The calories that you eat come from three major sources: carbohydrates (bread, cereal, grains and sugar), protein (meat, poultry and fish) and fat (butter, vegetable oils, cream). (Alcohol also provides calories, however, it shouldn’t contribute significantly to your daily calories.) When following a low fat diet, less of your daily calories should be coming from fat as compared to those being contributed by a combination of carbohydrates and protein. The latest recommendation from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences is that no less than 20 percent and up to 35 percent of your daily calories should come from fat. Based on this range, a person who is consuming 2,000 calories daily should consume from 44 grams to no more than 78 grams of fat daily. (See the box below.) Americans are currently consuming 48 to 100 grams, on average, of dietary fat daily.

	If You Are Eating	Your Fat Intake Should Range From 20% to 35% or:
	1,800 calories	40 grams to 70 grams
	2,000 calories	44 grams to 78 grams
	2,500 calories	55 grams to 97 grams
	2,800 calories	62 grams to 109 grams

- By Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, LDN. Blake is a nutrition professor at Boston University and a nationally known writer, lecturer and nutrition expert.