The Fat-Free Illusion

We’ve all known people who vow to lose weight, followed by trips to the grocery store where their carts are promptly filled with “fat-free” items. Future sightings of these same people often reveal disappointing results regarding weight loss. Unfortunately, a fat-free diet doesn’t produce a fat-free body!

Take a look at the nutrition facts of most non-fat, reduced-fat, and fat-free products and you can see why. You see, fat gives food flavor and, when manufacturers synthetically remove it to get the “fat gram count” down, they add chemicals and artificial ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and modified food starch to the food to make it taste good. The result is that “fat-free” products usually have more calories and carbs than real foods, and the added chemicals can alter the body’s hormone levels and make losing weight even more difficult!

Dairy products are an exception because the fat in dairy can simply be skimmed off after the fat has risen to the top during processing and nothing else is required to alter the taste. Therefore, low-fat and non-fat dairy products such as cheese and milk are considered healthier alternatives.

While fat gets a pretty bad rap, know that there are different kinds of fat and that not all types of fat are bad. In fact, your body needs some fat! Essential fatty acids acquired their name because they are just that…“essential” to every cell in your body. Eating healthy fats helps your body absorb nutrients and vitamins, strengthen cell walls, and protect the heart. They also leave you feeling full and satisfied so that you’re less likely to overeat or reach for unhealthy snacks.

It’s also important to know that healthy fats must be consumed since the body cannot manufacture these essential fats. A healthy diet should derive about 30% of calories from fat, preferably monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats that are found in foods like olive oil, fatty fish, coconut oil, avocados, and nuts.

Here are a few ideas for adding healthy fats to your diet:

• Buy prepackaged almonds for a snack.
• Sprinkle a few chopped pecans with some sliced strawberries on your oatmeal in the morning.
• Throw some slices of avocado on your salad.
• Make your own healthy snack mix using:
  • Organic, with no sugar added, fruits such as cherries, cranberries or raisins
  • Pecans
  • Cocoa-covered almonds
  • Peanuts
  • Cashews

This homemade snack mix is delicious, and you can eat too much pretty quickly, so it’s a really good idea to package single portions of the mixture in snack-size baggies. This mix is a healthy alternative to many sweetened treats that have lots of sugar, lots of unhealthy fats and not much nutritional value.