Do people that workout and maintain a healthy weight need to watch their fat intake, or are they fine as long as they keep their weight? Are there any negatives to consuming more fat than reccomended while keeping a healthy weight?
Weight is an arbitrary measure, and once you’re in the realm of your “ideal” weight, it becomes less and less important.
You can weight 140 pounds and have 40% body fat, or you can weigh 140 pounds and have 15% body fat, and all else being equal, one of those is going to be significantly healthier than the other.
Our bodies distribute fat differently from one another. Some people can carry around excess weight in the form of subcutaneous fat and would look puffy or overweight. But metabolically that could be just fine. Other could look very thin and trim but be carrying a lot of visceral fat with fatty liver.
You say fat intake, which leads me to believe that you think that dietary fat = body fat. That is absolutely not the case. Healthy fats, including saturated, monounsaturated, and some polyunsaturated fats are not only ok to have but are very good for you.
Maintenance is all about knowing what you need and eating responsibly. If left unchecked, most people will tend to overeat and regain weight and fat. So yes, it’s important to monitor, even at maintenance.
If you’re at a healthy weight, I think it’s best to just focus the majority of your diet on high-quality food sources. Including plenty of healthy fat in your diet - like that from avocados, nuts, seeds and olive oil - is fine. Eating a lot of deep-fried oily foods isn’t as good.
“healthy weight” is a bit of a misnomer…
It is true that people who are obese are very likely to be metabolically unhealthy, but it is *not* true that people who are thin are metabolically healthy - they can become insulin resistant and even get type II diabetes.
So don’t use “normal weight” as a proxy for “healthy”.
From what I understand, eating a lot of fat (as long as it comes from whole food/natural sources) does not negatively impact your body. Your body uses the fat to replenish nerves, and to use for energy. As long as you do not overeat in terms of calories, than the fat ratio should not matter. Same can be said for carbs and protien too.
It is less worrisome yes. Each individual is different with how they eat. When trying to lose a bit I tend to go Hugh fat low carb, reverse that when I’m trying to gain. If maintaining I just eat whole food and don’t worry to much about it. On that note, the more muscle your body has the more calories your body burns just standing still. So you end up with more “give “ on what you can eat .
I’m quite the opposite. Manage carb intake (none) eat adequate protein and use fat as the “lever” to lose/maintain/gain weight.
Others use carbs as the lever but I find it is too slippery a slope and easy to get addicted to carbs and hate the blood sugar yoyo carbs give me. They also bloat me and don’t keep me full for anywhere near as long.
Experiment and see what works for you. As long as you consume enough protein to repair muscle and tissue and roughly know your base metabolic rate.
For most people with a “healthy” metabolism eating around 20-30% of their macros in dietary fats would be ideal, also it’s more important to focus on quality of fats (i.e; balance of omega 6 and omega 3, consuming less monounsaturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat etc.) rather than just the quantity.
However if you find yourself eating in a slight surplus on certain days, there’s nothing to worry about, since your body composition and weight is controlled by what you eat most of the time.