Why Is Fat Essential For Weight Loss?

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Why Is Fat Essential For Weight Loss?

The title of this article must have left you wondering how ‘fat’ can help in weight loss? Doesn’t fat make you fat? The answer to that is it doesn’t! Fat is a macro-nutrient that should not be avoided. Fat is vital for normal growth and development. It provides energy, maintains the membranes of cells, protects the organs of the body and helps the absorption and processing of nutrients. The best thing it does is that it helps the body burn fat.

Fat is good doesn’t mean that you should start gorging on deep fried food. The choice of food decides whether you are going to have a trim body or a body weighed down with obesity and diseases.

Fat for weight loss

If your aim is to lose weight, most of your fat should be from unsaturated sources like monounsaturated (MUFA) and polyunsaturated (PUFA). Foods like fish, nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil and leafy greens have tons of nutrients to offer. They help in removing bad cholesterol, promote heart health and help in burning fat without cutting down the calories. According to a study, people who had the most unsaturated fat witnessed lower BMI and less abdominal fat when compared to those who consumed very little of it. Why did this happen? It happened because the individuals who had unsaturated fat ate foods of higher quality.

This doesn’t mean that saturated fats should be regarded as villains. Research done 5 decades ago found that saturated fats (the ones that are solid at room temperature) raised the levels of bad cholesterol but re-evaluation of research shows that saturated fats raised good cholesterol as well , protecting the body from heart disease.

Low-fat diet craze

The diet world was swept across by a low-fat craze in the recent past. Food companies started marketing low fat or no-fat products and consumers were only too happy to buy such stuff thinking that it is healthy. No, low fat diets are not healthy. Apart from stripping the body of a vital macro-nutrient, low fat diets have increased obesity. This is because fat provides taste to the food. When this fat is removed, food manufacturers add loads of sugar and salt to increase the flavor of their food product. So, you would unnecessarily be downing high amounts of sugar and sodium which are not good for health and lead to obesity.

Ways by which fat helps you slim down

Fat burns fat

Fats act as fat burner. For energy, the body requires 3 macro-nutrients and they are carbohydrates, protein and fat. One gram of fat has 2 times the energy of a gram of the remaining two macro-nutrients. If you don’t include fat in your diet, you won’t have the fuel to burn calories. To keep your metabolism functioning properly, you need energy and it has been found that fatty acids can boost your metabolism. Moreover, to efficiently burn the excess fat stored around the belly, hips and thighs you need to consume fat in your diet. So, to get rid of the old fat sitting inside you, you need to consume new fat!

Fat keeps you full

Fat takes a longer while to get digested compared to other nutrients. This means that it will make you feel full longer and your stomach won’t start growling after your meal. Dieters who have a moderate amount of fat in their food are less likely to quit their diet than those who live on a low fat diet. As a result they will be able to lose more weight. Low fat diets are very difficult to stick to as you won’t feel full most of the times. In India, we use Desi Ghee which is similar to full fat butter. Desi Ghee is good for health and helps to keep full for a long time.

Eating fat makes you happy

Research says that taste buds can detect fat in the food just like how you detect the basic tastes like sweet, bitter, salty and sour. This is probably the reason why low- fat food doesn’t satisfy the fat cravings. Here is another reason to eat fat. Omega 3 fatty acids help boost the levels of serotonin in the brain that improves moods, makes you feel good, increases motivation and prevent you from gulping down junk food.

Build muscle with fat

Eating healthy fats along with regular exercising can increase muscles. Increasing muscle mass is essential to improve the metabolism and burn calories. Studies have been done in this regard and it was found that after PUFA supplementation, there was an increase in protein concentration and the size of muscular cells increased in the body.

Fat helps absorb nutrients

Certain vitamins are fat soluble and they are vitamins A,D,E and K. It means that they cannot be absorbed by the body without fat. When your body does not absorb nutrients properly, it can lead to deficiencies. So, eating vitamin rich foods is not sufficient, you need to have the right amounts of healthy fats too.

So do include healthy fats in your diet 🙂 . They make meals tastier and fuller.

Tarun Preet