Nutrition 101: The Skinny on Fat
We’re continuing our Nutrition 101 Mini Series with the skinny on FAT! March is National Nutrition Month and I’m excited to help you discern fact from fiction when it comes to nutrition basics.
Catch up with Part 1 about protein and Part 2 about carbohydrates, if you haven’t yet!
Today we’ll answer your burning questions about fat – What is fat and what does it do in your body? What are the different types of fat? Where can you find fat? How much fat do you need to eat each day? What are the risks of high fat diet plans? And more!
If there’s a hot nutrient right now it’s FAT!
Thanks to the recently popular keto diet (a high fat, low carb, quick fix diet plan) for weight loss, everyone’s talking about eating more fat.
But there’s good and bad news… The good news is that most people don’t fear fat like they did in the ’90s. The bad news is that many people are still relying on quick fix diet plans that aren’t sustainable for the long-term.
Instead, we want to focus on a balanced diet that includes protein, carbohydrates, and of course fat too.
But how much fat is considered balance?
This week in Part 3 of my Nutrition 101 Mini Series let’s break down the skinny on fat…
What is dietary fat?
Fats are one of the three major macronutrients (protein and carbohydrates being the other two), and the most energy-dense. Clocking in at 9 calories per gram of fat (unlike protein and carbohydrates that each contain 4 calories per gram), fats provide more energy per gram than the other two macronutrients.
Even more, fats are digested and absorbed the slowest in your body, keeping you full for hours.
What role do fats play in your body?
I talk a lot about fats keeping you full and satisfied, because on the surface, that’s what you’ll experience when you add more fat to your diet. But fat is essential for vital functions in your body.
Fat helps you:
- Properly absorb some vitamins and minerals
- Produce essential hormones
- Feel energized
- Manage cholesterol levels
- Protects your organs
- Regulates body temperature
- And more!
Even more, fat is best known for its association with heart disease. Too much fat can lead to fatty deposits in your arteries, known as atherosclerosis.
But not all fat is created equally. There are two major types of fat: saturated and unsaturated fat.
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What is the difference between unsaturated and saturated fats?
Unsaturated fats are historically referred to as the healthier fat. Unsaturated fats chemically have a different structure than saturated fats – they contain one or more double bonds. The chemistry isn’t important for you to know, but because of this structural difference, unsaturated fats are traditionally liquid at room temperature.
Monounsaturated fats contain 1 double bond, whereas polyunsaturated fats contain 2 or more double bonds in their structure. Both are beneficial for your health.
Foods that contain unsaturated fats include:
- Olive oil (monounsaturated)
- Canola oil (monounsaturated)
- Sunflower and safflower oils (polyunsaturated)
- Avocado (monounsaturated)
- Nuts and seeds (both mono- and polyunsaturated)
- Fatty fish (polyunsaturated)
One popular unsaturated fat is omega-3 fatty acids. There are three types of omega-3 fatty acids (you can learn more about omega-3 fatty acids here). These polyunsaturated fats are found in fish, nuts and seeds.
Saturated fat is largely known as unhealthy fat, although some recent research disputes this fact. Simply put, saturated fats do not contain any double bonds in their chemical structure. They are solid at room temperature.
Saturated fats are found in a variety of foods, including:
- Animal meats, like beef, poultry, pork, and egg yolks, and processed meats (bologna, sausages, hot dogs, and bacon)
- Coconut oil
- Palm kernel oil
- Dairy products, including cheese, butter, and milk
- Packaged and shelf-stable snacks including chips, cookies, pastries, and crackers
A third type of fat that is being phased out of many American packaged foods is trans fat. These are chemically-made fats from liquid vegetable oils that increase shelf-life of food products. Trans fats have been shown to increase your risk of heart disease by raising your “bad” LDL cholesterol and lowering HDL “good” cholesterol.
Look out for “partially hydrogenated oils” on packaged food ingredient labels to steer clear of trans fats.
