Fat Loss Rule No.4
Fat: Eat More to Burn More!
Calorie counters sit down! I have news that you may find upsetting?
I am about to dispel the ‘Fat’ myth, eating fat is actually one of the secrets to reducing your belly fat. FACT! You see not all fats are equal, certain fats found in certain foods are crucial for the body to function at its most optimum level.
Fat contains 9 Calories per gram, the highest calorie count of any other food there is. This is why all you calorie counters see fat as the ‘enemy food’.
However it is your saturated fat intake that needs to be reduced if health and weight loss is your target goal and it is the ‘essential fats’ we need to include, and in many cases increase on if we want to be super successful in this quest. So what’s the difference?
There are many types of fat that the body uses in many different ways. You may have heard the term ‘essential’ fats before and probably already know that oily fish and olive oil are a great source of these fats. What you probably don’t know is why these foods are so important in the quest for body fat reduction and optimum health.
Essential fats must come from the foods we eat (Omega 3 & Omega 6), even ‘bad’ saturated fats are required by the body, just not in any great amount.
Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) are found in the following foods- Avocado, Olives, Walnut, Hazelnut, Salmon, Trout, Mackerel, Sardines and in seeds such as Pumpkin, Flax, Sesame and Sunflower. Also oils such as Olive, Coconut, Palm and Flax have a high Omega 3 content.
Trans Fatty Acids (TFA’s) are usually found in processed foods such as ready meals, cakes, biscuits and many so called healthy and diet foods. Margarine is a vegetable oil based product designed to compete with butter, this has a notoriously high TFA level.
Fat is also responsible for part of the satisfaction that is felt when eating food, hence why we often feel great after a fatty meal and often crave fatty food. The good news is that this effect is also present when eating EFA’s which should make up the bulk of our daily fat intake.
But how much is too much?
Research clearly shows that a diet supplying 30% of its energy from fat is by far the best way to reduce body fat levels.
So, try to make sure that 20% of each meal that you consume is a source of essential fat. Simply pick from the list above. This can be used to cook the meal, included in the meal or simply eaten as a handful at the end of a meal? You will still experience the satisfying effect of eating fat while ensuring the rate at which the food is converted to glucose will slow down, leaving you feeling fuller for longer and far leaner in the process.
Go on, make fat your friend!