Weight Loss Tips

Have you seen those “fat free” foods in supermarkets? Have you possibly delighted in them guiltlessly thinking that they are healthy for you? There’s a good chance that you have because we usually follow what the media and the world around us says. In this day in age, along with other health fads, many people believe that fat makes you fat. This is true, to an extent. What we fail to notice is that not all fats are bad.

If I had to guess, since the words fat (as in what’s in food) and fat (as in excess body tissue, or adipose tissue) are the same word it makes sense that when you eat fat, you get fat. However, this is not the case. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between good fats and bad fats. If you eat the bad fats they can make you fat, and also contribute to several diseases. Your body uses the good fats in several ways to repair itself, grow, and work more efficiently.

Some of the benefits of eating these healthy fats include:

-Healthy fats are essential for absorption of fat-soluble vitamins

-Healthy fats have an anti-inflammatory effect - they can help relieve many of the pains that we experience around our joints

-Healthy fats are essential for lubrication of our joints

-Healthy fats improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin is the hormone our bodies use to transport nutrients throughout the body. Insulin sensitivity is essentially a measure of how efficient our bodies use insulin. Insulin resistance is the opposite of insulin sensitivity and is one of the early stages of diabetes.

-Healthy fats can increase the strength of our immune system

-Healthy fats play a major role in the production of energy from foods we consume

-Healthy fats are required for our body to efficiently use oxygen

-Healthy fats can improve skin texture

-Healthy fats can increase your metabolism

-Healthy fats can help you burn more fat (the kind that is attached to your body)

Dr. Udo Erasmus, author of one of the most popular books ever about fat, “Fats the Heal, Fats that Kill”, writes in his book, “At levels above 12 to 15% of total calories, healthy fats increase the rate of metabolic reactions in the body and the increased rate burns off more fat into carbon dioxide, water, and energy (heat), resulting in fat burn off and loss of excess weight.”

In this article we will discuss what exactly these healthy fats are, where to get them from, easy ways to add them into your diet, and the optimal amount of fat that you should consume. I will also explain why the belief that “fats make you fat” has developed because fats can make you fat if you eat too many of them.

The Bad Fats

-Trans Fats

Trans fats are made by bubbling hydrogen through unsaturated fats in order to make them solid and have a longer shelf life. In addition, it was once thought that trans fats were a healthier alternative to saturated fats. However, this is far from the truth. In a statement made by the Bush Administration they warn us to keep consumption of trans fats “as low as possible” and also state that “the food industry has an important role in decreasing trans fatty acid content of the food supply.”

Some of the top Harvard nutritionists state that replacing trans fats with a safer alternative would “prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year.”

In fact, Denmark has already taken an initiative and banned the sale of trans fats to not allow more than 2% of the food to contain trans fats.

Now that you know that trans fats are bad, how do you avoid them? In America, the FDA has required food manufacturers to list the number of trans fats a food contains. This has helped consumers make wiser choices, but according to FDA regulation, “if the serving contains less than 0.5 gram, the content, when declared, shall be expressed as zero.” This rule allows food manufacturers to list very small serving sizes and as long as the amount of trans fats is less than 0.5 grams in that particular serving, they are allowed to list it as 0 grams of trans fats.

The ultimate way to tell if a food contains trans fats or not is if the ingredients list contains the phrase “partially hydrogenated” or “shortening”. Trans fats are mostly contained in foods such as candies, cookies, snack foods, chips, shortenings, and many restaurants.

-Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are widely recognized as being bad fats. You probably know or believe this to be true, and it is to an extent. There is actually quite a controversy between many dieticians and nutritionists about saturated fats concerning the optimal amount that we should consume or if we should even consume them at all. The reason for most of the bad rap that saturated fat has been given is due to the fact that the liver uses it to produce cholesterol. It has been noted to raise the good (HDL) cholesterol as well as the bad (LDL) cholesterol. The FDA’s general guideline for saturated fat is to limit it to about 10% of total calories per day. This would convert to about 20 grams per day for diet containing about 2,000 calories per day.

Saturated fat is mostly found in foods that are derived from animals. The exception would be coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils, which also contain saturated fat.

The Healthy Fats

-Monounsaturated Fats

Monounsaturated fat is believed to help lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise the good (HDL) cholesterol. As listed in the beginning of this article, they also provide many healthy benefits.

Monounsaturated fats are mostly found in vegetable oils. Some examples would include olive oil and canola oil.

-Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsaturated fats contain the family of fats known as Essential Fatty Acids, or EFAs. As you can tell by their name, these fats are essential to the body because the body cannot produce them on its own. The main EFAs are the Omega-3 fatty acid and the Omega-6 fatty acid. They provide many of the benefits listed at the beginning of this article as well. Good sources of these fatty acids are fish, mustard seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnut oil, leafy green vegetables, sunflower, soybean, avocados, and perhaps one of the best sources is flax seed (make sure to grind them or buy them in an oil form - the stomach has trouble digesting the whole seeds).

