Eat fat to get thin?

[Marcy]

The article Eat Fat To Get Thin discusses how the UK's National Obesity Forum is promoting information such as "Eat fat to get slim. Don’t fear fat; fat is your friend" and "Promoting low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history".  

The article goes on to say that thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having disasterous health consequences.

What is your opinion?

[WendyB]

You do need fat in your diet but goods ones. Avacado, nuts, Olive oil, etc.

Just not the bad fats and not a lot

[philly78]

I think the article is spot on and I've been eating that way for quite some time. I made the switch a while back at the advice of my interative medicine doctor and it was one of the best things I could have done. I used to always buy low fat products but no more! We buy whole milk cheeses, yogurts etc and eat plenty of foods that contain healthy fats such as avocado, almonds, coconut oil, and salmon.

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

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@Marcy wrote:

The article goes on to say that thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having disasterous health consequences.

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Whatever the "official" recommendations are, most people aren’t following them anyway. So the official advice was to eat low-fat, but has this prevented people from stuffing themselves with pizza, burgers, ice-cream etc., all of which contain decents amounts of fat. The official advice is to eat plenty of fresh veggies and fresh fruits, but is it what people are doing in reality?

[Dominique]

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@philly78 wrote:

I used to always buy low fat products but no more! We buy whole milk cheeses, yogurts etc.

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I eat full-fat cheeses because I’m French and they simply taste better. If they made low-fat cheeses that tasted good, I would buy them. Since this is definitely not the case, I stick with the real thing, but I eat them in moderation (when at home, I weigh my cheese portions, even though I don’t count calories otherwise). OTOH, I drink skimmed milk (with cocoa, for breakfast), as I don’t see a clear advantage for full-fat milk in terms of taste. Skimmed milk just has fewer calories, which means I can eat more of other things.

I agree there is no need to be hysterical about fats, but fats (whether the "healthy" ones or not) are still 9 calories per gram (compared to 4 calories for protein and carbs), so you do need to eat them in moderation. Claiming you can eat any amount of fats and get away with it is just plain wrong. Regardless of your preferred diet and macro split, the law of energy balance still applies: if you over-eat anything, you will gain fat. 

[I-train-hard]

Callories are just a callories. 

Eatting fat makes sames, when you know what you want and for what reason, not design for the people what has huge amount of fat to loose. Key word, fat to loose, not total weighrt of the body. Two differnt weights. 

[Punkynn01]

Here's the thing...

When I first started my weight loss journey 4.5 years ago I was very new to the whole counting calories idea.  I had always just thought..."eat salads, exercise and the weight will come off"  

I didn't realize the whole idea about calories in and calories out.  

I have become way more educated and am still learning everyday.  

In the beginning it was all about restricting calories.  Then when I started losing and got to the point where I wanted to not just lose but be healthy and get into shape, I had to really look at what I was eating.  I had to look at the nutritian and quality in the the foods.  

Yes, restricting will allowing you to lose weight but you need to have good, clean, healthy, nutritious food to help you to make progress in your health and athletic goals.  

I found that I needed  certain things that I had cut out to lose, in order to gain progress.  I had to totally rethink the way I ate.  

When you totally cut certain things out of your diet that are in the food pyramid (I'm not talking about the junk) you are doing more harm than good.  Now I'm not talking about those things that certain people CAN'T eat.  There are food allergies and things like that, that some people can't eat.  

It's all about moderation.  It's a lifestyle.  When you totally restrict yourself and NEVER allow yourself to have something it's a lot harder to stick with.  

[Xakka · Accepted solution]

You need to be careful with low fat options, to get the same kind fo flavour, they usually just swap out fat for more sugar and they are largely near the same calories. fats are more of a slowly used fuel that keeps me feeling fuel for longer. While the extra sugars in the low fat option may be a simpler type of sugar that your body will quickly process and leave you feeling hungry sooner. So calorie per calorie either option should be equivalent although the way you feel eating a more carb loaded diet vs fat loaded will be different. (2.25 gram carbs = 1 gram fat = 9 calories).

I have found the primary food advice is to eat for nutrition, which is best done by eating a diverse and changing diet, your body will help balance the nutrition excesses and deficits over a few days if you keep changing up the meals.

[Marcy]

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@Punkynn01 wrote:

Here's the thing...

When I first started my weight loss journey 4.5 years ago I was very new to the whole counting calories idea.  I had always just thought..."eat salads, exercise and the weight will come off"  

I didn't realize the whole idea about calories in and calories out.  

I have become way more educated and am still learning everyday.  

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Surprising to me, the article disputes the value of calorie counting. 

"Calorie counting is also a damaging red herring when it comes to controlling obesity, said the NOF report, as calories from different foods have “entirely different metabolic effects on the human body, rendering that definition useless”.

[Marcy]

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@WendyB wrote:

You do need fat in your diet but goods ones. Avacado, nuts, Olive oil, etc.

Just not the bad fats and not a lot

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But that is the surprise with this article. Along with the healthy fats you mention, the idea is that saturated fats aren't contributing to heart disease and full-fat dairy, yogurt and cheese will protect the heart. So the suggestion is to eat more fat of all kinds. 

[Marcy]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@Marcy wrote:

The article goes on to say that thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having disasterous health consequences.

---

Whatever the "official" recommendations are, most people aren’t following them anyway. So the official advice was to eat low-fat, but has this prevented people from stuffing themselves with pizza, burgers, ice-cream etc., all of which contain decents amounts of fat. The official advice is to eat plenty of fresh veggies and fresh fruits, but is it what people are doing in reality?

