A carb/fat minimum? Carbs vs fat for calories after protein.

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,
I’m wondering after getting your protein intake does it matter where you get the rest of your calories? I’m assuming you’d want some minimum of both fats and carbs, then after those levels maybe they’re exchangeable.

Context:

  • Bulking/maintenance diet
  • Me specifically, eating whole food plants and struggling to get calories with fat down around 10-20%, I’d rather eat some more calorically dense foods with more fat (nuts) to get my total calories to ease the amount of food I need to eat.
2

There are no minimums for carbohydrates, though if you’re gaining weight you’re obviously going to need more. Somewhere in the 2-3g/kg/day range would be a decent minimum.

Fat I’d recommend ~15g per 1000kCal or so, which typically doesn’t take much planning.

I don’t know that I’d specifically recommend dietary fat to be 10-20% of total daily calories, so I’m not sure I’d do that.

1 Like
3

Jordan,

I tried finding an answer to my question regarding minimum daily fat intake and found this post.

I am currently eating around 2200 calories per day which is a 500 calorie deficit for me at 170lbs body weight. My daily protein intake is around 190g and I have found that eating less than 280g carbs is not enough. This leaves me with roughly 35g of fat. I am wondering whether there is any minimum on fat content. Is it OK if I increase my carbs a little more and reduce fat to 30g or even less than 30g?

Thanks.