-Why Fat Supposedly Makes You Fat

(Note: You can calculate your TDEE at
http://www.weight-loss-resources.com/calculators/dailycalories.html)

There is a simple law known as the Law of Thermodynamics. In addition to this, our bodies burn a certain number of calories per day (this number changes everyday and is influenced by many factors). This burning of calories everyday is known as total daily energy expenditure or TDEE. If the amount of calories we eat in a certain day is below our TDEE, we lose weight (this weight is not necessarily fat all the time). If the amount of calories we eat is equal to our TDEE, our weight stays the same. If the amount of calories we eat is greater than our TDEE, we gain weight (as stated before, this weight is not necessarily fat all the time - it could be muscle). Many people skip this important fundamental and look at the type of food they are eating or several other factors before they investigate how many calories they are eating per day and how to adjust their amount of calories consumed to achieve their goals.

Fat holds 9 calories per gram, while carbohydrates and protein hold only 4 calories per gram. This means that eating fat (any type of fat, even the good kind) will result in a greater number of calories consumed. Therefore, it’s more likely that you’re going to go over your TDEE and gain weight, especially if much of your diet comes from fattening foods. In addition to this, fat is very similar chemically to the fat that your body stores. This makes it easy for your body to store consumed fat as fat (adipose tissue), but you must take into consideration that storing fat (consumed) as fat (adipose tissue) is not the only thing your body does with fat (consumed).

-The Optimal Levels of Fat

You’re going to want to eat part of your calories from fat to get their many benefits, but not go too high. Like anything else in the world of nutrition and fitness, there are many opinions on what the optimal levels of fat in the diet are. For instance, advocates of low-fat diets opt for absolutely no fat and believe that fat is what makes us fat. However, there is a flaw in this belief as they are also cutting out the good, numerously beneficial fats. Then there are high fat diets, such as diets suggesting low carbs (they usually say you can eat all the fat and protein you want). Although, it is generally accepted to consume between 15% - 25% of your calories from fat while severely limiting the amount of trans fats and watching the amount of saturated fat that you consume.

-Some Easy Ways to Add Fat Into Your Diet

Now you may be wondering how you’re going to add some of these healthy fats into your diet. There are actually some really easy ways to do so. If you eat salads, you can add about a tablespoon of olive or canola oil. In my experience, you usually cannot even taste these added oils. If you buy some flax seed and grind it, you can add it to almost any food. Once again, these flax seeds are mostly tasteless. Really, adding these healthy nutrients into your diet isn’t that big of a burden.

Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace medical advice from a physician or your health care provider.

Nathan Latvaitis: An avid fitness researcher - helping other people realize their goals through knowledge. Nathan runs a fitness website at http://www.weight-loss-resources.com where you can find more weight loss tips, articles, calculators, reviews, a message board, and more.

Share This

There’s a huge amount of weight loss advice and information out there. Much of it is of questionable value and some of it is quite misleading. This can even be the case for reports from seemingly legitimate scientific studies. So how do you sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to deciding who and what to believe?

1. Beware of the quick fix

Putting on weight is easy compared to losing it. As you did not put weight on overnight, do you really think you can lose it that quickly?

Many products and programs will lead you to believe that you can lose a huge amount of weight in a short time.

It’s true that you can lose quite a few pounds in the early weeks on a weight loss program. If you are very overweight, you will probably lose a lot of weight at the start. But it’s mainly water rather than fat. And that rate is not sustainable over the long term. So if you’re told you can lose more than a pound or two a week on a particular weight loss program don’t believe anything else they say either.

2. Too good to be true

If anything promises you can lose weight without changing what you eat or how much you move, then it’s either dangerous or pulling the wool over your eyes. HEALTHY weight loss is always the result of eating fewer calories (and usually better quality food) or taking more exercise or both.

3. A biased study

If a study supported by chocolate manufacturers emphasises the value of chocolate and downplays the downsides then don’t be surprised! Many “studies” are designed to show a product in a good light rather than to increase our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.

4. Drawing simple conclusions

Weight loss is a complex issue and huge amounts of data will come out of any study using a sizable group of people. It’s difficult to isolate individual factors in a study because we all have different lifestyles, eating styles and exercise styles. If it were easy for us to keep to whatever regime was being studied, we wouldn’t have problems losing weight in the first place. People are difficult to regulate! If any study tries to draw simple “black and white” conclusions, it is likely to be trying to sway you (unscientifically) in a particular direction.

5. A tiny sample

If only a few people have been studied then it’s unlikely that the results can be sensibly extrapolated into the population as a whole. Thousands of people are needed in a study before a true pattern emerges.

