Why Eating More Fat Might Be Just What You Need To Lose Weight
By Neil O’Hanlon
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and to be honest I felt this way too. As someone who grew up in the 1980’s, I used to perceive all fats as bad. It was drummed into me that fat was the main reason behind the obesity epidemic we see today, and the catalyst for so many heart attacks and other chronic illnesses. What I found by introducing real fats back into my diet on a daily basis, BUT more importantly limiting my sugar, refined carbs and processed foods, I actually got leaner, kept my weight constantly in my desired range without having to limit or deprive myself. I now feel healthier, my cholesterol hasn’t gone through the roof and I have a lot more sustained energy through out the day.
And just to be clear, I’m talking about fats like, butter, olive oil, cheese, avocados, animal fats, nuts, seeds, cream etc
Fat Free Horseshit
I used to avoid so many of these foods like butter, lard, cheese, nuts and avocados due to their high fat content. Instead I would opt for fat free alternatives that was being promoted by every health organisation as the answer to all your dietary needs. This turned out to be complete and utter ‘bullshit’. Once you take the fat out of a food, firstly you are altering the state of the original ‘real’ product and by adding copious amounts of sugar and additives you have now made it into a diabetic promoting ‘Processed Product’.
The reason for this is simple. Once you take the natural fat out of a food its completely tasteless, hence adding lots and lots of crap to replace the fat and mask the blandness. Secondly once you alter the natural form of the food, you have also removed most of the original nutrition which dare I say it, would have come from the fat.
Lowering my sugar intake is one of the most significant things I’ve done for overall health, fitness and wellbeing
Sugar Is The Enemy, Not Fat
People survived for thousands of years by eating real, whole natural foods wether it be fat, protein, fibre etc, and guess what, there wasn’t an obesity epidemic going on, people generally weren’t over weight. There wasn’t a chronic illnesses crisis caused by excessive inflammation that builds in the body due to the sugary, fat free food were consuming too much off.
There wasn’t chronic Heart problems, type 2 Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Dementia and ever growing Cancers. No, this only really starting happening in the early 1980’s since we started demonising fat.
As a runner, eating too many carbs and so called energy foods laden with sugar caused Inflammation in my body and after years of research this is now the root cause of most chronic diseases and weight gain.
40 Years To Make Us Fat
If we look at pictures of the 1970’s compared to today there’s an obvious correlation between when ‘fat became the enemy’ and when diet food entered our system in the early 80’s. Mankind has been around for thousands of years, but In the space of 40 years we have managed to create a complete obesity mess, all because of some fake advice that ‘Fat Is Bad For You’ that has no scientific evidence to back this whatsoever.
Some simple advice I would give you is this. Eat foods your grandparents would have eaten
Blood Sugar And Insulin Simplified
When you eat any form of carbohydrate (which is basically sugar) or low fat alternative, as soon as you put it in your mouth it signals to the body to increase blood sugar levels. This then sends a signal to raise your Insulin levels to meet the blood sugars on there way up. Once this happens the Insulin (which by the way is a storage hormone that tells the body to store fat) takes the sugar in the blood and stores it in the body as fat. So you can see that the sugar will now be converted to fat. However, when you eat fat, it has no hormonal response on the Insulin, this means that blood sugar levels do not rise and stay low, which means the body can now burn fat. This is precisely why fasting has so many benefits for weight loss.
With this said wouldn’t it make sense for the first meal of your day to be mainly Fat, with some Protein and Fibre. Not Carbohydrates.
The Takeaway
It goes without saying, that you may want to consult a registered dietician if you want to make drastic changes to your current diet. This is something that works for me and I continue to do every day but ultimately you must find a way of eating that is best for you and your overall health.
If you’d like to read the full in depth article on how to eat fat and lose weight, then check out the ‘Complete Guide To ’EAT FAT TO LOSE WEIGHT’ which is readable as a client member.