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Not All Fats Are Bad

Hi there, I'm back with another of my Top 100 weight loss tips with article number 83 in this excellent series. We're always looking at alternative means to lose weight naturally, safely and as easily as possible.

Well, this post is no different as it looks at whether or not all fats should be avoided and whether or not you really should stick to low fat diet.

Not All Fats Are Bad

When it comes to weight loss solutions, the latest most effective new diet is always the one the majority of dieters like to follow. This is especially if it claims to be scientifically backed up by evidence and proof.

Unfortunately, not all scientific evidence and proof is accurate.

Take as an example the scientific "facts" about how safe smoking was in the 1960s. Guess they turned out to be not as sure fire as everyone believed! So even when this or that diet comes along and "proves" with the backing of some medical evidence or research figures, that it is the best thing you'll ever try, there is no cast iron guarantee that it is as foolproof as the makers say it is.

Nor is it always as safe as the advertisers would have you believe.

Remember the Atkins diet? There is a case in point of how the media can latch onto a fad and turn it into a monster. Literally in this case, as people were gorging on a diet rich in saturated fats and protein and ignoring the hugely important carbohydrates, dietary fiber and nutrients that come from fruit and vegetables!

But are all fats bad for you? Certainly some of them, when consumed in excess will do untold damage to your body and cause you to gain weight. Similarly, by cutting out all fats from your diet, you could also be doing yourself and your body a lot of damage.

The Brain and Ketones

For starters, the brain, the central control mechanism for the entire body, is made up of around 90% fat and it needs fats to function!

In fact, when the body is restricted from the energy source that is glucose such as during fasting, it switches to burning ketones as fuel. Ketones are dreived from the stored fat cells and they are actually the body's preferred source of energy. The brain uses ketones for building new brain cells and neural networks.

On the other hand, the brain doesn't need the saturated animal fats that come from fatty meats and dairy products.

These are the ones that will clog up your arteries with bad LDL cholesterol. They'll acidify your body so that if you are susceptible to contracting arthritis, gout as well as other inflammatory diseases, your symptoms will be exacerbated or you'll suddenly start suffering form them where before you didn't.

They also retard your metabolism and give your digestive system a real hard time. That will lead to depositing fat to be stored on your belly where you really don't want it, while causing the clogging up your intestines and colon. Nice!

Fatty Acids

On the other hand, the fats that you do need, referred to as essential fatty acids, will improve your health. They are the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids that are getting a lot of good press lately.

Omega 9 fatty acids are also highly beneficial in your diet, but are not considered "essential" fatty acids. They are all beneficial in your diet as they help to lower your levels of bad LDL cholesterol while raising levels of good HDL cholesterol.

They improve your brain's many functions and help to improve intelligence levels in children. The health benefits of getting your daily recommended allowance of these omega fatty acids would make a list far too long to go into any detail here.

So why aren't we getting them from our food?

All the Goodness is Removed

Most products on the supermarket shelves have these essential fatty acids stripped from them through the processing, refining and canning stages. In fact, a lot of the food's goodness is removed during the processing stage, which in many foods is replaced by unhealthy trans fats.

It's done to provide picky housewives with perfect looking, bland tasting and homogeneous products that their kids will probably eat in preference to freshly cooked food of a healthy diet that you have to prepare yourself. Sure, it's much easier to pop a ready meal in the microwave and save all that preparation and cooking time so you can catch your favorite TV show.

But is that TV show worth the health and future health prospects of your kids? All for convenience? Most stuff that comes pre-packaged or tinned is likely to be deficient in the essential fatty acids. To get them, if you really must eat this way, is to supplement your diet with fish oil or flax seed oil capsules.

But why waste money on supplements when you can get all the omega 3, 6 and 9 oils from fresh food. Here are some of the foods that contain high levels of the essential fatty acids that you can get just about anywhere:

Omega 3 Fatty Acids:

Flax (linseed) seeds and the oil that comes from them is six times richer in omega 3 than most fish oils. Walnuts are also one of the top foods for omega 3 acids. Also high in these essential fatty acids are oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring, anchovies and sardines. Eggs are also a good source of omega 3, while most fresh meats also contain lower levels.

Omega 6 Fatty Acids:

Sources of omega 6 include fresh poultry, eggs, avocados, whole grain breads, flax oil, nuts, sunflower oil.

Omega 9 Fatty Acids:

The best source of omega 9 is extra virgin olive oil. This is an integral part of the popular and extremely healthy Mediterranean diet and is one you can use to replace the less healthy vegetable oil in cooking.

So you really owe it to yourself and your kids to spend some time preparing and cooking meals from fresh ingredients. Think about your own health? And what about your weight and working on how to lose weight? Do you think all those crappy convenience foods and processed meals from the store are going to help to keep you slim? No they are certainly not!

100 Weight Loss Tips number 82 follows along in the next post!

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Posted on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 2 Comments