If you are afraid of fat, you are not alone. But you need to know that the fear of eating more fat for fear of gaining weight is a myth. And it is not entirely true that eating fat forms fat in the body. We all understand it differently, and of course, since from a caloric point of view, it seems to make sense.
Dietary fat contains nine calories per gram, compared to four calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein. So, if you eat less fat, you’re going to eat fewer calories and you’re going to lose more weight, right?
Healthy fats can help you lose more weight
Unfortunately, that theory doesn’t work. The idea that all calories have the same impact on your weight and metabolism remains one of the most persistent nutrition myths – and it’s one of the ones that keeps us overweight and sick.
Studies show that healthy fats – not aggressive calorie counting or low-fat diets – can help you lose more weight.
Of course, all calories are the same in a laboratory, however, your body is not a laboratory; it is a complex interconnected organism that simultaneously performs thousands of functions.
Food is not just calories or a source of energy, it is information that affects every biological function in your body. Food can literally „turn on“ genes for health or disease. Food influences hormones, brain chemistry, the immune system, and even your gut flora.
This idea becomes very enriching: You can change your state of health from your next meal.
Diets high in good fats speed up metabolism
As we’ve noted, studies show that healthy fats – not aggressive calorie counting or low-fat diets – can help you lose more weight. In experiments, subjects who ate high-fat diets had a much faster metabolism. Diets high in carbohydrates and low in fat triggered insulin, then slowing down metabolism and storing it as belly fat.
The high-fat diet group had a faster metabolism, even while eating the same number of calories.
Other research, compared high- and low-fat diets with high- and low-carbohydrate diets in a controlled eating study (where the researchers provided all the food). Again, the high-fat group fared better.
Those researchers subsequently did something called a crossover trial, in which the same study subjects were assigned to different diets. Half of them ate one way. The other half ate the opposite diet. So, half of the group ate a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, and the other half ate a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet; then those diets were flipped for the second part of the study.
This type of study allows researchers to study the effects on metabolism of different diets in the same person, creating a more accurate and complete picture of the most effective eating plan. Although their carbohydrate, protein, and fat ratios differed, both groups ate exactly the same number of calories.
High-fat diets help you lose more weight by lowering bad cholesterol
What happened was shocking. The high-fat group ended up burning 300 more calories a day than the low-fat group. The high-fat group also had the most improvements in cholesterol, including triglycerides, lowered LDL cholesterol, and had lower levels of PIA-1, which shows a lower likelihood of having blood clots or inflammation. They also showed larger improvements with insulin resistance or pre-diabetes.
The main message here is that most of the biology of fat cells happens to be controlled by the quality and type of food you eat. That explains why we should eat a whole food diet that is lower in refined carbohydrates, as it is low on the glycemic index, high in fiber, and with quality fat – including avocado, coconut oil, olive oil, fruit. dried, seeds, and eggs.
