Diet Myth #4: EATING FAT WILL MAKE YOU FAT

DIET MYTH #4: EATING FAT WILL MAKE YOU FAT

Thanks to faulty research, fats have gained a bad reputation, but the right types of fats are healthy and essential for life. The reason why saturated fats have been looked down upon for such a long time is because of a cooked study by an influential but misleading scientist, Dr. Ancel Keys. He falsely associated high saturated fat intake to heart disease. The truth is that saturated fat found naturally in animal and plant sources is not the villain. It’s the trans fats found in margarine, vegetable shortening, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils used in low-quality products that are to blame. These are the unhealthy fats that you should avoid. All nutrients are converted inside the body before being used. The right fats are clean-burning, nutritious, and satisfying energy sources that keep your body and brain functioning at maximum capacity. Fat is a building block of healthy cell walls and hormones needed for fertility, temperature regulation, and shock absorption. Some vitamins—A, E, D, and K—are fat soluble, meaning they need fat in order to be absorbed in the body. Healthy fat is an important component of the human body; it’s what we’re made of. The healthy female body is about 29% fat, while men are about 15% fat. Every part of our bodies are, to some extent, made of fat, including our brains. This means that low-fat diets starve our brains. Our brains and our bodies need some essential fats, like omega-3s, to function, but we cannot produce them. By consuming healthy fats, you can balance hormone levels in your body, lose weight, and increase mental focus, rather than struggle with weight gain and be impaired by brain fog.