Thursday, July 23, 2009

Why Just Reducing Fat Intake Will Not Improve Your Health

By Joe Graham

If you are looking to lose weight or want to get ripped, if your are on a bodybuilding program then eating healthily is vital. Some programs fail to take this into account in which case you may find some of the foods you consume may not be particularly healthy over the long term.

One of the most important aspects of the diet is fat intake. Fat contains more calories per gram than either protein or glucose so makes them critical if you are looking at weight loss. Fat is also responsible for increasing your cholesterol level which may increase you risk of cardiovascular disease over the long term.

The good news is that the overall intake of fats in the diet has decreased over the last twenty years or so and most people realize that fat is the main villain, in the modern western diet, of the cause of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. However, there is still a lot of confusion over the differences between good fats and bad fats.

In the diet, fat is important because some fats are essential to a lot of the normal physiological processes that go on in the body. Many, such as linoleic acid, are not manufactured by the body, so need to be taken in the food we eat. Fat in the food is also vital for the absorption of certain nutrients such as fat soluble vitamins in the gastrointestinal tract.

There are two main types of fat found in the diet, saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fats are also known as the the bad fats and are commonly found in animal fats, especially lamb and beef. Fish fried in fat, dairy products such as milk and cheese also contain large amounts of these saturated fats.

Fast foods like burgers are quite commonly cooked in animal fats and as such have a lot of saturated fats in them. Saturated fats are mainly the cause of increases in cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the bloodstream which in turn increase the risk of disease

The good fats or unsaturated fats are often found in certain oils such as soyabean and rapeseed oil. If you were to replace your animal fats with these types of fat then it would be possible to successfully reduce the intake of saturated fats. Also cooking methods can reduce your intake of bad fats, such as grilling instead of frying.

In order to lose fat mor weight it is important to reduce your general fat intake in the diet. However, to stay healthy it is also vital to look at the quality of fat your are putting into your body and lower the intake of the bad saturated fats. Eating more vegetables and fruit is a more healthy approach which will leave you feeling full without increasing your fat intake.

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