Fat Intake Calculator

1. How to use the fat intake calculator?
2. How much fats do you need?
3. Fat in common diets
4. Fat intake in exercise diets
5. Weight loss by reducing fats in the diet
6. Foods with high fat content
7. What are fats?

* 1 Calorie equals 1 kcal which equals 1,000 calories.

    How to use the fat intake calculator?

This fat intake calculator estimates your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) and based on it calculates how much fat you need to consume in ounces or grams, and their calorie equivalent, depending on your preferred percentage of fats in your total calorie intake.

To calculate your calorie needs, we need to provide your age, gender, height, weight and level of physical activity. The final piece of information needed is the percentage of total calories that you want to derive from fats. For reference, you can check a list of fats in common diets below. The calculator will display the amount (in ounces or grams) and caloric equivalent of the fats you need to eat per day. You can then structure your daily diet using this information.

    How much fats do you need?

Moderate consumption of fats is recommended to achieve good health. Too high or too low percentage of lipids in the diet have adverse health effects. Most health professionals recommend that fats constitute at most 30% of your diet ^[1][5], of which no less than 70% should be unsaturated fat. That is the so-called optimal fat intake. Note that our fat intake calculator makes no recommendation on the macro balance of your diet - it simply tells you how many calories you need to eat to maintain weight, increase or decrease it, accordingly.

Several polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially linoleic acid (in cooking oil and salad oil), are an essential nutrient as they are precursors of essential fatty acids (an omega-6 fatty acid that the body itself cannot produce). Fish and different oils are a great source.

Cholesterol

The 2026 American Heart Association & American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) guideline update announcement states ^[3]: "In general, lower LDL is better, especially for people at increased risk for a heart attack or stroke" and also "It is estimated 1 in 4 U.S. adults has high levels of low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), which increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.".

However, the AHA & ACC also concluded there isn’t scientific evidence to show limiting dietary cholesterol would reduce the artery-clogging LDL cholesterol in the blood. This is supported by the literature, for example Soliman (2018) ^[4] who also notes that from 2015 onward the AHA/ACC guidelines do not include a recommendations to limit fat intake: "As a result, the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans removed the recommendations of restricting dietary cholesterol to 300 mg/day.".

    Fat in common diets

Our fat calculator allows you to specify any percentage of fat from your total daily calories. Here are some references from popular diets to serve as reference points.

Fats in common diets

Diet	Fats
High Carb	15%
DASH Diet	18%
Moderate Diet	25-30%
Zone Diet	30%
Low Carb	30%
Keto Diet	75%

The values are from Table 1, "Comparison of diet programs and eating plans with the typical American diet" from Bray & Siri-Tarino (2016) ^[2].

    Fat intake in exercise diets

Fats are also essential to an exercise diet, as they contribute to the energy required during physical exertion. This happens from the fat storage sites and also in the form of free fatty acids (FFA) bound to blood albumin that are delivered to the muscles. Some fats are stored in the muscles themselves. Usually, during the first hour of exercise fats contribute about 50% of the energy, increasing to 70% in the third hour.

That said, athletes should not be aiming for an increased consumption of fats. According to Kerksick (2019) ^[5] "Although increasing dietary fat intake has been suggested to favorably impact substrate utilization, negative performance outcomes and reports of both reduced carbohydrate utilization and gastrointestinal upset have led to the consensus that high-fat diets are not recommended.". And further, that "a consensus appears to exist that increasing the proportion of dietary fat is not a recommended strategy for enhancement of sport performance".

    Weight loss by reducing fats in the diet

Since the energy requirements of various metabolic pathways make it particularly efficient for the body to convert excess calories from dietary lipids to fat in fat depots, it is recommended to consider limiting the amount of fat consumed when the goal is losing weight. Using the daily fat intake calculator, you can estimate the required daily fat intake at different percentages that fat contributes to total daily energy.

Drastically reducing the amount of fat is not recommended, and in all cases it is advisable to consult a nutritionist or physician who is familiar with your overall condition and medical history, before any significant dietary intervention.

