If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, you were likely conditioned to avoid fat. This was the era of Snackwells, skim milk, spray butter and 0% yogurt. Shockingly most of these fat free or low fat foods are still on the supermarket shelves – even today.
“Fat makes you fat!”
It made sense to me too because fat has 9 calories per gram whereas carbs and protein have 4. More than double! It must be fattening!
Remember these two?
Oh ya, I had Susan Powter’s cassette tapes (? – not 8 tracks I don’t think) and I sooo badly wanted Richard Simmon’s Deal a Meal system. Both programs abhorred dietary (and bodily fat). This was deeply, deeply ingrained in the minds of most Baby Boomers and Gen Xers like me.
But… turns out – this message was dead wrong.
Fat is essential. The right fats in the right proportions, not only are necessary for health, but they can boost metabolism as well.
Yup.
You can eat fat and lose weight and do so healthily.
In Dr. Mark Hyman’s latest book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, he does a great job explaining how we got it all wrong and how eating fat makes it all right. If you want the cliff notes, he has a post that I shared on the Facebook page this week that breaks it all down.
Although I absolutely love his approach and his Food Pyramid:
I will warn my weight loss resistant peeps, that too much fat and too many calories may not result in weight loss.
Just like we need to determine our own unique carb tolerance, we also need to balance that with our fat tolerance.
Plus there are many other functional inputs that may inhibit the proper digestion and assimilation of fat. Things like hormonal balance, digestion, stress, detoxification capacity, pathogens, our microbiome and immune system all work in concert with diet to either use fat or store fat.
This has been my experience following a ketogenic way of eating with Hashimoto’s last year. I loved it, but I didn’t burn fat being ketotic and my thyroid conversion decreased over time as well. I’m not saying I won’t ever try keto again, but next time, I’ll use more liver support and allow for carb ups to keep my hormones balanced.
So fat is not to be feared. If you eat dairy, go full fat (not skim – ewww), use real butter or ghee and things like olive oil, coconut, avocado, nuts and seeds. Clean animal fats like fatty fish and grass fed/pastured meats and cooking fats are all OK.
Just work on finding the right balance for you and be sure to combine your fats with more non-starchy veggies (and less starchy carbs) for best results.
Until next time,
xo
Ev
