Fat has to be the most debated part of food.  Most people are so scared of fat in their diet due to guidelines like the food pyramid.  Definitely no personal training or exercise physiology client of ours on the Gold Coast or Brisbane really understand the role of fat in our diet when they first come to see us.  So to clear things up and finally figure out fat here is the cheat notes.

Fat is the only macronutrient that has no effect on insulin.  This means that it helps to regulate blood sugar and insulin; which means less lipogenesis or less fat storage.

Fat also stimulates a number of hormones like cholecystokinin which helps provide a feeling of fullness and decreases the cravings

Liposoluble vitamins like Vitamin A, D, E & K are optimally absorbed in the presence of a fat source.  These vitamins are needed for optimal health so adding a little bit of organic butter or olive oil to your vegetables is a great way of achieving this.  As a side note on liposoluble vitamins, if you take too much of them, you can run the risk of becoming toxic because they can be stored in the body unlike water soluble vitamins.

Fat is an essential part of our cell membranes and aids in detoxification

Good fat sources contain a number of antioxidants

If your diet is not at least 30% fat, your sex hormone levels are not going to be optimal.  One benefit of an increased fat intake is a corresponding increase in testosterone which will mean LESS fat storage!  On the flip side, avoidance of fat in a diet is a really good way of nutritionally castrating males and decreasing sex drive and vitality in females.  If you want to figure out if diet does contain this 30% amount, you will need to figure your total caloric intake each day and how many calories you are consuming from fat each day.  You can do this with online calculators like Calorie King. 

Omega 3 fat sources (and in particular DHA) helps with brain function

Omega 3 fat sources (and in particular EPA) has anti inflammatory properties so it is good for joints and injuries.  In fact for all rehab protocols, I make sure my patients are taking at least 4000mg Omega 3 (e.g. combined EPA & DHA values in the capsule) per day.

Fish oil (the best source of Omega 3 fats) increases basal metabolic rate helping you burn more calories overall

Fish oil along with carnitine improves the use of fat as a fuel source during exercise meaning you use less muscle glycogen and more fat for your training.   This means you lose body fat faster.

The Poliquin Fish Oil Range Are The Ones I Personally Use Predominately

Now this is a long list of good things eh?  And the kicker is I haven’t even really got started – I could easily list three to four times more benefits fat has for human health and fat loss!

Now there are obviously some negatives about eating fat.  Here they are:

Trans fat is the worst fat.  It is produced by hydrogenating (or adding hydrogen atoms to) fat, which changes the carbon structure from its’ natural form.  Hydrogenating the fat source stabilizes the fat so it lasts longer and also improves taste but unfortunately it also happens to be a real killer.  Trans fat has been shown to raise LDL and a long term studies my colleague Jonathon Wong has shown me suggest you get an increase of 1/3 inch extra on your waist per year if you increase your trans fat intake by a mere 2 percent. Start letting out the belt boys…

Unfortunately trans fat is everywhere – cakes, snacks, cookies, margarine, and almost every fried food.  And even more unfortunate is that Australia has no legislation requiring it to be completely removed from foods as they do in other health conscious countries like Canada.

Avoid almost all trans fats at all costs.  The WHO recommends that the only safe level in our diets is 0%.

Interestingly enough though, there some naturally occurring trans-saturated fats that do help with your health and fat loss.  Conguated linoleic acid (CLA) is sold as a popular fat loss supplement which has been shown to decrease abdominal (visceral) body fat, cancer risk and also increase muscle gains in the extremities.  It is also a really good idea to be taking if you use whey protein as your protein source due to it's effect on betacellulin - which is a cancer causing compound found in diary that has had CLA removed like whey and skim milk.  Now to be exact, it is only part a trans fat (the other part is cis, which is what every other healthy fat source is) mainly found in beef and diary products.

CLA is a great idea to take especially if your main fat storage area is on the stomach

The predominant Western diet promotes a high intake of Omega 6 fats to Omega 3 fats.  Now it is not that Omega 6 fats are bad for you per se, but when they totally outbalance the Omega 3’s it cause metabolic havoc in our bodies.  The ratio of Omega 6:Omega 3 should be anywhere from 4-2:1 and some experts estimate that a typical Western diet has a ratio of around 40:1.  The main source of Omega 6 fat in our diets is normally vegetable derived cooking oils like canola.  Exchanging these type of oils when cooking for an organic butter or macademia oil and supplementing with Omega 3 will go a long way to correcting this ratio.

So where should you get your fat sources?

Smaller Fish (Larger fish like swordfish, tuna and shark all contain higher levels of mercury than smaller fish)

A can of tuna once a fortnight probably won't hurt you but over consumption on canned tuna can definitely lead to heavy metal toxicity.  Just ask Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold on Entourage) who suffered from mercury poisoning due to only eating fish and predominately tuna

Practitioner range Omega 3 supplements like Poliquin or Thorne

Ground flax seeds (I am not a raving fan of flax seed oil.  Reason being – it has a very low melting point meaning in warm climates like ours here in Australia it can become unstable and rancid)

As many different types of nuts as you can think of (except for peanuts which are actually a legume like a bean)

Avocados

Oils like olive, macadamia, coconut and avocado

I like to rotate through my cooking oils: olive, macademia, coconut and butter are all great choices

Now most natural occurring fats are all fine and as you can see even natural trans fats like CLA can be beneficial.  This also includes most saturated fats that are actually essential for cell formation, hormonal health and more!

How much?

Fat is not really the evil nutrient that you must avoid at all costs as the food pyramid suggests.  It all depends on what types of fat you eat.  The list of proven benefits that fat possess are far too long for it to be completely excluded in your diet.  As a sports nutritionist, exercise physiologist and running a team of personal trainers in Gold Coast & Brisbane, I commonly recommend that your diet contain at least 30% fat and as much as 65% fat for certain individuals. No matter if you are in Gold Coast or Brisbane or anywhere else for that matter, wanting to lose fat or put on muscle, you need these healthy fats in your diet.

Make sure you let me know what you think below!