How Many Grams Of Fat For A Low-fat Diet?

Low-fat diets can help reduce your risk of heart disease and may help you lose weight, according to Dr. David Caruso, a family practitioner in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. However, reducing your fat intake too far can cause you to experience other health problems. Optimum health requires you to learn how to calculate your fat needs and monitor your fat consumption.

Low-Fat Recommendations

The American Heart Association recommends limiting your total fat intake to less than 35 percent of your daily calories. However, you should further limit your saturated fat intake to less than 7 percent of your daily calories and your trans fat intake to less than 1 percent of your daily calories. The remaining 27 percent or less should come from polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Dr. Caruso explains that your body needs you to consume between 15 and 20 percent of your calories from fat to function properly.

Grams of Fat

To follow these recommendations, you need to understand how many grams of fat you can consume based on your calorie intake. A 2,000-calorie diet requires you to consume less than 70g of total fat each day, less than 16g of saturated fat per day and less than 2g of trans fat per day, according to the American Heart Association. However, a 1,600-calorie diet should only consist of 62g of total fat, 12g of saturated fat and 1.5g of trans fat. To know exactly how many grams of fat you should consume, you'll need to calculate it.

Fat Intake Calculation

Once you determine how many calories you consume in a day, you can determine how many grams of fat you should consume. Calculate maximum amount of fat grams you should consume by taking your caloric intake times 0.35, divided by 9. The 0.35 represents the percentage of calories recommended by the American Heart Association and the 9 represents the number of calories in each 1g of fat. To calculate your recommended saturated fat intake in grams, take your total number of calories times 0.07, divided by 9. Your recommended trans fat intake in grams equals your total caloric intake times 0.01, divided by 9.

Using Food Labels

You can use food labels to keep yourself on track. The nutrition label on foods tells you how many grams of each type of fat the food contains. By keeping track of the grams of fat in each food and adding them together at the end of the day, you can track the number of fat grams you ate during the day. Eating foods labeled "low-fat" or "fat-free" will also help you stay on track.

Food Choices

Meal planning to meet low-fat guidelines involves better food choices. Choose lean cuts of meat or skinless poultry in place of high-fat processed meats such as hot dogs, sausage or bacon. Replace some meat sources of protein with plant sources, such as soy foods and legumes. Fat-free broths eliminate fat grams added using fats or oils. Consume plenty of low-fat or fat free dairy, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and whole grains.