What is a Low Fat Diet?

Although your body needs a certain amount of dietary fat for energy, nutrient absorption and organ protection, eating excessive amounts of unhealthy fats may raise your risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and stroke, according to the American Heart Association. Following a low-fat diet can help reduce these risks, assist you with weight management and teach you to make a positive, permanent lifestyle changes.

Identification

A low-fat diet does not eliminate all fats from your diet, but instead reduces the percentage of calories you eat from fat to about 20 percent, according to the Mayo Clinic. When following a low-fat diet, look for a diet that recommends portion control, eating a wide variety of foods and monitoring caloric intake. An example of a very low-fat diet is the Ornish diet, which advocates eating about 10 percent of your calories from fat. If you eat 2,000 calories per day, eat a maximum of 400 calories from fat, or about 44 g of fat to stay within 20 percent, or 22.2 g of fat to stay at a 10 percent fat consumption level.

Benefits

Eating a low-fat diet may help you reduce your caloric consumption, as fats have more than twice the calories per gram as carbohydrates or proteins. If you need to lose weight, eating fewer calories by reducing your fat intake may help you lose needed pounds. Additionally, according to the "Simplified Diet Manual," you can use a low-fat diet to help reduce cholesterol levels and as a means to control the amount of fat intake if you suffer from gallbladder or liver diseases.

Foods to Eat

On a low-fat diet, focus on low-fat food choices. Use the food pyramid as a guide to healthy eating, but select the lower-fat options of natural foods that contain fats. Extra-lean ground beef has about 16 percent percent of its calories from fat, removing the skin from poultry makes the poultry low in fat and fat and low-fat or fat-free dairy greatly reduces the amount of fat over full-fat dairy. Many grains are fat-free or low in fat, as are beans. Fruits and vegetables, which are naturally low in fat, are wise choices. When using small amounts of oil, choose olive over butter to take advantage of the heart-healthy benefits of olive oil.

Strategies

Planning how to monitor your fat intake will help you stay within your targeted fat intake. Two options are either analyzing the nutrition label of each food you eat to determine whether the fat percentage of the particular food is less than your acceptable fat intake, or tracking your calorie and fat intake for the entire day to ensure your overall fat intake for the day falls under your target. The second method allows you to eat an occasional dessert or include healthy nuts or oils into your diet and still follow a low-fat diet. Avoid foods that have high concentrations of fat, such as many fast foods, creamy dressings, lard, fried meats and full-fat cheeses.