Hi Silence, and firstly welcome to the Active lowcarber forum.

I understand how confusing it is to hear that fat is OK to eat, when all your life you have been indoctrinated to believe that fat is bad and unsafe to eat, and will make you fat, as well as give you other health problems.

Initially, it will have to be an act of faith that you are not doing something dangerous, and harmful to your health. But there is a lot of supporting evidence which you can look up to back up what we say. I have two really important things to say to you in a moment, but first of all look around the forum at the amount of weight people have lost on this way of eating. In my own case, I have lost more than 70 pounds. It really works!

And now for the important statements:

(1) In the absence of carbohydrates, fat is not fattening . This is really important to understand. Fat will be fattening, if you are eating more than about 40 grams of carbohydrate per day. So you have to eliminate virtually all carbs from your diet. Then you can safely eat fat, without putting on weight.

(2) Eating fat does not make you fat. In fact, the reverse is true. It is the fat in your diet which attacks and disposes of your body fat. It is also fat that stops you feeling hungry. But in eating fat, you need to do two other very important things. Firstly, drink vast amounts of water. Some people here drink 5 litres of it per day. Secondly, you have to eat enough calories, or else the system fails. "Enough" calories is usually 10-12 times your current body weight. This is very important, and something many people do wrong, especially newcomers, who have been told all their lives that to lose weight you have to eat less. This, as you have probably already found out yourself, does not work, because you can eat very little, and still gain weight - if what you are eating is carbohydrates.

OK, I can talk all night about theory. Be brave enough to do this experiment. Try it out for just one week. In that time, cut down all your carbohydrates to just 20 or 30 grams per day (and that is very little indeed). Eat unrestricted protein and fat. Then tell me after a week how your weight compares and how you feel. Better still, get all the tests done first: cholesterol, triglycerides, etc etc. And then get them re-tested after say 3 months. The results should convince you that this way of eating is safe and beneficial.

And tell your mother that if your results prove she is right, you will heed her advice, but for now you want to test out this way of eating and see if it works for you - after all her advice has not made you slim,has it?

Andy