I *had* cellulite myself, I'm a calorie counter. I do pay attention to
everything, and track my nutrients and things, but I don't get
terribly hung up on fat grams. Especailly since I get most of my fat
from avocados, olive oil, wild salmon oil, almonds, seeds, etc.

YMMV, but calorie counting works for me.

Ally
212/162/140

If I had to count just one I would choose calories.  Regardless of how many
fat grams you eat you still need to reduce your calories to a level that
will result in weight loss for you.  I could choose to eat all  0% fat foods
and continue to gain weight.  You don't need to drastically cut the fat -
just choose the better ones.

Do some reading and research on cellulite.  Diet and exercise may help but
in case you haven't noticed, thin women are bothered with it also.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/13/1689_50311.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90
-BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348}

Beverly
177 / 146 / 140

to confuse you even more, some people count carbohydrate grams, but
not calories or fat grams.

You have to count something that, when limited, leads to sustained
weight loss and not being too hungry or upset.

What's more important is what works for you best, it is
individual. You can't say for all people.

i

Calories first.

If you pick up a food and check the label, you’ll see *calories* and
very close on the label you’ll see *calories from fat*.  From this alone
you know at a glance how much of what you’re eating is fat.  Use this
and a bit of division to calculate the percentage.  33% of this food is
fat, 50% this food is fat or nearly 100% of this food is fat.  You can
dissect the label later to determine whether they are good (unsaturated)
or bad (saturated) fats.  This is just a way of quickly choosing one
food over another by comparing *calories from fat*.  Good luck!

Exercise and good nutrition are most important.

I'm a calorie counter/portion-sizer.

The more calorie dense something is, the smaller portion I have of it,
and just savour it.

I'm choosy about *type* of fats rather than amount.  The amount tends to
self-regulate as only 1 tablespoon of cold-pressed, extra-virgin olive
oil contains 120 calories.  But I freely will have that 1 tablespoon on
my salad, guilt free.  It turns a salad into a meal.  The richness of
the oil has staying power.

Learning smaller portion sizes as "the new norm" takes time.  We're (the
generic we) so used to having giant portion sizes, that, rather than
just saying "cut down the size of what you eat", the standard seems to
be "keep the portion size the same, just cut the fat".  

I'd rather have full-taste, adequate satiety, small portion size and
savour it.

Just my opinion.

Chicken and egg question.  Pick a plan.  Read its book.  The book
will answer that question for you.

There are low fat plans and there are low carb plans and there
are low calorie plans.  They use different mechanisms so they
answer that question differently

it might be different for women, but for me I only limited total
calories and lost 2lbs/week steadily over 5 months.

I think over-limiting fat is a big, big dieting mistake. 1oz of
almonds are an excellent 200kcal snack, even though they are most
certainly not low-fat.

I'm no expert, but I think removing fat is very traumatic to the body.
The body wants and actually needs fat.

it might be different for women, but for me I only limited total
calories and lost 2lbs/week steadily over 5 months.

I think over-limiting fat is a big, big dieting mistake. 1oz of
almonds are an excellent 200kcal snack, even though they are most
certainly not low-fat.

I'm no expert, but I think removing fat is very traumatic to the body.
The body wants and actually needs fat.

I count calories and portion size, fat grams only come into play for me when
its saturated or non anymore..

Susan
280/188/140

Mermaid wrote in alt.support.diet on Wed, 18 Aug 2004:

Both, and!  The *only* way to lose weight is to burn more calories than
you take in.  This means eating less and exercising more.  However,
while protein and carbohydrate each have 4 calories (Kilocalories,
actually) per gramme, fat has 9.  So if you can cut excess fat out of
your diet, it's a relatively easy and painless way to cut calories.  It
is sensible to allow yourself a little "healthy" fat, such as olive oil,
or to take, as I do, a fish-oil supplement daily (keeps my joints
supple!), but if you cut out butter, margarine, lard, cheese (as much as
possible), egg yolks (again, as much as possible), and when you buy
prepared foods, only buy those that claim to have less than 5 grammes of
fat per 100 grammes of product, you will do well.

However, one caveat.  When low fat eating became very popular, about
8-10 years ago, the market was flooded with "healthy" low-fat products.
Unfortunately, many of these products replaced the fat with sugar, or
artificial flavourings, to make up for the absence of fat.  You would do
better, whatever way you choose to cut calories, to prepare as much of
your own food as possible, and to buy as little ready-made food as you
can.  It is easy to make a fruit-cake and substitute pureed prunes for
the margarine, for instance, and you can even cut the sugar a little as
the prunes are sweet already.  But a bought cake may have *extra* sugar
to make up for the lack of fat.  Sigh.

Both are equally important.  You have to watch your fat intake, but if you eat
too much of anything it will make you fat.

I have seen people go both ways. I have some