Are You Fat Deficient?

Are You Fat Deficient?
One of the biggest mistakes most Americans make in trying to lose weight and get healthy is to reduce fat.

Fat Reduction Leads to Disease
People avoid fat to lose weight and prevent disease.  Yet consider this: since the 1970’s Americans reduced fat intake nearly 25 percent, from 45 percent of calories to 34 percent. During the same period, obesity nearly tripled, to a staggering 30 percent.  Diabetes rates have also tripled and overweight has soared to over 60 percent.

We’ve been told for so long fat is bad, many of us try to avoid nearly all fats, just to be safe.  We buy skim milk and non-fat yogurt.  We ask for skinless chicken breasts and dressing on the side. Most fail to connect the drying of their diets to the drying of their bodies: prematurely wrinkled skin; diminishing hormones; dry mucous membranes; brittle bones; anxiety, cravings for sugar and weight gain.  Unfortunately we are depriving ourselves of nourishing and fat-burning properties drawn specifically from specific fats.

I am passionate about this subject because of the health problems and weight gain I endured eating low-fat.   It took a leap of faith for me to try the opposite of what I had been taught for so many years.  However, after switching to fat-rich foods, including saturated fats, and adding supplemental fats, my dry skin and joint pain resolved, my hormones balanced, my sugar cravings ended and I effortlessly reached my ideal weight.  In time, although wary that I might be challenged by doctors, I began encouraging my clients to eat more fat.

Joan Adds Fat, Loses Weight
My first test case came years ago.  Joan, a lively 35-year old redheaded RN came to me for weight loss advice.  Joan was 75 pounds over her ideal weight.  Her doctor was urging her to follow a low-fat diet and to take a statin drug to lower her cholesterol.  She refused the drug and was gaining weight on a low-fat diet. One of the first changes we made was to her breakfast.  Instead of fat-free blueberry muffins and cold cereal with skim milk I suggested eggs and bacon or vegetable omelets.  I recommended replacing salad and skinless chicken breasts with grass fed meat, that she add butter to her vegetables and to snack on nuts and cheese.  Not only did she feel more satisfied, she immediately began losing weight and, her cholesterol dropped 30 points. 

“Looks like you’ve finally been compliant with your medication,” chirped her doctor at Joan’s next checkup.  She retorted, “I actually stopped taking my meds and, thanks to my nutritionist, I am eating eggs, bacon, steak and butter.”

It’s official: The “fat-is-bad” message most of us grew believing, is false.  Harvard School of Public Health reports, “Detailed research – much of it done at Harvard – shows that the total amount of fat in the diet, whether high or low, isn’t really linked with disease.” In fact, researchers found saturated fats may help reduce risk of heart disease.

A review of 21 studies on diet and heart disease published in the British Medical Journal in 2002 reports not a single death has been prevented by low fat diets.   Early studies, including the 1998 Second International Conference on Fats and Oil Consumption in Health and Disease reported low-fat diets actually induced arteriosclerosis  (Am Jr of Clin Nutr, 1998;67:497S-9S). Such studies are not often cited by physicians, nor were they included in my nutrition texts.

The Women’s Health Initiative, a study of 49,000 women, reported in 2006 that low-fat diets do nothing for weight loss nor do they prevent heart attacks, breast or colon cancers, or stroke.  In fact, women with heart disease who switched to low-fat eating, experienced a 26 percent increase in heart disease deaths.  According to Harvard’s web site, this is “the final nail in the coffin” for low-fat diets.

Where does that leave us? It leaves at least 60% of Americans with signs of fat deficiency.

Fat Benefits
According to Chinese medicine, fat-rich foods support our yin aspect: our moist, soft, feminine qualities: our mucous membranes, skin and hair oils, hormones, sexual “juices,” and the moisture that keeps our tissues, organs and bones supple, youthful and healthy. 

This yin quality of fat also provides us a sense of security, of slowing down, of groundedness.  Fats moisten our tissues and carry nutrients into the nervous system.  These nutrients enable us to make brain chemicals that calm us and keep us from depression.  A person getting adequate fat-rich traditional foods enjoys a feeling of calm focus, sound sleep, and a deep well of energy.

Research confirms Eastern beliefs, finding beneficial fats, with their fat-soluble nutrients, orchestrate virtually every function in the body, from hormone and immune health, to mucous membrane and eye health and mood-balancing brain chemicals.   This role of fat is what makes it one of the top foods for boosting metabolism.

Women Need More Fat
Women, more than most men, live longer and lose weight easier with high-fat diets than with low-fat diets.  The Women’s Health Initiative confirms women enjoy no upside (including weight loss) to sacrificing fat-rich foods.  In women, blood cholesterol levels rise when they eat less saturated fat and cholesterol (Europ Jr Clin Invest, 1999;29:827-34).

Fat and Health Throughout the World
The French, Greeks, Spanish, Inuit, Masai of Africa, Swiss and other cultures have thrived on diets with over 40 percent of calories from fat, much of it animal fat.  The butter-loving French and Swiss vie for the top three longest-lived countries.  The world’s longest lived women live in Toulouse, the duck fat, foie gras capital of France.

Good Fats, Bad Fats
Surprisingly many of the fats we’ve been lead to believe are fattening and clogging our arteries are the very fats that have brought heart health, strength and vitality to diverse world populations for thousands of years.  Disease-fighting nutrients come from traditional fats, including whole eggs, cheese, nuts, cream, chicken skin, organ meats, fatty fish, duck and goose fat and/or lard.   The key here is to get your dairy and meats from healthy, grass-fed animals.  Such healing fats are valued and sought after by the world’s longest-lived populations  (Research reported in 1939 by Weston A. Price, DDS).

Clearly there are dangerous fats.  Take margarine.  The National Academy of Sciences says NO amount is safe.  This and other trans fats are far worse than we ever imagined saturated fats to be, causing more than 30,000 premature deaths per year, according to Walter Willet, MD, a Harvard researcher.  A close second to margarine are the modern vegetable oils poured with confidence on salads and into sauté pans.  It turns out these “heart healthy” oils are clouding our bloodstreams with highly fattening, age-speeding chemicals (Lancet, 1994;344:1195-96).

Naturally fat-rich foods enable us to not just avert disease, but to thrive physically, emotionally and mentally.  Are you choosing the right fats?

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