Befriend your Fats, your body will love you for it!

I was born in the 80's. Barely...  And though there were many totally radical things that came out of this crazy decade (Transformers and Hair Ballads just to name a couple) one of the more horrible contributions was the nation's war on Fat. It didn't matter what else came along in any of the products we bought during the 80's as long as they were Low Fat!! And in many cases this opened up groups of food scientists to unleash some pretty hellish new concoctions on the American people. Go Capitalism!! Anyhow, why was this Low Fat thing such a bad idea?? As consumer electronics began to become more prevalent and our lifestyles began to become more sedentary (sound familiar??) people began to get heftier. And in order to help combat this situation, the nation's think-tanks (read: high ranking businessmen with too much power and not enough knowledge) figured that it's the Fat that everyone's eating that's making them Fat. Which, I'll imply again, is not exactly the case. So policy makers made some policy, marketers jumped on the band-wagon, and we got stuck with a lot of Low Fat food with a bunch of extra shitty carbs and very strange chemicals in order to make them palatable. Quick, take a look around you and tell me how well that ended up for everybody?? Ooops...

So why was all the Low Fat stuff no good all of a sudden? Hadn't people been eating Fats for upwards of a few hundred thousand years?? I'll try to stick to science here and leave my penchant for conspiracy theories aside and just say that it was a colossal misunderstanding of human physiology. The fact is, Fat(s) are an absolutely essential component in the human diet. Fats are responsible for proper nerve cell function, cell wall construction/repair, absorption/usage/storage of a number of vitamins, and as a vital and extremely efficient source of energy. Many fats can be created and synthesized by the body itself. But a certain class of fats are Essential Fatty Acids, that cannot be produced by the human body, and Must be attained through the diet. The two most important of these are Linoleic Acid which when deficient can lead to severe skin problems and inability to heal wounds, and Alpha Linolenic Acid (ALA) which is vital for proper nervous system function, with deficiencies being linked to depression and other psychological maladies. Others are Gamma Linolenic acid, Lauric acid, and Palmitoleic acid. These specific fatty acids also belong to categories based on their chemical structure depending on whether or not their molecules are "Saturated" with hydrogen atoms or not. 

Saturated fatty acids contain all single bonds with complete hydrocarbons. Unsaturated fatty acids contain one or more double bonds in their structure that cause them to be shaped differently and act differently in the body and in nature. Saturated fats generally come from animal sources (though there are exceptions) and are solid at room temperature. Think of butter or the marbled fat in meats. This is usually the most vilified type of fat due to its supposed link to heart disease and other vascular conditions, which isn't quite fair since these conditions depend on a hell of a lot more than just the presence of some fat. So don't sleep with garlic around your neck or anything to try and get away from these guys, they're not that bad all on their own. The other category, Unsaturated fats, tend to come from vegetable and nut sources, and are liquid at room temperatures. These are most of your oils; vegetable, olive, almond, walnut, peanut, etc. One nice thing about these guys is that they're generally liquid in the body as well, which means they don't bind together quite as thickly as the saturated types. 

Another categorization of fats that I'll talk about briefly here is the whole Omega-3, Omega-6, Omega-9 moniker. These are all unsaturated fats, and the numeral just denotes where in the molecule the double bond is. As far as chemical structure, the 3, 6, or 9 shouldn't mean much to you. The one thing I want to get across is the different way your body reacts to them. Generally speaking, Omega-3 fatty acids have an Anti-Inflammatory effect on the body. Think of them as natural Ibuprofen if that helps. The most prevalent of these found in the diet are ALA, EPA and DHA. There are really long names associated with these acronyms that you can look up if you want, but any food label will list them this way. When taking Fish Oil (and I say this because you all currently ARE taking fish oil right? Right? Okay good) EPA and DHA are the two fatty acids you're looking to maximize. The other side of the story are the Omega-6's. These generally have a Pro-Inflammatory effect on the body. This is not good. With all the added stresses we face from day to day, any extra fats running around in our bodies supporting inflammation aren't exactly helping things. 

Right, so no Omega-6's ever right?? Not quite. There are still Omega-6's that you need, so they're a necessary evil. What you can try to do though is ensure that you balance your 3's and 6's as much as possible, and try to add some extra 3's when you can (ahem.. fish oil). It used to be pretty easy to get that balance, as most of our fat sources, lean meats, used to eat the proper diet and would naturally have a ratio of 3's to 6's of about 2-3:1, which is pretty easy to overcome with the addition of fish and healthy oils. The problem these days is that our animals are not fed what they're designed to eat, and we instead fill them with corn and other grains that fattens them up and shoves them towards a ratio more like 20-30:1. Obviously it's much harder to fix this level of imbalance.

So obviously make sure you eat enough of these essential fats. That's easy enough. But from a body composition standpoint shouldn't you still lay off the rest of them?? I'd rather you didn't. Fact is, these days, it's not the Fat that's making you Fat. Generally it's the relatively safe amount of fats you're taking in being magnified by all the crap carbs we're taking in. Especially since the 80's when Wonder Bread became all the rage. Like I mentioned a couple days ago, when you take in a bunch of extra carbs your insulin spikes, making your body want to store as much as it can, and your fat cells (lipocytes) actually convert those extra carbs to fat and store them. Fats all by themselves might be stored, but will more likely be used for energy and other functions, assuming you're living a good active lifestyle. In addition to that, think about this scenario. Your body is programmed to survive starvation. And therefore doesn't like to readily get rid of stored energy, even though it still will given the proper diet and exercise conditions. However, you'll find that if you starve your body of fats from dietary sources it'll be much less likely to let those stored calories of yours go. Give it plenty of fat intake and it won't feel so much like it's starving and will actually work with you to achieve those aesthetic/performance goals of yours. Once again, don't try to trick your body, it's much smarter than you are.

So, what to do will all this craziness?? First, don't be afraid of fat. You need it. Your body craves it. And more importantly it's designed to function on it. Secondly, make sure you're getting a balance of fat intake from all categories. Meaning get equal amounts of Saturated, Mono-unsaturated, and Poly-unsaturated fats, as well as getting plenty of Omega-3's along with the 6's that aren't as hard to find. Fish and Olive oils are your friends. And just like getting a variety of protein sources and fruits and veggies, get a variety of fats and oils as well. Different meats, nuts, and plants have different fatty acid profiles, and your body may need a little extra something different from time to time.

So suppress that nagging 80's commercial for Low-Fat Everything playing in the back of your head all the time, and enjoy some of the more delicious foods that happen to be a little fatty. After all, I've been told that half the reason She-Ra was such a babe was the fact that she ate an entire plate of bacon for breakfast every morning. And who are you to tell She-Ra she's wrong??