction of trans fat. This is a man-made nutrient which was developed German chemist Wilhelm Normann in 1901. It has the same sweet taste as regular fat, and even contains the same amount of calories, but it doesn’t provide any of the other nutritional benefits.

Heck, it’s basically just pure lard.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, by the end of the 1980s our nation’s cupboards were stocked with foods which either consisted of a) pure sugar, or b) a combination of sugar and trans fat.

Of course, despite all of this hoopla, obesity statistics only got bigger!

That’s because the real culprit here was not fat, but rather poor lifestyle choices.

This was the decade which saw the popularization of fast food and junk TV. We were eating more and moving less than at any point in human history, and that’s where the issue really was.

It wasn’t until the mid-90s when fat received an apology-of-sorts, when several studies began confirming that overall calorie intake (and not the intake of individual macronutrients) is the deciding factor in weight loss and weight gain.

Fast-forward to 2015, and a comprehensive meta-analysis (a study which takes into consideration the entire body of research) from a group of Scottish scientists concluded that the original 1980 dietary recommendations were made “without sufficient evidence” and slammed their findings. (1)

Sadly, by this stage too much damage had been done, and many people remain unaware even today.

The Benefits Of Dietary Fat

More and more studies are now showing us that eating fat is fucking awesome.

Specifically, the Omega-3 fatty acids which are found in fish (and also frequently taken in supplement form) provide us with some insane benefits, including:

• 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, huh?!

The 4 Types Of Dietary Fat Explained

We can break fat down into four subcategories:

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

Those awesome Omega-3 fatty acids I mentioned earlier are classed as a polyunsaturated fat, by the way.

You should try to obtain your dietary fat via a combination of monounsaturated, polyunsturated, and saturated. This is how you will achieve the best results as they each offer unique benefits. For example, saturated fat suffered a beatdown in the 1980s due to poor research, but we now know it can help us maintain higher levels of testosterone and increase the production of IGF-1, which are both major players in determining how much lean muscle you’re able to build! (7)

Also, don’t worry about trying to strike “the perfect balance” between all three (honestly, it’ll drive you nuts), just focus on getting plenty of variety and hitting your overall target.

Finally, I recommend flat-out avoiding trans fat as it serves no nutritional purpose.

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?

No sooner do we get rid of the old BS myths about fat, and already people are taking it to the extreme.

I mean, fuck, every workplace nowadays seems to come equipped with a guy who wraps his food in bacon and gives all his meals unnecessarily macho names like “bulletproof coffee”, “protein bombs”, or “ballistic soup”.

Don’t copy him, because despite his smug sense of superiority, he hasn’t got a fucking clue what he’s talking about.

You see, there are no further performance-related benefits to be unlocked from going higher than the suggested fat intake of 0.4g/lb, but there are many more risks.

For example, a 2018 study found that diets which are very high in fat tend to spike LDL cholesterol by a whopping 44%. This is a key marker in cardiovascular disease, and what’s even crazier is that it only takes around three weeks to jump up this much! (10)

But did this ground-breaking research convince the crazy people to stop doing crazy things?

Nope.

So further research in 2021 re-confirmed those findings, and handed out this stark warning:

“The elevated LDL cholesterol caused by low carb / high fat diets should be a cause for serious concern for young, healthy, normal-weight adults.” (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).