FAT = HEALTHY!

FATS are often excluded in a diet!

Let’s be totally honest in modern society we are obsessed by physical appearance. More often than not, we are willing to sacrifice our health to achieve this. We look at our diet and what’s the first thing to get the chop? The answer is quite simply FAT!

It’s true that some fats are bad, but despite our beliefs, some fats are good and removing them totally from your diet can lead to health problems and in the end you’ll gain weight! It sounds all good at the start, cut my fat intake etc and in truth some short term goals will be achieved, mainly due to the fact that your calorie intake has decreased.

It’s all about the types of fat you put into your diet that means selecting the right foods and the right amounts. We can then improve help and ensure our body is less susceptible to disease and infection. Easily said than done right, why does chocolate and crisps have to be bad for us!

Fats can be broken down into two groups, unsaturated and saturated fats. The Saturated fats are the type of fat that you find in foods such as bacon, dairy products and crisps and sorry to say chocolate . These saturated fats are linked to an increase d risk of heart disease and other health effects that we would all like to avoid. However the most effective way to avoid these problems is not to cut fat out of your diet totally, but simply to replace saturated fat with the healthy unsaturated fat.

Getting the facts can ensure a healthy future!

The fats we put into our body are biological tools that perform many functions throughout our bodies. Fat is involved in cell membranes and is the chemical starting point for many compounds, including the hormones estrogen and testosterone, so basically helps in the producing of compounds that our bodies need. . Removing fats from our diets could cause these types of processes to slow and lacking production abilities of important compounds such as hormones. A basic rule and a starting point is to ensure you eat more unsaturated fats than saturated fats.

This Unsaturated fat is often seen, spoke or referred to as the ‘good’ fat and has loads of positive benefits to the body, including reducing inflammation (swelling) and improving cholesterol levels. Its widely known that the effects unsaturated fats have on the body help reduce the risk of cardiovascular deaths in society. However as reported in science daily, when a collection of scientists, doctors and nutritionists came together in 2006, they discussed effects such as improved cognitive functioning, and improvement in inflammatory conditions such as arthritis. Also suggested was how vital omega 3 fats are in your diet during pregnancy, to make sure of normal growth, development and cognitive functioning of the baby. There are two forms of unsaturated fats and both are required in the diet. Monounsaturated fats can be found in olive oils, as well as foods such as avocados, nuts, and seeds, such as pumpkin seeds, almonds and hazelnuts. Polyunsaturated fats are in other oils, such fish like salmon.

One very good way of incorporating unsaturated fat into your diet is to eat fish at least two times each week and to eat seeds and nuts such as those listed above, both of which are high in these fats. You could sprinkle them on your yoghurt, cereal or even have them in one of those little bags for snacks!

Saturated fats are often promoted as something that should be entirely cut from the diet and that anything containing saturated fats should be avoided whenever humanly possible. However, this is not necessarily true. Saturated fats do play a beneficial role in the body when in small quantities. Saturated fat in the diet reduces the amount of  lipoprotein. This is a compound that’s been associated with heart disease and cannot be lowered by any other known dietary means,

Saturated fat has been reported to increase the strength of bones, which is especially important in older men and women as we age our bone density decreases. Other benefits include increased lung health and for people like me, most important brain health. Accessing saturated fat in the diet isn’t that taxing, as we all like the foods its most frequently found in!

Fat intake like most things in life should be in balance with everything else, not over doing it really. As we have discussed fat is a very important compound we need in our diets. Most diets will have you exclude it totally, but in reality that is the last thing you should do. Basic rules such as not over doing it, more un saturated than saturated. Fats it’s very important for maintaining and improving health of internal organs and functioning, and decreasing the risk of diseases in un saturated cases of cardiovascular disease.

If you want to lose weight or want to tidy up your diet the best thing to do would be to ask an expert. In the short term yes it will come at a small cost, but can give you the tools, knowledge to ensure you have a healthy future.