Seven Ways I Add Fat to My Diet and One to Watch Out For

Today I want to show you seven of my favorite ways to get more fat in my diet, and one way that I would be careful with. 

If you’re doing keto for any reason but especially if you are doing it for the mental health benefits you’re going to want to have a lot of fat in your diet, especially in the beginning. 

So for those of you who don’t know me, hey, I’m Julie Saad. I’m a certified functional therapeutic diets specialist and wellness coach for women with ADHD. I help my clients go from frazzled, frustrated and fed up to focused, fit, and having fun using dietary therapy and mindset coaching. 

So, fat.

Unfortunately, a lot of us grew up eating these very high carb very low fat diets, a.k.a. the freakin’ opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing. So it can be quite the switch when we turn the whole thing on its head. 

But have no fear, I’m here to show you some easy ways to get more fat in your diet. 

Number one is on a salad. Now, I don’t push vegetables on people. Vegetables are not necessary for human health. Yeah, you heard me right. We’ll get into that another day. But salads are a great way to get extra fat in your diet. Just go nuts with the olive oil, adding it liberally to your salads, and that will help you bump up that fat content big time. 

While we’re on the topic of salads, I really love adding what are called hemp hearts. They have lots of fat, some protein, and hardly any carbs to speak of, so sprinkling them on a salad is a great way to fatten it up. 

Next up are olives. I like having olives on hand because they’re super easy to just grab and chomp on. When I first started keto, one thing I struggled with was not knowing how much I was going to eat. Remember with keto you’re not supposed to restrict your portions. Ahh! Thank God! Finally!! You’re supposed to eat until you’re comfortably stuffed. So I found that when I first started, I had a bit of trouble estimating how much I was going to eat before I hit that “no more food” feeling, which I’ve found to be very exact on keto, not like back in the carb days where I could always shovel in a few more bites, waistband permitting. On keto it’s like, “Yo, we’re done here.” So anyways olives come in handy because you can use them kind of like a dessert if you get to the end of your meal and still aren’t satisfied, and want to grab something extra. 

Another food that works well for this is macadamia nuts. They’re super high in fat, and very low in carbs and protein. 

I’m also a huge fan of bacon. Bacon has a pretty high fat content, although if you can get pork belly, it’ll have even more. One word of caution about bacon is that a lot of the fat actually winds up staying in the pan afterwards, so you won’t be getting as much fat as it says on the label, so you’ll probably want to add more fat to really hit your macro ratios. I like using the bacon grease that’s left over in the pan to cook hamburgers later on in the day, and then I get to wash one less pan. Result. 

Now if you’re really trying to get a lot more fat into your diet, these last two ideas will turbocharge that. One is to just straight up eat butter. The first time I saw people doing that I thought they were absolutely nuts, but I’ve gotten into it. I eat it plain, or I made what’s called brown butter bites, by heating the butter until it’s . . . . you guessed it . . . . brown and then cooling it in the freezer. It’s delicious and I’ve heard it said that butter can lower your cortisol levels. Some doctors recommend eating it before bed if you’re having trouble sleeping. 

You can also make what are called fat bombs. There are all different ways to do this, but one way that I like is to mix coconut oil, cacao, some kind of high fat nuts, and a bit of shredded coconut and put it in the freezer to set. Some people add zero calorie sweeteners to this, which I don’t recommend. If you really need to sweeten your fat bomb, I would add just a couple of fresh berries on top of it and call it a day. 

Okay one thing that I would be careful with: one is MCT oil. MCT can help you get into ketosis faster because of the way it’s processed, but you have to be careful with it. Some people really do not tolerate it well. I tried one brand and was putting it on my salads like a champ. Then one day I had just a little bit of another brand and I threw up like I’ve never thrown up before. So if you’re going to try it, start slowly and preferably on a day where you don’t have anywhere to be. Trust me.

Right, so those are some of the ways that I keep the fat content of my meals high. 

What about you? If you have any questions about how to begin a ketogenic diet or are struggling with anything, send me a message. As you can see I love talking about this stuff and am happy to get back to you with more tips and help you work through any issues you may be having. 

Thanks so much for being here, and have a happy and healthy day.