    Foods with high fat content

Dietary sources of fats vary considerably. Here are some foods with high fat content:

Foods with high fat content

Food	Fat type	Fat content (%)
Coconut oil	high saturated	91%
Palm kernel oil	high saturated	82%
Butter	high saturated	68%
Cream cheese	high saturated	57%
Palm oil	high saturated	51%
Mozzarella cheese	high saturated	41%
Cheesecake	high saturated	32%
Black olives	high monosaturated	80%
Olive oil	high monosaturated	75%
Almond oil	high monosaturated	70%
Canola oil	high monosaturated	61%
Avocados	high monosaturated	51%
Cashews (dry roasted)	high monosaturated	42%
Peanut butter	high monosaturated	39%
Chocolate, mints	low saturated	10%
Beef, dried	low saturated	9%
Pancakes	low saturated	8%
Chicken breast, roasted	low saturated	6%
Milk, cream	low saturated	4%
Safflower oil	high polyunsaturated	77%
Sunflower oil	high polyunsaturated	70%
Corn oil	high polyunsaturated	58%
Walnuts (dry)	high polyunsaturated	51%
Sunflower seed	high polyunsaturated	47%
Margarine, corn oil	high polyunsaturated	45%
Canola oil	high polyunsaturated	32%
Sesame seeds	high polyunsaturated	31%
Tofu	high polyunsaturated	27%
Butter	high polyunsaturated	6%

As you can see fat content can vary greatly between foods, and the same type of food can contain more than one type of fatty acids (e.g. butter).

    What are fats?

In proper medical terms, fats are only a subset of lipids, but in common language the word "fats" is often used instead of "lipids". Lipids are a category of macronutrients consisting of oils, fats and waxes. An easy way to tell one from the other is that oils are liquid at room temperature whereas fats remain solid. Most lipids that we consume come in the form of triacylglycerols. In the diet of the typical American fats from plant sources are about 34% of all, while lipids from animal origin comprise the other 66%.

Fats are an essential nutrient, so make sure to not calculate for a too low a percentage of fat calories. The role of fats in your body is as an energy reserve, as a transport medium for some fat-soluble vitamins. Eating fats also suppresses the hunger reflex. Fats also protect your vital organs and provide thermal insulation, vital in colder conditions.

Saturated and unsaturated fats

Fats are further divided into saturated fatty acids and unsaturated fatty acids. Saturated fats are plentiful in beef, lamb, pork, chicken, egg yolk. They are also present in cream, milk, butter and different cheeses. Some plant-based products also include fats, like coconut oil, palm oil, margarine. You can encounter them in most commercially made cakes, pies, cookies, etc. Unsaturated fats are encountered in canola oil, olive oil, peanut oil, almonds, pecans, and avocados. Polysaturated fatty acids are found in safflower, sunflower, soybean, and corn oil. Note that in our fat calories calculator we do not give advice on how to balance the different types of fats (lipids), just an overall estimation.

Cholesterol

Lipids (fats) are transported in the blood by lipoproteins, also known as cholesterol. Low-density lipoproteins are known as "bad cholesterol" since it tends to deposit in cells located comprising the arterial wall. You can affect your "bad cholesterol" blood levels through regular exercise, by controlling your visceral fat accumulation and by adjusting your diet composition. High-density lipoprotein, so-called "good cholesterol" acts in the reverse manner - it helps remove cholesterol from cells in the arterial wall. That cholesterol is then transported to the liver, from where it is finally excreted as waste.

Trans-fatty acids

Trans-fatty acids are basically the unwanted fat in your body. It is derived as a result of the hydrogenation of unsaturated corn, soybean, and sunflower oil. The richest trans-fat sources include margarines, crackers, cookies, snacks, fried foods, dressings, and many baked foods. These should be avoided due to health consequences, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as regulators in other countries, have taken measures to reduce the amount of trans-fatty acids in different commercial foods. One of the ill effects of consuming trans-fatty acids is the reduction of beneficial HDL cholesterol in the blood, increasing the risk of heart disease.