I read this last night, and had to think about it a bit before replying, and now today there are even more terrific responses!

On consuming fats .... I routinely eat well over 1,000 calories of fat DAILY ... 125 to 135 grams. Fats from all different sources, animal and vegetable.

But, it wasn't always so ... for the first 6 months of LC'ing ... I was careful to measure my carb foods, and made sure to get adequate protein at every meal -- didn't pay much attention to fats ... Then I stalled out over the winter, and in frustration ... I kept "tweaking" the diet by cutting carbs back further to 10g per day ... with no success ..... then by cutting way back on the FAT. I only ate skinless chicken, I switched to egg substitutes, lowfat cheese, I ate salads dry, cooked everything in a non-stick pan ... etc, etc .... I tried the Stillman Lean Protein fasts with slight success.

And every now and then ... I BINGED on fat. I'd let thin slices of butter melt on my tongue, I'd pour extra oil on everything ... sip heavy cream from a shot-glass , spoon the pan drippings over my food .. etc, etc ... Probably had way over TWO thousand calories of fat each time. I never felt bad in the sense that I'd "blown the diet", since I didn't go overboard with CARBS ... but it did make me introspective -- and guilty -- on the emotional thing ... What was my body or psyche REALLY craving? When I wrote the Cravings article for the Low Carb Tips section ... I identified with many of the issues I wrote about, and did a lot of web-searching and reading on Emotional and Compulsive eating. However, there were still a lot of unanswered questions.

One day last spring, I was looking up some info. on essential fatty acids, to reply to a question here on the forum. I ended up re-reading Udo Erasmus' "Fats That Heal Fats That Kill" .. and it dawned on me that another reason for my fat-cravings may have been due to fatty acid deficiency. How many of us have spent years .... decades even ... obeying the lowFAT mythology. Yes, our bodies were storing fat ... but it was triglyceride fat, made from glucose and carbs, and NOT the essential fatty acids and unsaturates that our cells (especially brain cells) and hormones need for healthy function. Indeed, even in my highCARB days, when I binged on carbs ... I didn't care at all for pure carbs -- sugar, sweets and candy --- I went for the highFAT carbs -- plain chips, plain fried donuts, onion rings, etc ...

I'm not saying everyone should start eating vast amounts of fat. But maybe if you've still been heeding the "fat is bad" mythologies, and have been sub-consciously trying to do a "healthier" lowFAT version of a low-carb diet ... it might be worthwhile to think about adding more good-quality fats to your everyday menu. Think of it as a nutritional supplement ... choose x. virgin olive oil (or olives, or raw nuts & seeds) for the monounsaturates, flax and fish oils for the Omega3 & 6's, egg yolks for the lecithin, real dairy butter for the butyric acid, red meats with CLA's ... etc. One tablespoon of oil/butter/fat yields approx. 120 calories, and 14g fat.

My 2¢

Doreen