Fat for Fuel

I’ve been really wondering about this! My wife just recently started a diet that’s really high in fat and it’s been working for her. But, I keep reading more and more sports enthusiasts putting butter in their coffee and increasing their fat content.

I’ve been using the “old-fashioned” 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per body weight, 20-25% fat, and get the rest of the daily needed calories from carbs. I’m just as curious as you are!

Short on time so I’m mostly gonna drop some links. I shared this in another thread about protein but it’s a good overview of sport nutrition, recommendations, and the science behind them:

Nutrition for the Athlete – 9.362

For a high intensity explosive sport like ultimate carbs are pretty essential for performance. There’s nothing *wrong* with fat but especially on high intensity training days or before competition carbs should be your primary source of fuel. I don’t have a link handy but I know a fair amount of research has been done around the keto diet and athletes and found that fat as a primary fuel source really only works maybe for endurance athletes like ultra-marathoners.

Fairly high protein intake (1g/lb bodyweight is a standard rule of thumb) is also recommended for athletes and especially anyone trying to gain fat or lose muscle. With high protein and carb intake that doesn’t leave a *ton* of calories for fat consumption.

Examine.com is just about the best resource for information on nutrition and supplements:
https://examine.com/supplements/MCTs/
https://examine.com/supplements/coconut-oil/

It looks like research suggests MCTs have a minor effect on metabolic rate for a short period of time. Saturated fats have definitely been unnecessarily demonized but coconut oil and MCTs *probably* aren’t miracle foods either.

To put some numbers on it, I weight about 220 lbs and on a really active training day might burn 4000 calories on the high end. So

( (220 lbs x 1g protein/lb = 220g protein) * 4kcal/g = 880 kcal ) / 4000 kcal = 22% calories from protein

~50% calories from carbohydrate plus 22% from protein leaves 28% for fat or at 9kcal/g about 128g. That’s roughly 9 tablespoons of olive oil.

128g is a pretty decent amount of fat but keep in mind 50% from carbs is usually a low end recommendation for athletes.

That’s all recommendations though. I usually find it hard to hit those kinds of carb numbers with the way I *prefer* to eat, which is more protein and vegetables with fat for flavor.