Torwen:
Good morning everyone, or afternoon, wherever you’re listening from. Welcome back to the Ideal Nutrition podcast. Today we are talking about whether there is a sweet spot for dietary fat intake. Specifically, dietary fat intake in athletes. Where to start? So, fat is one you probably hear less about for athletes. That’s compared to other macronutrients like protein and carbohydrates. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not important.
Aidan:
Where do we want to start? Do we start with why people need it? Or what we recommend?
Torwen:
Let’s talk about why people need it, and the importance of adequate intake.
Aidan:
Yeah, cool. So, this is relevant for both men and women in different ways. I would say it’s particularly relevant from a hormonal perspective. We want to avoid going too low. Going too low in fat can reduce oestrogen and progesterone in women. It also has implications for testosterone in women.
Women tend to be more likely to lose their cycle if fat intake is too low. Note this can get skewed. Fat intake could be too low, and total calorie intake could be too low. That can make it hard to interpret without a tangent. The same thing happens in intermittent fasting research. Where people put a big emphasis on eating breakfast.
However, if they eat breakfast, do they eat more calories? Is that a factor? Pretty deep rabbit hole. Men, simpler creatures. If you go too low in fat, you can reduce testosterone. I might give numbers around that later. Yeah, you can reduce testosterone. We’re talking about athletes here. So, I don’t think many athletes would want low testosterone.
Torwen:
Fat is also essential for absorbing fat-soluble vitamins. Those support immune function, bone health, and antioxidant defence. I’m specifically talking about A, D, E and K. Generally, fats support cell membrane health and organs. And they also help manage appetite and support satiety.
Aidan:
I’ve looked into this, and it’s hard to get clear answers. How much fat do we require for vitamins and stuff like that? It seems more linked to total intake than timing it together. Although timing can also be relevant. I looked into this through a specific lens. I’ve got a rule, and I don’t talk about this often.
If somebody is taking performance-enhancing drugs, say testosterone, that changes things. They don’t need this for testosterone. What is left? It’s what you’ve just mentioned. We don’t need much to tick the box for vitamin absorption. I don’t want to put a cutoff here. It can scale based on amounts.
If I said you need 25 grams of fat, that’s a low number. Then you might ask about 50 versus 25 grams. You’d probably see better absorption at 50. However, it seems a small amount can tick the box. That’s enough to absorb nutrients, with a high nutrient intake.
Torwen:
There are downsides of going too low, which we spoke about. What about downsides of going too high in this population?
Aidan:
Two things. The simple one is you could go over your calories. Let’s assume you hit an appropriate calorie intake regardless. Then we’re talking about too high a percentage calories coming from fat. The downside is it takes away from other macronutrients. First, it can take away from protein. That can hurt muscle growth and recovery.
Second, it can take away from carbs. We know glycogen can benefit athletes. We might talk about low carb later. Keeping it simple, glycogen and carbs can benefit athletes.
Torwen:
I don’t want to add onto that one, because I had the same things written down. Also, blood lipid profiles matter. In general, going too high in fat can have unwanted effects on the proportion of your blood lipid profiles. This is especially true if those are more saturated fats. Should we chat about the sweet spot? Where do our recommendations actually lie?
Aidan:
Yeah, I reckon I want you to go first on this one.
Torwen:
Yeah, so I’m going to talk about percentages. I’ve said off air that percentages don’t always show the full picture. However, generally, 20 to 35% of total calories from fat is a pretty good range. That range supports energy, hormones, nutrient absorption, and just making sure we’re ticking all of those boxes.
The exact percentage within this range can vary. Athletes generally have high energy requirements. Very likely they don’t need quite 20 to 35%. That’s if carbohydrates and protein intake increase.
Aidan:
Yeah, and if I go with percentages, that’s the range I use, 20 to 35%. However, I think it falls apart under different intakes. That’s why I wouldn’t use it across the board. For example, an athlete might do a bulking phase. They’re in a calorie surplus, on high calories. Then they do a deficit phase, on lower calories.
If they use the same percentage, theoretically fat could drop too low. Or they could have more fat than they require, so to speak. This gets more skewed with a bigger deficit. For a bigger deficit, I keep people on high protein. I also keep enough fat for hormones and stuff like that. That’s particularly if it’s longer. Then most of it ends up coming from carbs. That trade-off has downsides.
However, that’s what I’m more willing to make. What I use instead is a range. It also has flaws. I say 0.5 to 1 gram per kilo. In many cases, I don’t see a need to go to one gram. That’s more for preference. It can also make it easier to reach a high-calorie target. Above a certain threshold, I don’t think we get more benefits from adding more fat. For example, testosterone might increase a tiny bit above a point.
However, it doesn’t seem to move the needle for performance outcomes. I don’t see a need to go higher than that. But, that’s my own thoughts. The bottom end of that range is arbitrary. In many cases, it’s not so low that people run into issues. One thing we spoke about off air was a comment I got. Someone said, “I’m a 50 to 60 kilo woman.”
They said the bottom end seems quite low for me. And that is very valid. I absolutely would not go that low. If somebody was 60 kilos, I wouldn’t give them 30 grams of fat. I would go higher. It’s hard to put a cutoff out there. Specific numbers can have flaws like that. That’s my logic there.
Torwen:
And has you said before, it also feeds into their goal at that point in time. Do we increase other areas of diet, so that fat is lower? Do we have more calories to play with? Can we push it up to that higher range? All those sorts of things. We calculate things when we do meal plans. We also talk clients through things. Would you recommend listeners do this calculation? Or have a look at fat themselves?
Aidan:
Depends how much you care.
Torwen:
Yeah, I agree.
Aidan:
If you care, first get a rough range for your calorie target. You could use a calculator. Alternatively, do something for a bit and see what happens. Then protein, I often recommend 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilo. Then fats, I’d use 0.5 to one gram per kilo. Fill out the rest with carbs. If carbs get weird, I’ll move you up or down the spectrum. For example, if carbs get really low, I might drop fat towards the bottom of the spectrum.
That gives you more carbs. If carbs get really high, I might move fat up slightly. That can make the intake easier to hit. Cool. Is there anything else? We’ll circle back to the low carb stuff. If we’re looking at athletes, there’s not much research showing low carb outperforms. It’s pretty simple. In research, most of the time, low carb is not outperforming.
That doesn’t mean it always underperforms noticeably. There are many times where it would be okay to do. Particularly in the ultra-endurance space, it seems more common to not underperform. The lower the intensity, the less likely it underperforms noticeably. If someone wanted low carb, you’d change the numbers I said.
You might go up to 1.5 or 2 grams per kilo of fat. Fat is calorie-dense, so numbers don’t need to go super high. But I’m mostly looking at people not going low carb. I just don’t see it outperforming.
Torwen:
I agree. I think time and time again, and we get this question often. We recommend carbs, ideally. Keep carbs in your diet, guys. It’s the best thing you can do.
Aidan:
Amazing. Cool. We will wrap it up there. This has been episode 236 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. As always, if you haven’t already, please leave a rating and review. We massively appreciate it.