Trans fats are often found in:
- Fried foods
- Packaged and shelf-stable snacks including chips, cookies, pastries, and crackers
- Pizza dough and pie crust
- And more
Dietary Guidelines currently recommend avoiding trans fat as much as possible, reducing your intake of saturated fats, and increasing your intake of unsaturated fats to promote good health.
How much fat do you need?
The current recommended intake for fat is 20-35% of your total caloric intake. Even more, the American Heart Association recommends no more than 5-6% of your fat intake comes from saturated fat to reduce your risk of elevated LDL levels and heart disease. However, there is some evidence that disputes this fact. For example, some new research suggests that consuming fat-filled dairy (a source of saturated fat) can help reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease.
For most people, eating a diet that contains 20-35% fat isn’t too difficult. Think about it – if you start your day with eggs, the yolk contains fat (plus oil/butter for cooking). Perhaps you spread some avocado on your toast for added fat too. Then for lunch you use an oil-based salad dressing and add chicken to your salad. You eat some peanut butter as part of your afternoon snack and consume fish for dinner, plus use oil in your cooking.
Seamlessly throughout the day you’ve included a variety of fats – saturated, unsaturated, and even omega-3 fatty acids too, all from real, whole foods (see the bolded foods above).
This is why I’m not too concerned about my clients and you eating enough fat in your diet (but I still include fat as part of my PVCF combo for a balanced diet).
What’s the deal with high fat diet plans?
High fat diet plans, like the ketogenic “keto” diet, suggest at least 70% of your total daily calories come from fat (with ~25% from protein and less than 5% from carbs). By replacing carbohydrates with fat, your body runs off of ketones, a normal byproduct of fat metabolism.
Usually, when consuming a well-balanced diet, your body (and more specifically your brain) runs off of glucose for optimal energy (read more about that here). (FYI: Dietary Guidelines suggest that 45-65% of your calories come from carbohydrates, 10-35% from protein, and 20-35% from fat.) Yes, your body and brain can successfully run off of ketones, but that’s not your brain’s favorite fuel source.
Clinically, the ketogenic diet and being in “ketosis” is useful for individuals with refractory epilepsy and can drastically reduce or eliminate the number of daily seizures. For diabetics, too many ketones in the blood due to low insulin (called diabetic ketoacidosis), can turn your blood acidic (from it’s usual neutral pH) and can be life-threatening. It’s important to distinguish that diabetic ketoacidosis is different from ketosis.
The keto diet has picked up steam as a weight loss tactic, because yes, you will drop lbs quickly. For most people, the keto diet is a quick fix. You eliminate carbs, and drop the weight.
Why? First, you’re dropping water weight. As I mentioned when discussing low carbohydrate diets, you’re depleting your glycogen stores (which also store water). Second, there are some hormonal adaptations (higher leptin levels, lower ghrelin levels) that occur to reduce your appetite when you’re in ketosis.
These modifications can be great for quick weight loss… but is it sustainable for the long term?
For most people (without a clinical reason to continue except for weight loss) the answer is no. It’s not a sustainable diet for the long-term. Some research suggests that at the 1-year mark, there’s no difference in weight loss when comparing low carb vs. low fat dieters. Perhaps this is due to the extremely restrictive nature of this diet. And as we know, restriction doesn’t work long-term.
But, I would be remiss not to mention that even though I don’t support the keto diet due to its restrictive nature, there is some evidence that suggests a very high fat, low carbohydrate diet can benefit your heart health and type 2 diabetes. HOWEVER, I do think we need to follow keto-devotees for a longer period of time to really see what the long-term health outcomes look like.
I’m happy to dissect this more in another blog post, so let me know if you’d like to learn more!
The Skinny on Fat(ty) Recipes…
These recipes all contain a good source of fat, but are by no means keto-approved… remember, #BALANCE!
Creamy Avocado Pasta
Salmon Nicoise Salad
SunButter, Banana, and Avocado Sandwich
Questions? Comments? Did you enjoy learning the skinny on fat? I’d love to hear from you!
XO