Diet Myth #3: A LOW FAT DIET IS HEALTHY FOR YOU

DIET MYTH #3: A LOW-FAT DIET IS GOOD FOR YOU

In the 1950s, a scientist named Ancel Keys rocked the nutrition world by claiming, with some pretty convincing research, saturated fat caused heart disease. We later learned that Keys threw out data that didn’t fit his model. He manipulated his data to make it agree with his theory, and he singled out information from only seven countries to prove his correlation, rather than comparing all the data available from twenty two countries. This set off the low-fat diet craze, which has stuck around ever since. Food chemists immediately started concocting low-fat foods for this new market. They removed the fat from the foods and had two replacement options: sugar or protein. Since sugar tastes better than protein and is more affordable, excessive sugar or corn syrup was added to low-fat foods. Not only do these foods lack nutrients and contain excess sugar and carbs in place of saturated fats, but they also make your limbic system think that famine is coming by eliminating its most important nutrient: fat. Dietary fat contains more energy per gram than any other nutrient, so it is most effective at delivering energy to the parts of your body that need it. Compared to protein or sugar, fat has the least impact on insulin levels and does not raise the stress hormone cortisol, which increases blood sugar and suppresses your immune system. Low-fat foods that contain sugar spike insulin, which leads to energy crashes and weight gain.. One of the main reasons people fail on so many diets is because they feel like they’re being tortured, so they give up and go back to eating foods they actually enjoy. Unbeknownst to many, you can lose weight by enjoying delicious, satisfying foods. When you’re eating the right foods, you can eat as much as your limbic system wants. Your limbic system tells you to stop eating when you’ve had enough, so you won’t want more food than your body needs. Fat is the foundation of the Bulletproof diet, but not all fat is created equal. In later posts, you will learn which types of fat turn off cravings and which cause them. When low-fat foods became popular, we started rejecting all fats instead of just the bad ones. People don’t need to experience more fat-free misery. Since being on the Bulletproof diet, I reap the health benefits of a high healthy-fat diet and wake up every morning thrilled about the food I’m going to eat. The most effective diet in the world won’t work if you don’t stick to it. One simple reason the Bulletproof diet is so effective long term is that it tastes good and doesn’t cause your limbic system to waste your willpower by battling cravings. This makes it sustainable. Why would you ever go off a diet that tastes better than the diet you were eating before you started looking great, losing weight, and kicking butt?