"I am in here, you just got to let me out"
Ditching the FAT? That’s what a high percentage of people are always trying to combat when they start the latest fad celebrity ‘new diet’. These diet plans & groups miss the one most important ingredient - understanding what makes us fat in the first place and how we need to work with this knowledge to make the changes
Sure there is a lot of us out there that have had the sinking feeling when we look in the mirror or the clothes are starting to feel a little tighter than last month, our answer, we look to going on a diet to shred some unwanted pounds…right?
Changing your nutrition lifestyle along with introducing exercise is paramount to losing excess body weight and changing your body’s composition, but first we must understand the reasons we may store excess body fat to ensure we avoid them in the future if we want to succeed in our fat loss.
One of the biggest offenders for this is SUGAR, a high sugar diet will make us fat – fact! Many people think that fat makes you fat, however a high refined CHO (Carbohydrate) diet is the biggest culprit as it’s the carrier of SUGAR!
In a nut shell too much sugar in your diet will increase your insulin blood spikes, now when we hear the word insulin we normally associate it with people suffering with diabetes, however we all have insulin levels in our blood and hormones which control these levels. We need to keep these levels balanced to avoid increasing the amount of insulin as too much will be stored outside of the blood flow and if not used will turn to fat storage cells! If you have a high sugar lifestyle you are constantly ‘insulin spiking’ once the level of insulin is too high in the blood it will send the sugar to store and over time this turns into fat, increasing your weight!
Once we eat Carbohydrates that are high in sugar we experience a ‘sugar high’ and feel full of energy, what normally follows is a ‘sugar low’ so we then find ourselves craving sugar again sending the insulin lever sky high and unbalanced storing more sugar as unused energy, if this energy is not used by being active it is converted into fat cells and we start to increase our body fat percentage. By keeping our insulin hormone balanced we can reduce the amount of fat cell storage and then with the right balanced nutritional lifestyle and a good level of exercise start to burn away the unwanted excess body fat.
Hopefully this sounds fairly straight forward, we need to keep sugar as low as possible within out lifestyle we need a good nutrition plan to start the ball rolling and this is something that we can help you start and work with you to ensure that you succeed in your goal.
What is FAT & can I eat it to lose weight?
The ‘diet world’ tells us we need to reduce the fats we eat to reduce body fat, this is not the complete answer. Low fat diet’s won’t make you reduce your body fat because guess what? Fat doesn’t make you fat! “Your body needs fats to ditch the unwanted layer of flab”– believe it or not and it sounds backward to what we are told, here’s why;
Fat is an essential nutrient that you cannot live without. Losing weight by eliminating fat (or any other macronutrient) from your diet is unhealthy which will lead to less than desirable results.
Fat is a nutrient that provides the body with 9 caloriesper gram. Aside from providing energy, it also has some other key functions which include aiding in the absorption of fat soluble vitamins and producing hormones. One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding this nutrient is that eating fat will make you fat. A balanced diet that contains good fats while limiting the bad ones will lead to a healthier and more productive lifestyle.
Your body needs a certain amount of EFA’s (essential fatty acids) in order for it to maintain itself. Our organs and main spinal cord are covered in a layer of fat for protection, so the old saying that you need fat to keep you warm in winter is not that far from the truth.
By not eating enough good fats the body will hold onto what fat it has to protect it! Your body can not detect when you will next feed it EFA’s so it almost panics and keeps hold of what fat you have for emergency!
Yes agreed we can’t over indulge in good fats, and we need to keep the trans (man made) fats out of our diet. We need the right amount of good types but we do need to keep them in our diet!
We need the good fats to help the body ditch existing fats and help you towards you optimum vitality. These are fats found in seeds, oils, fish, seafood, nuts, meats & avocados.
By having EFA’s in your lifestyle you will also help towards feeling full after meals, stop cravings for sweeter foods and the feeling of fatigue and sluggishness towards the end of the day.
Try to cut out the bad fats! These are the man made types normally known as Trans Fats or Hydrogenated Fat. The body can not use this fat or break it down so will simply store it adding to your fat cells!! It can also increase your risk of heart disease, obesity and reduce muscle tone