Are you still caught up in the low-fat mantra of the past couple decades? Do you think you can't eat much fat if you are trying to lose weight? These ideas are still so prevalent in our media and in the low-fat products you see everywhere that it's no wonder you may still believe this. In fact, even many doctors still believe this.
However, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, in 1999-2000, an estimated 64 percent of adults in the United States were either obese or overweight. That's almost two thirds of the adult population, and one third of our children are now overweight as well. In the past 30 years, the number of overweight children has doubled. In just the past decade, the number of obese people in the U.S. has gone up two and one half times.
Fifty years ago, only a small percentage of the population had problems with their weight. Now it's an epidemic! All this has happened while we cut back from 40 to around 32 percent fat as a percentage of our diet.
Low-fat diets not only don't work, but they're not healthy, not natural, and they tend to promote weight gain! Research confirms this statement. The famous Framingham Study that started in 1948 is still going on, and it shows that the more saturated fat, the more calories, and the more cholesterol a person ate, the lower their serum cholesterol! The results also show that the more fat they ate, the less they weighed!
So, we are eating less fat as a nation, but are gaining weight. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that since fat gives foods much of their flavor, when manufacturers cut out the fat, they add sugar, MSG and other chemicals to the food to enhance the taste. These can all have adverse effects on both our weight and our health.
Saturated Fats Are Necessary for Good Health
Many of us, doctors and laypeople alike, were taught that red meat and fat, and especially saturated fats, are to be avoided. We still hear that they cause all sorts of problems, including high cholesterol, heart disease and weight gain. However, if you carefully study the research, you will see that it shows the opposite to be true. Saturated fat is a vital nutrient and is necessary for good health.
In order for your body to properly use fat-soluble vitamins, you need to have the fat in your foods. Calcium, too, needs fats for proper absorption. So it's important to use full-fat dairy products and put butter and cream on your calcium-rich leafy green and other vegetables and eat salad with oil-based dressings. If you eat this way, you will increase your absorption of the vitamins and minerals contained in those salads and other vegetables.
While we Americans have been lowering the amount of fat in our diets, especially saturated fats like animal meats, butter, lard, coconut oil and full-fat dairy products, not only have obesity rates skyrocketed, like previously discussed, but heart disease rates have also increased. A wealth of research points to vegetable oils, sugar, especially high-fructose corn syrup, and refined grains as a major cause of obesity, and to trans-fats, and vegetable oils and shortening as a major cause of heart disease.
FACT: By 1950, butter consumption had dropped from 18 lbs per person per year to just over 10. FACT: Heart disease caused probably no more than 10 percent of US deaths prior to the 1920's. By the 1950's it had risen to 30 percent or more.
According to Dr. Ron Rosedale, when you eat lots of carbohydrates, especially simple carbohydrates like sugar and white flour products, your body converts them to sugar and then burns that sugar instead of burning fat. Saturated fats act as a carrier for the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. When the fat is removed from foods in our diet, many of these vitamins are also removed, and our absorption of these vitamins also goes way down.
Saturated fats protect the liver from alcohol, drugs and other toxins. Saturated fats also support the immune system, which helps keep you from getting sick. Saturated fats are needed for correct bone development and in order to prevent osteoporosis. A high level of fat in the diet needs to be saturated in order for the body to properly utilize calcium. This means that a low-fat diet with plenty of calcium and/or calcium supplements is not necessarily going to prevent osteoporosis, and this is seen today in the high rates of osteoporosis.
Saturated fatty acids are necessary for proper functioning of all our cell membranes. They give our cells the firmness necessary to maintain structural integrity. All your cells and organs, especially the brain, need saturated fats in order to function properly. So stop worrying about eating low fat. Add real old fashioned fats back into your diet like cream and butter and watch the excess pounds slowly disappear.
Every year millions, dare I say billions of dollars are spent by people who are desperate to lose weight. The vast array of weight loss programs, diet plans and exercise routines leave the frustrated overweight public completely confused, not knowing what the best approach is for their particular problem.
Low fat foods have been on the market for a long time, and have been used by many yet our society continues to increase its number of overweight and obese people. If low fat diets are so good why don't we lose weight? The truth is that eating a purely low fat menu on its own is not the answer to losing weight.
Low calorie dieting suffers too because eating low calories slows down the bodies fat burning engine and ruins the chances of losing weight. You may see some temporary weight loss but starving yourself on low calorie diets is not the answer.
More recently low carbohydrate diets have become popular, but they pose other problems for the dieter. Generally low carbohydrate diets tend to be very stringent and difficult to maintain, and the menus tend to rob your body the energy found in carbohydrates. This loss of energy makes it very difficult to keep to the strict routine required and soon give up. Most criticism of low carbohydrate dieting is based on the fact that the dieters will get most of their daily calories from meat, dairy and other high fat products. This can lead to high cholesterol and other problems related to a high intake of saturated fats. Medical advice is advised before starting this type of diet. Sometimes weight loss is good in the early stages but people cannot handle the restrictions in the longer term and start to deviate from the diet.
Organized weight loss programs along with the special foods or supplements sold in these courses usually get less dramatic results in the short term and are less likely to be harmful because of the controlled manner in which they work, along with a carefully thought out exercise plan.
Setting achievable goals is vital in any weight loss plan. Goals should be clear, realistic and set out in writing. While you probably do have an ideal weight in your mind, unless you are only very slightly overweight it is probably too distant to be useful. A more useful goal would be to lose two pounds per week for the first five weeks and then one pound per week after that. Some weeks you will lose more and some less, some weeks you may even gain, but if you track your progress on a graph you will see that ups and downs are natural and do not stop you progressing steadily toward your major goal.
You get fat by eating the wrong foods at the wrong times of the day. You can lose weight quickly by eating the right foods at the right times of the day. You don't have to starve yourself to lose weight. The secret to regular and safe weight loss is by alternating every known calorie type in a programmed sequence. If you maintain your current eating habits you will never lose weight. Your body fat tissue can be and should be burned away regularly. To do this you must learn to eat he correct calorie rich foods in the right sequences and at the right times in order to lose weight and keep it off.
Both Karen Pijuan & Ken Nickless are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Karen Pijuan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Vitamin B Complex, Green Tea and Fitness. Karen Pijuan is the owner of several health-related websites and has written numerous articles about healthy living, whole food supplements, natural weight loss and more. Find out more by visiting. Karen Pijuan's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.
Ken Nickless has sinced written about articles on various topics from Health. Ken Nickless is a retired businessman playing as much golf as possible and spending the rest of his time on internet marketing. Ken's site