Heard an interesting talk on BBC Radio 4 the other day by Professor Graham McGregor, who has been a leading light in the fight to get food companies to reduce the amount of salt and sugar in their products. He said that salt, sugar and fat in our diets are killers, but in a 27 1/2 minute programme he devoted 20 minutes to salt, 7 to sugar and about 30 seconds to fat, simply saying it was a killer, with no mention of different types of fat.
That set me thinking; most foods that contain fat contain an element of saturated fat and an element of unsaturated. I found (forgotten where, possibly the AMA site) a recommendation that one should not exceed 13g of saturated fat a day. Over the last two months I have averaged 16g, but now that I have seen that recommendation I will try and reduce it.
The BSD looks to energy being obtained from fat and protein rather than carbs, but I can’t find any comment (may have missed it) as to how much fat is seen as reasonable – and presumably if one says X grams, there has to be balance struck between saturated and non-saturated. Any views, please?
Mike

Hi,
There is so much contradictory information about nutrition now. I think it is now a matter of following your own informed route now. What works for you and what sounds sensible? I have recently started this program as I got fed up of being overweight and wanted a quick result. I thought this could be really good if I combined it with a fully ketogenic diet. To that end I have been strict on the 80 Kcal/day and have been getting 60-70% of my calories from fat. I start the day with a large mug of bulletproof coffee (https://blog.bulletproof.com/). This keeps me going until my evening meal with very little in the way of hunger. I can honestly say I have not experienced any real hunger during the time I’ve been doing this (12 days so far). For my evening meal I’m having curry, tagine, salmon or pretty much anything with heaps of low carb veggies. I can stay in-limit easily and eat several hundred grams of these veggies – things like aubergine, courgette, cabbage, spinach.
If you want to see some awesome stuff on why fat is not the devil the mainstream medical community present it as then check out Aseem Malhotra, Steve Phinney, Jeff Volek, Dave Asprey (the Bulletproof guy) and Mark Sissons (marksdailyapple.com), to name a few. Their work is awesome. It might be controversial but there is a mass of evidence to support their views. You will see that they recommend plenty of salt (Volek and Phinney give lots of the science in their books/lectures), no sugar and whatever fat you want. They particularly recommend avocado, olive oil, good quality meat with as much fat as natural, oily fish, nuts etc. I now buy 20% fat beef mince, for example, and make sure to eat it. Malhotra and two highly eminent colleagues presented work a couple of days ago in which they demonstrate there is no link between saturated fat and heart disease.
For me, I started 12 days ago and have lost over a stone, already. I am a keen gym goer and have been training as hard as ever on the 800 cals so as not to lose muscle mass any more than needs be. Going ketogenic has made my breath very strongly smell of acetone – my wife says more like a chemical factory than a whiff of peardrops but not unpleasant. I also pee loads (please excuse that detail but it is important as you really need to keep drinking and replenish electrolytes on keto. In the transition phase I had headaches for a couple of days but they soon went and I now feel unbelievably good. You may have heard of brain fog and other ‘symptoms’ caused by high blood sugar – these vanished completely for me in a couple of days.
I’ve also signed up for Headspace mindfulness training and that has changed me in lots of ways too. I’m so chilled it has blown my kids’ minds.
As I said, the evidence presented is conflicting and I think you just need to go with what you trust and what works for you. The above regime has made a huge difference to me and I wanted to share with you some of the people who might help you to make sense of the other side of the argument.
Cheers
Steve

Steve
Many thanks for that
Mike