Questions about fat

Great question and one with so many individual answers! During WL my program emphasized lower fat choices, e.g. grass fed lean (90% lean)ground beef vs. 80/20 ground chuck, skinless chicken and that sort of thing. They stressed including healthy fats and oils in moderation and nuts were not recommended until maintenance.

Personally, I never worried about the amount of fat I ate. I figured if I was going low carb and high protein, the rest of the calories had to come from somewhere. That left fat.

If you're following the 40 grams of carbs, 80-100 grams of protein per day plan that's only tops about 560 calories. The other 240 to 440 calories (depending on your calorie allotment per day) has to come from fat.

I personally didn't eat nuts during WL, but I know many do. I also didn't like to eat cheese as a snack because cheese was and remains a total slider food for me. I do eat full fat cheese and dairy now, but I did use non fat Greek Yogurt during WL. I still do because I like the texture.

I think it's important to do what works for you. No one can really say what EXACTLY will work for any individual. I do know that the research indicates that people who follow a strict low carb and low fat diet have a higher diet "failure" rate than people who follow a low carb, moderate or high fat diet. There is evidence that going both low carb and low fat simultaneously is a biological stressor for the brain. To function the brain must have adequate amounts of fat or if the fat is severely reduced it needs to use carbohydrate energy to function. See? Not a good thing to reduce both. 

My plan encourages eating whole and minimally processed foods, and gimmicky sugar free/fat free stuff doesn't really have a place in my diet. I didn't eat that kind of thing pre-op just because of the taste, and since I have a heightened sense of smell and taste after surgery I doubt that I'd be able to even put something like that in my mouth now, let alone eat it regularly. I'd rather have a smaller portion of the full fat version anyways, not just for the taste but because fat helps with satiety for me. I don't go out of my way to load things up with extra mayo or buy the fattiest cut of meat I can find, but I have no problem carefully including things like butter, avocados, cheese etc. into my diet at this point.

Low carb, high protein.  The calories usually fall into place pretty good.  The fat thing, well we need a certain amount of fats for several reasons.  One is to help with the skin and digestion such as bowel movements.  I notice that if I lower the fat intake that my skin looks drier and a few small wrinkles show up (beyond what would be due to age).  Most of the foods that we eat on the WL arena are usually pretty low on the fats to begin with (at least on what I eat unintentionally low fat stuff).  I limit my cheese but eat regular most of the time with occasional skim milk sting cheese.  I use real butter because the fat it does contain is better for you than the artificial stuff (artery clogging heart stopping junk).  I use olive oil.  I don't eat deep fried foods.  The other poster is right also, if you read the labels on low fat or fat free stuff like salad dressing, the sugar content or sugar alcohol content is higher than the regular stuff.  It all balances out to the most part.  

I think the thing with fat is you need to eat the right fats , my hubby is on a strict low saturated fat diet his doctor put him on for high triglycerides , it is called the spectrum diet by dr dean Ornish and has charts to tell you the healthiest foods to eat for heart heath many are high carbs but good carbs , fruits veggies and whole grains he has a great web sight

It's not as hard as you might think.  I had to rethink flavor and what tasted good to me.   Take it slow and remember that healthy food doesn't have to taste bad... It just takes effort to discover what you like.

Most of us try to eat a ketogenic diet post-op and it requires higher amounts of fat.  I would absolutely pay no attention to fats at this point in time and I wouldn't recommend restricting them.  

I can tell you that whenever I hit a mini-stall that I would ADD in good fats like olives, nuts and avocado (even if it put me over the 800-900 calorie mark) and the weight would magically fall off.  We woman require good fats for our hormones to work properly.  Going low fat or super-low fat is really misguided with a low-carb, high protein diet.  

Read "The Ketogenic Diet" by Lyle McDonald - fascinating stuff! 

Pretty much anything by Lyle McDonald is worth reading.

The man definitely brings the science!  Some of it's hard to wade through but everything is backed up with numerous references to actual scientific research.  Gotta respect that!