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Updated November 26th, 2021 at 17:51 IST

'Why dietary fat doesn’t make you look fat?' Nutritionists explain

Nutritionists from BeatO share why including healthy fats like olives, ghee, nuts in your diet is essential to your weight-loss and weight management journey.

Reported by: Noyonika Baptista
Weight-loss
Republicworld | Image:self
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Do you freak out when your nutritionist adds lots of eggs, nuts, ghee, coconut oil, or even butter to your diet? Are you still thinking that the above-mentioned food products could make you gain more weight?

At some point in life, we all claim that "eating fat makes us fat." From a caloric perspective, that may make sense. Dietary fat contains nine calories per gram, versus four calories per gram for carbs and protein. If you eat less fat, you will eat fewer calories, and you will lose weight – true, no doubt! However, the calories from a doughnut are different from the calories that are present in olives, and hence, they affect your hormones, your metabolism, and even your appetite differently. Food affects your metabolism at every level. It works fast in real-time with every single bite. That ultimately becomes very empowering: You can change your health, starting with your very next meal!

How We Gain Weight: Hungry Fat Cells

The first domino to fall is when sugar – and remember, all processed carbs, including wheat bread, turn to sugar – spikes your fat-storing hormone insulin. You don’t even have to be overweight at that point. Insulin then drives all the available fuel in your bloodstream into your fat cells, especially those around your middle that we call visceral fat, organ fat, or most commonly, belly fat. This stimulates your brain to make you eat more.

The second thing is that when you try to restrict calories and exercise more – the typical solution to losing weight – your body becomes alarmed, fearing you’re starving. That makes you tired, so you move less to conserve energy. It makes you hungry, so you eat more. Evolutionarily, this makes sense: Until you find food, your metabolism slows down, so you don’t die. That was important at one point in human history. However, it’s not a problem today because we live in a food carnival.

Attempts at weight loss that follow the "eat less, exercise more" formula ultimately fail most people. Sure, it can work for a little bit, but you will almost always rebound and gain the weight back. Less than 10%of people who lose weight can keep it off for a year. You can walk around hungry and tired for a bit, but not for long. By not eating enough food, you place your body into starvation mode.

Here’s where it gets interesting. You can also starve your body by eating the wrong foods, namely too much sugar and refined carbs. When you eat a lot of sugar and carbs, your body thinks it’s starving. Sounds a bit counterintuitive, right? How can your body act like it’s starving when there are plenty of calories and food around? Well, when you eat sugar, refined carbs, or anything that raises your blood sugar, it causes a spike in your fat-storage hormone, insulin. It triggers hunger, cravings, and overeating issues.

Speed Up Your Metabolism with a High-Fat Diet

In a low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF), ketones from fat are used for energy instead of glucose (which comes straight from carbohydrates). When a person consumes fewer carbs per day, the body is forced to use fat stores as fuel, which may result in weight reduction. A diet high in protein and fat tends to make a person feel fuller faster than a diet high in carbs, especially simple carbohydrates like sugar. It can be a good idea to ease into a low-carb, high-fat diet by focusing on food-based carbohydrates such as fruits, beans, legumes, and whole grains instead of refined and processed carbs like white bread and processed sugar. This could be an excellent place to start if you want to lose weight and improve your health without substantially reducing your carb intake. Get in touch with a professional nutritionist to know more about a low carb diet.

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Published November 26th, 2021 at 17:51 IST

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