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The Truth About Dietary Fat

Published in July 4th, 2009
Posted in Fitness

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In order to lose weight successfully, everyone knows that you have to cut out as much fat from your diet as possible… right? Actually, wrong. Believe it or not, your body actually needs certain types of fat on a regular basis in order to run correctly. The right kind of fat can do everything from keeping your brain working smoothly to supporting your immune system. Think of fat as your body’s motor oil- when there isn’t enough of it, things start to go wrong.

This is not to say that you should go out right now and order a double bacon cheeseburger as a health food—far from it. The key to understanding dietary fats is to learn about the different kinds of fat. First I want to start with the good fats- things the average American may actually not be getting enough of.

Let’s start off with monounsaturated fats. Intake of monounsaturated fats has been scientifically proven to boost your levels of “good” cholesterol, or HDL (remember the lubrication I was talking about earlier?) and decrease your levels of “bad” cholesterol, or LDL. These good fats can be found in nuts of all kinds, avocados and many common cooking oils such as sesame oil, corn oil and peanut oil. Just make sure you do not burn the cooking oil as that can break down the fats, rendering them indigestible and potentially harmful to your body.

Next up are polyunsaturated fats. Sensing a trend here? That’s right, UNsaturated fats are good for you. These fats can help strengthen your immune system, boost your thyroid and thus your metabolism, and even help you recover from your workouts faster with less soreness. They are also very good for your heart. They are found in most seafood, especially fatty fish like salmon.

Now for the bad guys. These are what most people mean when they talk about cutting fat out of their diet, or at least what they think they mean. Saturated fats are bad and trans fats are the worst of the worst as far as your body is concerned. While saturated fats can clog your arteries and lead to heart disease and stroke, trans fats have been proven to have a hand in everything from diabetes to liver problems to cancer! Saturated fats are usually found in animal products such as dairy and meat, and trans fats are a mostly man made phenomenon, showing up whenever you see the words ‘partially hydrogenated oil’ on an ingredients list. Don’t be fooled by packaging boasting 0 trans fat per serving- The FDA allows any product with under 1 gram of trans fat per (arbitrary) serving to claim it has none.

The important thing to remember about all fats is that they are very dense in calories, so a smaller portion of something fatty may have as many calories as a portion of something with less fat. If you want to lose weight you need to count your calories, but don’t leave fats out of your diet altogether— just the bad fats.

learn how to lose weight and make your health a priority with dr. sam bakhtiar who owns fitness concepts inc. find out more at http://www.fitconcepts.com/diamond-bar-weight-loss.html.

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