Why Eating High-Fat Food Doesn’t Make You Fat
All month long, Galore is exploring what it truly means to be #blessed, mind, body, and soul. Click here for more health and wellness content.
Everybody has been saying forever that in order to lose weight you HAVE to cut carbs, fats and everything else that’s not a steamed season-less piece of chicken or kale. So bland.
But of the endless list of diets that have all at one point been the diet of choice, the high-fat diet, sometimes known as the Mediterranean diet, might be the ultimate way to shed pounds. Studies have shown that the way to lose weight is definitely with a high-fat diet over the low-fat diet.
But how does this make you #blessed? Considering the fact that this study didn’t make the participants change their diets too much other than the incorporation of olive oil and more foods higher in the fats, this might be the easiest way to lose weight that we have heard about in a LONG time. *throws away juicer*
So what is the high-fat diet? It’s when fats make up at least of 40-45% of the calories you eat in a day. Also, the fats you would eat on this diet are mostly saturated fats, and come from things like olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, nuts and fatty fish.
High-fat diets caught a really bad rep in the past because a bunch of studies had “blamed saturated fat for clogging arteries,”according to author Gary Taubes. “This notion emerged from vast population studies in the 1970s that found loose correlations between fat consumption, total cholesterol, and heart disease.”
“Fat has more calories per gram than carbs or protein, so [people think] eating fat must make you fatter. It’s a naive view of human physiology,” says Taubes. This misconception of what fat actually does is to your body is what lead the fear of the word F-A-T when it comes to our diets. But what these people didn’t know was that there are so many benefits!
The high-fat diet actually replaces some of the carbs that you would eat, and Bodybuilding says that if you are trying to lose weight, “displacing carbohydrates by increasing fat in your diet sets the stage for an optimal fat-loss environment.” WOO! Bring on the avocadoes!
Also, another thing about this diet that rocks is that the more fat you consume, the more fat your body burns. According to Bodybuilding, while on a low-fat diet, weight loss is really hard because your body doesn’t release those fat burning hormones that actually come from fat you eat. The high-fat diet helps release those hormones in your body so it becomes efficient at burning carbohydrates, which store themselves as fat.
It’s like fat-ception!
But at the end of the day, fat is just one of the three main macro-ingredients that our bodies need and it’s extremely important to maintain a well-rounded balance. Everything in moderation (or so we tell ourselves).
And with that said, let me guiltlessly slap an entire avocado on toast, because, ya know, health.
