WHY FAT IS NECESSARY TO GOOD HEALTH
TRANSCRIPT
In today’s video, I’m going to talk about why the low-fat diet craze has been so bad for us, and why eating healthy whole food sources of fat is vital to good health.
In the 1950’s physicians began recommending that we eat a low-fat diet. At the time it was believed that dietary fat was the cause of the rise in heart disease that was taking place. This belief continued to strengthen as time went on, and by the time the 80’s came, it was not only believed that fat was causing heart disease, but it was also believed to be the cause of the rising overweight and obesity epidemic.
In this video I’ll show why this thinking was faulty, and why eating plenty of healthy fats is actually critical to good health and maintaining a healthy weight.
Hi there, my name is Ginger and I am a Holistic Nutrition Coach, I post videos on how to improve metabolic health and balance blood sugar using a nutrient dense, whole food, high fat way of eating. If you like my video, hit subscribe, like, and feel free to share!
In 1992 the USDA released the food pyramid which fully supported eating a low-fat diet. This quickly became the most recognized nutrition education ever produced in the US.
This was also close to the same time the American Heart Association introduced their “heart healthy” food labeling program that we still see all over the grocery store today, marked with the familiar red heart and white checkmark.
This heart healthy program allowed food companies to buy in and label their foods with the heart healthy seal. By 1997, fifty-five companies were participating with more than 600 products certified. Foods such as pop tarts, Frosted Flakes, and Fruity Marshmallow Krispies were proudly sporting the heart healthy label.
With the push to eat a low-fat diet, it became widely accepted that in order to stay healthy, the most important thing you could do to was to avoid fat. And with sugar laden foods labeled as heart healthy, consumers were eating more and more of these highly processed foods, thinking they were doing all the right things to stay healthy.
Here’s a dirty little secret about removing fat from food, it no longer tastes good. In order to make all those low-fat foods appetizing, they replaced the fat with sugar. And because real food fats were vilified, they replaced those with highly processed seed oils, that’s how we got canola, soy, and vegetable oil, as well as things like margarine and Crisco.
They had no evidence that these were healthy, and they were too new to know what they would actually do in the human body. They essentially took away a food that humans have been eating forever, and replaced it with highly processed, unnatural, unknown, and untested food like substances.
Over the years, popular health media has continued to promote and support eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet. If you want to learn more about why low-calorie diets don’t work, check out my earlier video. Linked above.
Unfortunately, all this advice we were given, and these replacement foods that were recommended, was not honestly and accurately researched and was pushed upon us as a large and sadly deadly experiment. The low-fat, low-calorie craze has made us fatter and unhealthier than could have ever been imagined.
In the past 50 years, obesity has increased by over 250 percent, and diabetes has increased by a shocking 700 percent.
So, what we’ve been told is, fat makes us fat, but that is simply not the truth! In fact, fat is good, and even necessary to good health.
Fat is what makes up the outer layer of every single cell in our body. Our hormones need it, our muscles need it, and if we don’t eat enough of it, we’re going to be left with horrible cravings for sugar and processed food.
If this all sounds hard to believe, I get it. I ate a low-fat diet for years, and it gave me depression, anxiety, brain fog, poor memory, poor sleep, an extra 30 pounds, and I lost my gallbladder.
I began eating a high-fat diet over 4 years ago, and other than not being able to grow a gallbladder back, all those symptoms completely disappeared and have stayed away.
So, if you are like I was and are skeptical, or maybe even a little nervous about eating a high fat diet, let me give you 10 reasons why your body will thank you for adding the fat back in!
Fat is highly satiating, meaning it fills you up and keeps you that way longer. This means you aren’t hungry all the time and won’t overeat and binge.
Fat reduces the risk of depression which is often caused by too little cholesterol and fat in the brain. If we have too little cholesterol and fat in our brain, we have lower levels of serotonin which is the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good.
A diet higher in healthy fat reduces the amount of triglycerides in the blood, which lowers your risk of heart disease.
Eating more fat not only lowers triglycerides, but it also raises HDL, the “good” cholesterol.
Healthy fats are higher in cholesterol which are used to make our hormones. When we eat more fat it balances androgens, such as testosterone and estrogen. When our hormones are balanced, we’re more able to lose body fat and keep it off. Before you turn this video off, thinking an increase in cholesterol sounds like a bad thing, let me tell you, it has been found that dietary cholesterol has very little impact on blood cholesterol. So when I say an increase in cholesterol I’m talking about the naturally occurring, necessary, healthy, good kind of cholesterol!
Speaking of what we think of as “bad” cholesterol, eating a diet high in healthy whole food fats, increases the size of the LDL cholesterol, making it large and puffy. This means it can’t penetrate the arterial wall, causing inflammation and leading to heart disease. The larger fluffier LDL particles are protective and preventative of heart disease.
When we eat more fat, and lower our carbohydrates, we reduce our insulin levels and this leads to steady blood sugar levels. This means fewer cravings, steadier energy, and decreased mood swings.
Fat is loaded with nutrients like Vitamins A, D, E, and K.
Omega-3 fatty acids turn on the genes that are involved in fat-burning, and turn off the genes that are involved in fat-storage.
Fat helps to maintain a healthy, balanced metabolism which is what will help you maintain a healthy weight.
So now that you know, fat is not the enemy, in fact, its our friend, how do you start adding it to your diet?
The first recommendation I want to give you is to lower your intake of carbs as you increase your intake of dietary fats. What you don’t want to do is eat a diet that is high in carbs and high in fat, this is a recipe for weight gain!
A ketogenic diet is going to be a fantastic option for lowering carbs and adding in healthy fats. If you’re not familiar with a ketogenic diet, it is a high fat, moderate protein, and low carb diet. Most of us are fueling ourselves with glucose, this is what’s called a sugar-burner.
When you eat a keto diet, you switch your fuel source to ketones, this turns you into a fat-burner. This is a powerful metabolic state as the body actually prefers fat as fuel and everything just runs better.
If you’d like to give keto a try and would like some guidance, click the link below to be added to my waitlist for my 6-week group class called Keto Clear. This class will teach you how to quickly get into ketosis in a healthy and sustainable way.
Ok, I hope you’re starting to see why fat is so important to a healthy, whole food diet, and why it is key to optimal health. So go forth and start adding it to your plate and see just how great you feel!
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time!