It seems that the “low-fat” diet trend is over. Rarely do we ever see a new fad diet these days that stresses low-fat. The reason why is we got fatter and fatter and we discovered it didn’t work. Remember the early 90’s when Susan Powter was ranting on TV about how “fat makes you fat”. She looked pretty lean at the time with her bald head and her obnoxious manner. She was so insistent, it seemed to make sense. Then of course, there were others, Dr. McDougall, Dr. Ornish etc. Many jumped on the bandwagon. The problem was that the fat was often replaced with simple carbs and no matter how its packaged-if you eat junk you’ll gain weight.
But one thing that can be learned from the multitudes of “fad diets” is that any diet that excludes an entire
macronutrient (fat, carbs, protien) can’t possibly be good for you. Our bodies need all of the macronutrients to function at the highest level.
But there are healthy carbs and less healthy carbs and there is good fat and less healthy fat. Good fat is very important for your health and adding good fat into your diet will not cause you to gain weight and will likely even assist you in losing weight.
The good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. They can be found in olive oil, fish, nuts and avocados. Bad fats are the saturated fats that are found in meats and high fat dairy products and the trans fats that are found in margarines, shortenings, and many processed foods. Trans fats are a processed man-made fat. A trans fat is formed when a liquid vegetable oil goes through a chemical process called hydrogenation, in which hydrogen is added to make the oils more solid. Hydrogenated vegetable fats are used by food processors because they allow longer shelf-life and give food taste, shape and texture.
Trans fats are like saturated fats in that they raise the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad cholesterol-remember this by the L in the front, it stands for Lousy!) which increases the risk of coronary heart disease. It also has the additional effect of decreasing levels of HDL (the good lipoprotein that helps remove cholesterol from the arteries-remember this by the H in the front, it stands for Happy!). There is no safe level of trans fats for human consumption. There are trace amounts of trans fatty acids that are naturally found in meat and dairy products but the ones we need to be aware of are the man-made trans fats that are found in processed foods. We need to eliminate or severely limit our consumption of those fats.
Adding in the healthy fats like cooking with olive oil, snacking on nuts and consuming oily fish on a regular basis can be a healthy habit that can help you with your nutrition and health goals. But be aware of portion sizes. If some is good, more is not necessarily better; especially with fats. All fats have 9 calories per gram, as opposed to 4 calories per gram of carbs and proteins. So the calories can add up quick. Consume even the healthy fats in moderation. In other words, don’t eat that entire bag of pistachios–It will make you fat!
