Fats Aren't the Enemy — What Active Men Actually Need
By The Bastion Guard · 17 February 2025
Dietary fat spent the best part of thirty years cast as the villain of nutrition advice. The evidence has moved on a long way since — but the reputation hasn't fully caught up, and a lot of active men still eat less of it than they should.
Fat isn't optional. It's essential for hormone production — including testosterone — for absorbing fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), and for basic cell function throughout the body. UK guidance puts total fat at no more than around 35% of daily energy intake for most adults, with saturated fat capped lower, at no more than about 11% — a ceiling on saturated fat specifically, not a case against fat as a whole.
Where the distinction actually matters:
- Unsaturated fats — the ones to build a diet around: olive oil, rapeseed oil, nuts, seeds, avocado, and oily fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines). These support cardiovascular health rather than working against it.
- Saturated fats — fine in moderation, not to be eliminated: red meat, butter, cheese, and full-fat dairy. The guidance is a sensible ceiling, not a total ban, and these foods carry real nutritional value alongside the saturated fat.
- Oily fish specifically earns its own mention — the NHS recommends at least one portion a week for the omega-3 content, which most UK adults fall short of.
- "Low-fat" products aren't automatically the better choice. Removing fat from a processed food often means adding sugar or refined starch back in to preserve taste — check the label rather than trusting the front-of-pack claim.
Worth knowing: very low-fat diets have been linked to reduced testosterone production in men, which matters directly for training — strength, recovery, and energy all run partly on hormonal foundations that dietary fat helps support.
The takeaway is the same shape as the protein and carbohydrate pieces in this series: fat isn't something to minimise on principle. Get the type roughly right — more unsaturated, saturated in check rather than absent — and there's no reason to fear it.