Know how eating fats can cut down fat

Eat Fat to Beat Fat

For decades, we are made to believe that the best way of losing fat is to cut down fat from the diet. Though, it is not entirely wrong, we cannot ignore the fact that our body needs fat and thus it can be our friend too. Fat works as the major source of energy helping the body to absorb certain amount of vitamins and nutrients. Then why people suggest cutting fat from diet? Simple, they advice us to avoid eating bad fats and not the good ones. You might have heard about good fat, don’t you? Fats are generally categorised under two heads – a) fat that is bad for the health such as saturated fats and trans fats and b) that is good for health such as unsaturated fats. Where the former develop heart diseases by increasing LDL cholesterol or triglycerides, the other lowers LDL and prevents abnormal heart beats and diseases. To be more precise let’s have an in-depth study about the truth behind good and bad fats.

Bad Fats

Saturated fats or trans fats have one thing in common. Now, what is that exactly? Both become solid at the room temperature. Say butter, it is, nothing else than a marbleized fat in a container. However, bad fats come in liquid form too such as whole milk and coconut oil. Well, these fats generally increase your total cholesterol, further leading to LDL cholesterol, which can cause formation of blockages in your coronary arteries.

Saturated Fats: You will be astonished to know that there are almost twenty four types of saturated fats though not all of them are bad for health. These fats are normally found in whole milk, cheese and several other dairy products followed by beef. Even a few vegetable oils like palm and coconut oil has saturated fats. However, there is good news. Curiously, pure chocolates though contain stearic acid aka saturated fat, is more like an unsaturated fat as it lowers the LDL levels. So, all the chocolate lovers there fret not, you can still continue licking a bar of pure chocolate, but in restricted amount.

Trans fats: These types of fats are generally found in meat although their main source is packaged foods like cookies, breads, crackers and cakes. Not to forget fast foods are their base. Trans-fats were processed artificially in order to offer cheap alternatives to the consumers. Some food experts found that vegetable oil is solidified to create an alternative to butter such as margarine. This in turn converted a good fat into a saturated one.

Today you can find trans-fats even in partially hydrogenated oil. Perhaps, these are the reasons why trans-fats are considered to be worse than the saturated fats. Aside from increasing your LDL cholesterol, they also reduce the beneficial HDL cholesterol.

Good Fats

Good fats can be broadly categorised as polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat that mainly comes from fish products and vegetables.

Polyunsaturated Fats: These fats are necessary for our body to function normally. Also, they help to build cell membranes, sheath around the nerves and the casing of the cell. Similarly, they are equally important to blood clotting, inflammation and muscle relaxation. They lower LDL and triglycerides, thereby improving your overall cholesterol profile. There are generally two kinds of polyunsaturated fats, which are Omega-3 (n-3) and Omega-6 (n-6).

Researchers found that omega-3 fatty acids prevent and even better, treat heart diseases and autoimmune diseases like eczema, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. This fatty acid generally comes from fish such as, mackerel, sardines and salmon and from walnuts, unhydrogenated soybean oil, flaxseeds and canola oil.

On the other hand, omega-6s have a greater content of linoleic acid that also works to reduce the risk of heart disease. Omega-6 fatty acids are found in safflower, sunflower, corn oils, walnuts and soybean.

Monounsaturated Fats: In order to replace the saturated fats more of monounsaturated fats along with the polyunsaturated fats should be consumed. Some of its very good sources are peanut oil, avocados, olive oil, nuts and canola oil.

The point is that unsaturated fats form a significant part of healthy diets, especially when replaced by saturated or trans-fats. Now, when you sit to chalk out your diet plan you will at least know what to eat and what not to for cutting those extra fats.

Eat Fat to Cut Fat: Breaking Down the Myth

‘Eat fat to cut fat’ – this hardly makes any sense, right? ‘We are what we eat’, so how this can be logical. Individuals who are scratching their head thinking the logic behind this statement, they are likely to find the answer soon. Just scan through carefully.

Our body secretes hormone based on the food we eat. If you ingest carbs throughout the day, you body will develop machinery to burn carbs and store the overage. Likewise, if you eat mostly fat, you body will do the same. However, to access eating fat to cut fat let consider MCT (Medium chain triglycerides), which is found in coconut fat residing as short carbon chains. Even though, these carbons are saturated fats, they have a surprising property, which is that they absorbs quickly. When a body is able to access fat quickly, it becomes capable of burning quickly as well. As MCT triggers ketone production, it helps to fuel your nervous system’s cell when energy is required from the fat molecules. According to the Obesity Research and the International Journal researchers stated that adding MCT oil in your regular diet can increase the fatty acid oxidation, thereby burning the fat consumed quickly. Thus, they found that eating fat can burn fat.

Well, the key here is to focus more on eating good fats thereby eliminating the bad fats. Avocados, olive oil, nuts and fish can be consumed in that case. Eggs are a healthier option and an easy source of protein. While many may think that the eggs whites is more nutritious and not the yolk, this may not be the truth always. The yolk also contains important nutrients.