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Yes, most people probably aren't following guidelines closely. But the article is suggesting that even if you do, you'll gain weight because the guidelines are flawed. Now the message is saturated fats are good and fruits are not. I don't know what to think of that.

[I-train-hard]

Marcy,

When comes to calories, all the how many calories products contains, are assumptions.

Personally, I haven’t seen bad food for humans. Surely, not all food is for everyone etc.

Eating these days, requires thinking. We generally, when comes to food, don’t like to think much…we want to look good, have beautiful bodies, athletic figure etc. and often don’t want to pay price for that. Overeating on healthy food give us the same outcome as eating garbage food- obesity. No magic here.

We have changed so our way how we see food has changed. Just think of it.  

[JillM]

I recently read Always Hungry? by David Ludwig, MD (Harvard). His book is the same idea. Eat fat and don't count calories. Basically, the theory is that the fat satisfies you so you eat less and have fewer cravings. Therefore you lose weight because you're giving your body what it wants.  I gather some people are doing very well following his advice. I just saw a friend who had lost 10 pounds after reading his book. 

[OCDOC]

@Marcy

The 'fat is evil' nonsense is slowly dying the death it deserves. It's BEING fat that is the heath problem, not the fat that people consume.

@Dominique

Interesting article helps explain (in part) why Anglo-American grain products might be more 'evil' than those in France and Scandinavia. I envy you..Scandinavia BANS 'fortification' of bread and grains...wish finding natural grain products where I live wasn't almost impossible.

https://freetheanimal.com/2016/05/enrichment-promotes-everything.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_mediu...

[Marcy]

@JillM Curious, do you remember if meal frequency was mentioned in the book? This article is saying "The increase in meal frequency plays an equal if not larger role in obesity and has largely been ignored". I've had success limiting my meals to one or two a day at times while get my weight down as it just made things easier for me.

[Punkynn01]

Exactly.  This is why I had to change things up.  It's not just about counting calories.  Yes, in the beginning I used it to lose.  It was all about the math. 

I had to change things up tho, when I started really focusing on getting in shape and got into running.  I now run 5-6 days a week and have done many races.  My longest race so far is a 15k and I plan on doing a 1/2 marathon.  

When you train for things like this you have to fuel the body.  It's not just about losing weight anymore.

[GershonSurge]

My opinion is carefully read "The Starch Solution" by Dr. McDougall. This includes taking time to skim all the research studies he recommends. Then spend some time on the forums at www.drmcdougall.com.

This is not some new fad diet. He and others have been saying the same thing since the early 80's and at least 2,000 years before that. 

[shipo]

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@Dominique wrote:

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...I stick with the real thing, but I eat them in moderation (when at home, I weigh my cheese portions, even though I don’t count calories otherwise). OTOH, I drink skimmed milk (with cocoa, for breakfast), as I don’t see a clear advantage for full-fat milk in terms of taste. Skimmed milk just has fewer calories, which means I can eat more of other things. 

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While I've never had, to my knowledge, skimmed milk in France, I have had plenty of milk products there which were not at all palatable (sterilized is the worst).  That said, I've also had farm fresh (unpasturized and unhomoginized) whole milk in France which ranks among the best milk I've ever had in my life.

Here in the U.S. at least, the difference in taste between whole milk and skimmed milk is quite stark; skimmed milk is just plain nasty while full-fat whole milk (especially unprocessed whole milk) is a joy to savor as it runs over your tongue.

[Kati50]

I don't think there is one right or wrong answer here (except the advice to cut out most junk food)----different "plans" work for different people.  I need to eat a lot, so for me, I need to plan my meals around volume, keeping in mind the amt. of calories in each meal----I shoot for around 1800 cal/day.  I don't eat dairy, nuts (I know they are healthy but I have a hard time not eating the whole container in one sitting so I just don't eat them) or red meat, plus hardly any wheat based food----I feel our wheat has been compromised/genetically modified and is no longer healthy.

I eat a lot of chicken, fish and shrimp, plus legumes.  I also eat a lot of fruits, veggies and eggs.  I try to only eat processed carbs the night before I run.

I do cheat every week and try to adheare to the 80-20 rule.  This "plan" works for me but it might not for someone else.  Jut my 2 cents 🙂

[SunsetRunner]

I have switched to a high fat / low carb diet and it is working well for me. I am at a healthy weight and my body fat % is about 14-15% maybe a bit higher. I eat cheese, meats, nuts, avocados, other dairy products a bit of fruit. I avoid bread altogether, and root vegetables like potatoes, and carrots.

I monitor my blood sugar and β-Ketone levels, the objective is to try and keep my β-Ketone levels between 1.5 and 3 mmol/l, and my blood sugar below 5 mmol/l.

I went on a 120 km bike ride the other day on nothing more than, a large coffee with double cream and a small pack of peanuts for breakfast, followed by a green salad with chicken, tofu and fetta cheese for lunch.

Although I did get slower to the end it was more due to general muscle ache since it was the longest ride I have done all year. My heart rate was near or above my threshold rate for most of the ride, so no real "bonk" despite having virtually no carbs all day.

My food cravings have diminished greatly and I can go all day with a single meal, although I still try to eat 2 - 3 times a day with small snacks as the urge hits. Usually a hand full of peanuts or a high fat plain yogurt is enough to tide me over till the next meal.

I still indulge in some carbs occasionally but I don't crave them like before.

Still a keto diet is certainly not for everyone.