Hi all,

How do you guys reach your designated fat intake each day?  I've been on Alli for 4 days now and am already having a problem getting my fat in.  I was thinking about switching back to 2% milk and drinking it with my meals.  What do you all think? 

Heck I never gave up 2% milk !!  Don't think because you're on a low-fat eating plan that you have to give up ALL fat .. this is the one plan where you need that fat to help you lose (strange, huh?)

Have some peanut butter, a few nuts, cheese, it's just a relearning of how to eat :)

MrsBuckeye:

Heck I never gave up 2% milk !!  Don't think because you're on a low-fat eating plan that you have to give up ALL fat .. this is the one plan where you need that fat to help you lose (strange, huh?)

Have some peanut butter, a few nuts, cheese, it's just a relearning of how to eat :)

 

 Thanks.... I will try that....Loosing hope, I did not meet my fat grams last week so I messed up all weekend.  I have to do this.....

 This was such a big problem for me. I find adding cheese to my sandwiches is great and also the little cheese wedges in the red wax are yummy. If butter is what I want them I eat the I cant belive its not butter light. And the old standby is peanut butter. One good thing about peanut butter is that it keeps me full for a long time. Hope this helps!

Good luck,

Erica

 I haven't exactly been successful in this area myself, but eating pb, cheese, almonds, and occasionally tiny amounts of chocolate helps me meet my fat gram target. 

I have also found that pb seems to keep me full for a long time.  My big insight for pb is that I can have just half of the serving for 8 grams of fat instead of a full serving for 16 grams.  So I have it on one piece of toast, not two, and I have jam on the other. 

I keep cream cheese in the house to keep my fat grams up.  It's cheap, and has 100 calories with 10 grams of fat per ounce.  I've heard of others using olives, too.  Tampabayb

Hi Everyone,

This can take some time to get used to consuming enough fat to reach your goals. Most people find that they need to cut back on their carbohydrate intake in order to make room for the fat. The balanced diet is key to health and weight maintenance so it's worth the effort.

Here are some tips on healthy sources of fat:

Flaxseeds: 1 Tbsp has 37 calories and 3 grams of fat - you can sprinkle this on your salad, yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, and rice.

English Walnut halves: 14 halves (1 oz) has 185 calories and 18.5 grams of fat- you can have them on the side with your meal or add them to your food (salad, yogurt, cereals)

Almonds: 23 whole kernels (1 oz) have 164 calories and 14.4 grams of fat - you can have them on the side with your meal or add them to your food (salad, yogurt, cereals)

Avocado: ½ cup sliced has 117 calories and 10.7 grams of fat - you can use this in place of mayonnaise on sandwiches or add it to your salad. Here are more ideas http://www.avocado.org/.

Salmon: 3 oz has 175 calories and 10.5 grams of fat

Black Olives: 1 oz black olives has 66 calories and 5.7 grams of fat

Green Olives: 1 oz green olives has 41 calories and 4.4 grams of fat

Mackerel: 3 oz has 223 calories and 15.1 grams of fat

The nutrition information is from Calorie King.

Keep up the great work,

Betty Kovacs, MS, RD

OK, I'm totally confused. I thought that you take Alli if you are going to eat something that has more than 15 grams of fat. If you are eating a very low fat meal, you don't take it for that meal. I've been on Alli for 2.5 days and there was only one meal where I didn't take the pill. I'm sure some of my other meals were less than 15 grams but I took it anyway just to be safe. But, are you guys saying that you HAVE to have a certain number of fat grams in order to loose weight on Alli? I thought the whole point was to eat a low fat diet and Alli helps you 1) control the urge to eat high-fat foods (because you don't want the TE) and 2) helps digest the fat when you do eat a little too much fat.

So, what's all this talk about forcing you to eat enough fat? Can someone explain?

Carol

You need to read the online literature explaining why you need to reach your fat grams, or you won't lose weight.  Tampabayb

HI Carol,

I realize that this can be confusing. You actually do need to consume the recommended amount of fat at each meal for optimal results. Here is a post that I wrote that will explain this in detail http://community.myalli.com/forums/t/15130.aspx.

Take a look at that and let me know if you have any questions,

Betty Kovacs, MS, RD

Well, I did find that explanation but nowhere could I find how to calculate the percentage of fats, etc. that were in your diet. I did some research on the internet and now see how to calculate it (I think).

Carb grams x 4 = carb calories

Protein grams x 4 = protein calories

Fat grams x 8 = fat calories

You then add up all three calories and divide by each category to get the percentages. Jeeezzzzz. You need a math degree to be on this diet! I've had success in the past with simply counting calories but now adding the percentages in seems unmanageable.

It would have been nice if there was an explanation as to how to calculate your percentages. Maybe I just missed it. I wonder if there is an easy way to guesstimate. I just don't see how you all are able to calculate all this for all your meals. Are you all literally adding up every carb, fat, etc. and doing the math?

I’m sure Betty will be along shortly, but the what I do is much simpler and I haven’t had any trouble with it at all. 

The only things I keep track of are my calories and fat grams.  I use the calorie and fat targets that I got when I first signed up.  If I meet those totals, the percentages are right.  I write down everything I eat and the only numbers I watch are the daily totals and the fat grams at every meal.  If a meal is less than 5 grams (not 15), I don’t take a pill and I am careful not to go over 20 because TEs are a danger if you go over that in one meal.  So I usually don’t go over 18 just to be safe. 

I total up every day.  I also have been calculating my weekly averages because that seems to help me stay on track.  I do eat a very balanced diet with lots of fruit and veggies and small servings of lean meat, so I haven’t been concerned with the exact breakdown of carbs and proteins.  If you want, you can use the nutrition log on this site, but I haven’t because it seems less convenient to me, though others seem to like it. 

I hope that helps.  I have never counted calories before, but this has been quite manageable.  I will probably need a year to lose weight I want to lose, but I feel this is something that I can do for a year.  Good luck!

Caroline -

That does make it easier. I don't know where I read that you should take Alli if you are eating more than 15 g of fat. That just didn't make sense considering most (if not all) of your meals should not include over 15 grams.

I've been on this for a week and a half and haven't lost any weight. I'll try being better about writing everything down and just worrying about fat and calories.

Thanks.

Carol

Glad to help.  Alli is a high-info diet, I think so it can take a while to see results.  Hang in there and give it a chance to work.   My loss has been slow but steady and I had a few kinks to work out, but I am defintiely here for the long haul.

Caroline