I Eat Low Fat Foods. Why Am I Still Overweight and Unhealthy?
Because we’re scared of fat!
That’s right – we’re scared of fat! Imagine reading a menu that said ‘high fat meals served all day long’ – if you’re trying to be healthy you might mistakenly avoid the place. But, how about your reaction to the menus that have ‘low fat’, ‘skinny’, ‘low calorie’ options? You’re doing the right thing by choosing those, right?
WRONG!!
I’m sorry to say it but we have been duped… badly. As a nation, we are consuming low fat, low calorie and nutritionally void foods by the bucket load. And you know what??
We are getting fatter…not skinnier!! And unhealthier…. So what’s going on?
The dietary information given to us for decades is completely flawed. And now there are more and more studies proving that a diet high in healthy fats, and low in carbohydrates, is much better for our health and waistlines than we have been led to believe.
Why is low fat so bad?
I Eat Low Fat Foods. Why Am I Still Overweight and Unhealthy?
We’ve been conditioned to think that if we eat low fat foods we won’t get… fat. But when food manufacturers make a low fat product, they add in a ton of sugar (often masked as cane sugar, corn syrup or fructose) to make up for the loss of taste.
Did you know that a single serving of low fat yogurt could contain as many as 30 grams of sugar? That’s 60% of the USDA recommended daily amount!
What happens when we consume too much sugar?
There’s a lot that goes on inside our system when we consume too much sugar, but basically our bodies react to the influx by triggering the liver to start storing fat in various places around our bodies – places like your liver and heart – and over time, that build up is not good. But it also gets stored in different places in each of us – butts, hips, tummy etc. And that just doesn’t look good… ever!
When we consume too much sugar our bodies use it up first for energy (that’s why you get that ‘sugar high’ after eating a donut and then feel hungry 30 minutes later!). The more important process of burning fat is put into second place and then insulin (a major hormone in our body) takes the sugar in your system and converts it straight to fat.
As a final kicker, the signal to tell your body to make more insulin is delayed so you still feel hungry (and probably eat more food). This results in a massive destabilization of your body’s entire blood sugar system and can lead to all sorts of short and long-term health problems, including obesity, allergies, depression and diabetes.
A simple solution?
The problem might sound complex when you start looking at the science behind it, but thankfully the answer to this fear of fat problem is actually quite simple.
A diet high in healthy fats and low in carbohydrates can easily and quickly set your health back on the right track.
What are healthy fats?
Despite what the marketing people at the food companies might say, the following foods are healthy forms of fat:
- Meat (but please opt for grass fed and grass finished!)
- Butter
- Cream and cream cheese
- Avocados
- Cheese
- Dark chocolate
- Eggs (yolk and all!)
- Fish (the fatty kind including salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring, trout)
- Nuts and seeds
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Coconut oil
What about carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates contain sugar and starches which, as I mentioned above, do all sorts of bad stuff to your blood sugar levels and should be limited. Foods to limit/avoid include bread, pasta, rice, potatoes).
But eating these low carb foods ensure you feel full and they don’t put extra pressure on your body:
Vegetables (choose ones that grow above the ground i.e. broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, Brussels sprouts, kale, spinach, asparagus, eggplant etc.)
Check out the kind of foods I eat daily here.
As always, I love learning about how we can eat better to fuel ourselves and stay healthy. If you want an even more in-depth study of how the American diet got it so wrong, this is well worth a read.
Lucky for you I made the whole high fat, low carb eating super easy and you can download my free ebook for more information and tips.