If you don't consume fat at all, then your body thinks you're starving. Your body will try to defend itself and store as much fat as possible and thus you don't lose weight.

Even if you are not trying to lose weight, cutting back on ALL fats can be very unhealthy. You can actually increase your risk of heart disease by decreasing high-density lipoproteins (HDLs, the "good" cholesterol) and boosting blood levels of triglycerides. You may also raise your risk for such conditions as gout and gallstones.

If you deplete your body of all fat intake, your body will violently react by compensating for it and making its own fat in the form of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase. This doesn't only increases stored fat reserves in the body but actually can be more unhealthy than getting fat from food!

Your body needs fat to function correctly. All those good disease preventing phytochemicals that come from fruits and vegetables will not be absorbed by your body without some fat. Fats also maintain cell membranes and blood vessels, provide energy, transmit nerve impulses and produce some necessary hormones.

The body also needs a certain amount of fat in order to absorb some nutrients like A, D, E, and K (neededl for proper eyesight, bone formation, and blood clotting). Vitamins A and E are antioxidants and have been shown to reduce the incidence of heart disease and a variety of cancers.

Dietary fats are also required for your hair, your nails and your joints to remain functioning properly as well.

But determining the proper amount of healthy fat in your daily diet is a very tricky issue. You have to be very careful.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) we should restrict our dietary fat intake to 30% of our calories. Heart Associations suggest 20-30%, while some experts believe that we may actually need as little as 10% of our calories in the form of fat.

However, fat quantity is not just the only issue: type of fat is also important. Certain types of fats (e.g. omega 3 fats) from whole foods like and oily fish, some nuts, seeds is now viewed as essential to a healthy diet.

If you want to lose weight, a reasonable daily fat target is 30 grams, of which no more than 10 grams should be saturated fat. For maximum weight loss, other types of high calorie content foods should be monitered and cut back as well. (complex carbohydrates like rice, white bread, potatoes, etc. and sugars)

If you have high cholesterol, your doctor or health care professional may wish you to reduce your fat intake even further and reduce your saturated fat to an absolute minimum.