The RDA of Fat You Need

Your RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is how many calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and other nutrients you consume every day. These are the things that keep you running, and keep you running well.

Dietary guidelines suggest that healthy adults generally limit dietary fat to no more than 20 to 35 percent of total daily calories. To figure out how many fat grams or calories that means for you, start with the number of calories you normally eat or want to eat a day. Multiply that number by the recommended percentages to get the range of fat calories you can eat each day. Here's an example based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.

Multiply 2,000 by .20 (20 percent) to get 400 calories
Multiply 2,000 by .35 (35 percent) to get 700 calories
How many fat grams is that? There are 9 calories in a gram of fat, so you divide the number of calories by 9.

Divide 400 calories by 9 (calories a gram) to get about 44 grams of fat
Divide 700 calories by 9 (calories a gram) to get about 78 grams of fat
So if you're on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, 400 to 700 calories can come from dietary fat, which translates to between 44 and 78 fat grams a day.

Create a list of healthy foods that equals between 44 and 78 grams of total fat. Show your math by listing the amount of fat in each food and the total at the bottom.