MADISON, Wis. -- It'll soon be easier to watch how much fat is in your diet, as the Food and Drug Administration unveils new regulations for nutrition labels.

Starting the first of the year, manufactures will be required to list how much trans fatty acids are in foods, News 3 reported.

Trans fats are a man-made, solid fats found in processed foods like stick margarine, chips, and cookies. They raise the level of LDL, or bad cholesterol in the body, and are a leading cause of heart disease.

In January all nutrition Facts panels will list trans fats right underneath saturated fats. You need to know both numbers to figure out how much fat you're getting each day.

Katie Rodgers, a registered dietitian at Meriter Hospital, says women need about 20 grams of fat each day – for men it’s 25.

“But you would add your saturated and your trans fats together,” said Rodgers. “So it would be 20 grams of saturated plus trans fats in the course of a day,"

News 3 reported that you also need to look beyond the numbers to the ingredients list. If you see the words "hydrogenation" or "partially hydrogenated," there are trans fats in what you're eating, even if the label lists the amount of trans-fats as zero.

Restaurants have been slower than manufacturers to eliminate trans fats from their foods. So, if you're dining out and watching your fat intake, Rogers recommends visting dietfacts.com . Here you can look-up nutrition information on dishes at popular restaurants that'll be of interest to consumers