How Eating Fat Can Change Your Life (for the Better!)

We can work through this together! Low fat, no fat, eating fat. What’s a person to do? Learn the fast facts on fat and how eating the right amount every day can transform your life!

If you’re like me and have spent a considerable amount of time and energy trying to be low fat or fat-free, it might be a little hard to wrap your head around actually TRYING to eat fats.

If you recall from our articles on protein and carbohydrates we like to have 30% of our calories to come from Protein, 40% from carbohydrates, and 30% to come from eating fat. I know, it seems a little crazy, right? It’s OK!

Fat is our Energizer Bunny

Here is the deal: Fats from the foods we eat act like batteries which store up our energy. Fats are necessary to the body. This is why we need to be eating fat. But caution! Too much fat in our diets is not good.

So that 30%? We’re serious about that number as a maximum intake on a daily basis. Excess fat brings excess calories which can lead to weight gain, and a whole host of other diet-related issues. EVEN good fats! Fat is fat.

There are 3 Kinds of Fats:

• Saturated fats which are found in animal fats. Primarily meats and dairy.
• Polyunsaturated fats which include Omega 3 and Omega 6’s found in fish, fish oil, vegetable oils
• Monounsaturated fats which are found in some nuts, olives, avocados.

The goal is to be sparing on the saturated fat category. We want to be mindful in the polyunsaturated category getting more Omega 3’s v. Omega 6’s. Finally, we want to spend the majority of our fat calories in the monounsaturated category….knowing that a little will go a long way!

So What Do These Healthy Fats Do For Us?

Aside from fueling our battery packs for energy, healthy fats and Omega 3’s are important for our heart, brain and joint functions, and support our immune system! Too little fat can be damaging to our energy stores, our hearts, brains, joints, and immune system.

So all those low fat and no fat diets? That’s right, we are depriving our hearts, brains, joints immune systems of necessary nutrients to do their jobs well….for a LONG time!

Where Can We Find Healthy Fats?

• Olive oil
• Avocados
• Ocean caught fish — stay away from farm raised!
• Lean meats buying the 90/10 ground beef v. the 80/20
• White meat poultry
• Low-fat dairy
• Nuts and Seeds (things like sunflower seeds, flax seed, chia seeds �” used sparingly)

It’s a good idea to have a couple “meatless” days on the menu to leave room for more poly and monounsaturated fats. Inside of NewStart, we dig deeper into fats as a category with Coach Jo. For now, we want you to understand that

1. There are 3 categories of fats: saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated.
2. We need healthy fats (poly and monounsaturated) for our brains, joints, and immune functions
3. 30% of our calories can come from fats!

We’ve learned a lot about macronutrients, and in a future post, we’ll dig into how to develop a rhythm of tracking our macros for maximum benefit! We’ll cover why we do it, and Why you want to make tracking your superpower!

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