6. Missing Evidence

Some ads quote doctors, whose medical school records or qualifications you can’t find any trace of or studies you can’t read about in any reputable scientific journals. Take these with a large pinch of salt especially if claims are made about miracle solutions you have to pay for. Do a little research before you buy.

7. Statements are refuted

With a little research online you can also often find leading scientists and scientific journals refuting some of the more dramatic claims from studies published in the media. Seek out the truth before you blindly follow advice in the popular press.

8. Animal testing

Just because something happens in mice, it does not follow it will happen in the same way for you. Also if a product has been tested with animals it’s unlikely to hit the general public for some years (if it ever does) due to the stringent testing new (legal) products need to receive. So do not hold your breath waiting for a solution in that way.

9. No control group

Any study carried out should have a parallel study with a similar group who are not practising the behaviour or using the product being studied. This is so that they can measure the differences in the two groups. The gap has to be statistically significant to point to any meaningful result. Otherwise a group being studied may show a result just because the members of the group are being monitored and assessed.

10. Dramatic statements

Studies sometimes show that particular foods are good for you or cause this or that disease and these are often reported with dramatic headlines in the newspapers. In truth all foods in moderation are probably OK so read between the lines and see how much of a particular food you would have to eat to have a problem, or to gain the benefit they are describing. These statements are often made to grab your attention in the headlines rather than to give you useful information.

So where should you go to get weight loss advice?

If you want good sound advice about losing weight, you can do a lot worse than follow the latest government guidelines about healthy eating and exercise. While they may not be perfect, there would not be a huge obesity problem in the Western world, if we all followed them.

The fact is we don’t even follow the simplest most straight forward advice, although most of us are already familiar with it. Advice about eating less fat, sugar and salt, increasing our intake of fruit and vegetables and taking 30 minutes exercise three times a week is ignored by most people.

So why oh why do we try and follow every mad study that comes along in the hope that it will have an answer? Follow the simplest advice first to see the most dramatic changes and then you won’t ever have to wonder if you are being told a weight loss fairy story.

Copyright 2005, Janice Elizabeth Small

Janice Elizabeth is a weight loss coach, slimming club owner and author of “The Diet Exit Plan”, an 8 week coaching program for natural permanent weight loss. Request her FREE 15 page report “How to lose weight without dieting - 7 secrets the diet industry doesn’t want you to know” at http://www.SimplySlimming.com TODAY!

Share This

Dieting has always been something that’s much easier for me to put off than to actually start. Whenever I finally convinced myself to make an effort to drop those extra 10 or 15 pounds, something inevitably came up that derailed my plans. It might have been a surprise birthday party for someone at the office, complete with cake, ice cream, and cookies, or it might have been a friend wanting to get together for pizza and beer to watch the big game on TV. Whatever the reason, it seemed that dieting always took a back seat to “real life.”

But then I got an invitation to my 10-year high school reunion and I knew that I had to lose weight fast. There was no way that I was going to let everyone see me in my current state. I wanted to look fabulous for the event, so for a bit of extra motivation I bought a great outfit that was a couple of sizes too small. I thought that seeing the outfit every time I wanted to reach for a snack would remind me of why I needed to lose weight fast. This worked great for about a week, but it soon became clear that I would need help in order to lose weight fast enough to hit my target by the time the reunion rolled around.

I had tried many of the over-the-counter diet aids available at my local drug stores, and since none of those worked for me in the past, I decided to take my search to the Internet this time. I discovered that there are numerous products and services out there designed to help people just like me lose weight fast. I spent a lot of time researching the various products and offers that I saw. Here’s some of what I learned.

It really is possible to lose weight fast, particularly when using some effective supplements and/or suppressants in addition to the right combination of diet and exercise. Obviously, dieting (consuming fewer calories each day) and exercising are entirely up to me. There’s not a single product out there that will force me to get on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day or make sure that I make healthy food choices at each meal. But there are products that can help me lose weight fast by boosting my metabolism or curbing my appetite.

Since there are so many dieting products available, it was a bit difficult for me to make a choice right off the bat. What I had to do first was read through some testimonials and reviews from other customers to see if the product in question actually did help them lose weight fast. I also wanted to limit my choices to all-natural supplements. While it was important to me to lose weight fast, I wasn’t about to sacrifice my health or risk addiction in order to do so.

I finally settled on a couple of products and was surprised by the results. I really was able to lose weight fast! I wore the stunning outfit I had picked out in advance and I had a wonderful time at my high school reunion.

Will I be able to maintain this slimmer look? Only time will tell. But at least now I know that whenever I need to lose weight fast, help is only a few mouse clicks away.

To discover more tips and techniques for losing weight, check out Weight Loss Info Zone.

Share This