{"id":557,"date":"2012-12-10T09:30:22","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T17:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gahealthguide.wordpress.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2012-12-10T09:30:22","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T17:30:22","slug":"the-importance-of-dietary-fat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/10\/the-importance-of-dietary-fat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Dietary Fat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The title of this post may seem counter intuitive to what you’ve heard, but most of what you’re told is actually wrong when it comes to dietary fat.\u00a0 It’s worth noting that we’ve been planning on writing this article for sometime, but what made it a reality was this article<\/a>, which we will refute at the end of this post.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with what Dietary Fat is.\u00a0 Fat is a high energy (Meaning high calorie) macro nutrient that is essential for proper body development and functioning.\u00a0 In terms of energy content, the other two macro nutrients (Carbohydrates and Protein) offer 4 calories per gram, whereas Dietary Fat is 9 calories per gram;\u00a0 This means that foods higher in dietary fat typically have a higher calorie count.\u00a0 Dietary fat is also where you get your “EFAs,” or Essential Fatty Acids from.\u00a0 (Remember, an “Essential Nutrient<\/a>” is one that your body can’t manufacture on it’s own but needs to function)\u00a0 Dietary Fats are often divided into two categories depending on their state at room temperature:\u00a0 Fats that are a liquid form at room temperature are often referred to as “oils,” whereas fats in solid form at room temperature are usually referred to as “fats.”\u00a0 Further, fats are also separated into camps based on their source:\u00a0 Animal fats (Fish oil, butter, milk, etc.) or plant based fats. (Peanut butter, nuts, avocado, etc.)\u00a0 Fats can further be broken down into Unsaturated, Saturated, and Trans fats, which we’ll discuss briefly toward the end.<\/p>\n

So why do I need dietary fat?\u00a0 Well, to start, “Vitamins A, D, E, and K are all fat-soluble, meaning they can only be digested, absorbed, and transported in conjunction with fats.”\u00a0 While you may get those vitamins from sources without fat (such as a multivitamin), your body needs dietary fat to put them to use.\u00a0 Dietary fat also helps maintain balanced hormone levels, and in absence can lead to decreased testosterone levels.\u00a0 (Take note!\u00a0 You need testosterone to build and maintain muscle.<\/strong>)\u00a0 Dietary fat is very slowly absorbed in your body, which helps keep you feeling full longer, and brings down the glycemic load of accompanying foods since they can’t be easily turned into glucose in your body in the presence of fat.\u00a0 Dietary fat also helps to maintain healthy skin and hair, promotes healthy cell function, and is (of course) the source of essential fatty acids, which your body needs to function properly.\u00a0 There are many other benefits that have been discovered in other studies, but the aforementioned are all concrete.<\/p>\n

Important note for some<\/strong>:\u00a0 If you’re on a low carb (or no carb) diet, Dietary Fat is essential, as this will be your fuel source when your body enters ketosis.\u00a0 This is why all ketogenic diets are high fat diets.<\/p>\n

So really, eating really low fat is dangerous for you.<\/p>\n

I was told that I should eat a low fat diet–\u00a0 Why are you telling me I need dietary fat?<\/strong>\u00a0 If you notice, throughout the course of this article, I try to always refer to fat as “dietary fat,” and it’s because there needs to be a distinction.\u00a0 At some point, someone looked at the word “fat” on a nutrition label and decided that must be what makes people fat, when really, the opposite is true.\u00a0 At the end of the day, weight gain is dictated by simple math–\u00a0 If you eat more calories than you burn, your body will increase in weight;\u00a0 Fat intake has nothing to do with gaining fat.\u00a0 There is a macro nutrient responsible for fat gain specifically, and it’s not fat;\u00a0 Carbohydrates, specifically simple carbs, or high GI carbs, will cause a spike in blood sugar, which will produce an insulin response, which will thus lead to fat storage.\u00a0 When it comes down to it, if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s better to eat a low carb diet, as carbs are specifically responsible for gaining fat.\u00a0 (Or you can go full on ketogenic with carb cycling<\/a>, which will actually make your body burn dietary fat, and body fat, for fuel.)<\/p>\n

Fat has a bad reputation simply because of the name.<\/p>\n

\"Many<\/a>

Many nutritionists agree that peanut butter will cause World War III<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

When it comes down to it, the only fats you should completely avoid are trans fats.\u00a0 Unsaturated Fats (both “Polyunsaturated and Monounsaturated) are great for you, and Saturated Fats are in a weird limbo right now–\u00a0 For a long time it’s been thought that they’re bad for you, only to be consumed in moderation, but recent research has shown that the adverse effects of saturated fats are only of danger in extremely overweight \/ obese people, if at all.\u00a0 (My thoughts on saturated fats:<\/strong>\u00a0 I would advise everyone to make their own decisions based on their own research.\u00a0 I don’t eat any of the biggest offender foods, so I don’t stress about it too much.\u00a0 Big offenders:\u00a0 Cheese, Milk, Ice Cream, Butter.)<\/p>\n

So, about that article I mentioned in the opening. . .\u00a0 Their claim is that to lose weight, just cut the fat out of your day.\u00a0 What they see is a correlation between weight loss and food substitution–\u00a0 The people who ate diets with dietary fat were over eating, plain and simple.\u00a0 The people who ate lower fat diets, or substituted fats for carbs were eating below their TDEE, which would lead to weight loss no matter the macro nutrient breakdown.\u00a0 The problem isn’t the dietary fat–\u00a0 It’s how many calories they were consuming, and while it’s true that simple substitution can put you on the road toward a possibly “healthier” and thinner you, remember:\u00a0 First and foremost, one must concern themselves with how many calories they’re consuming in a day.\u00a0 In the end, we’ll leave you with this quote from the Harvard School of Public Health: “Detailed research\u2014much of it done at Harvard\u2014shows that the total amount of fat in the diet isn’t really linked with weight or disease.<\/strong>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The title of this post may seem counter intuitive to what you’ve heard, but most of what you’re told is actually wrong when it comes to dietary fat.\u00a0 It’s worth noting that we’ve been planning on writing this article for sometime, but what made it a reality was this article, which we will refute at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nutrition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DfsS-8Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}