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Cut Out The Fat From Your Diet

There have been many diets promising to work wonders for us while still eating fatty foods but health experts still insist that to lose weight and keep your heart healthy a low fat diet is the way to go.

A report published in 1993 linked heart disease with the diet, since then guidelines have been set out to help reduce our intake of sugar, salt, fat and saturates.

While the report focused on reducing the amount of fat in the diet to help combat heart disease, health experts also began recommending a low fat diet as the way to lose weight.

Following this recommendation diets such as The Rosemary Connelly hip and thigh diet, which was based around a diet of low fat, sprang to life. Most health experts have agreed that a low fat diet in combination with a high intake of fibre is one of the most successful ways of losing weight.

How does a low fat diet work?

The basis of any successful diet is lowering the amount of calories you have per day enough for your body to create an energy deficit, which in turn will cause your body to start using its fat to supply the calories needed.

Fat is the most energy dense nutrient containing 9 calories per gram, therefore one of the easiest ways to reduce the calorie intake is to lower the amount of fat eaten.

How much fat should be included in the diet?

Health experts have recommended that no more than a third of the calories needed per day should come from fat; evidence has suggested that by reducing the fat intake to 20 to 30% of the calories needed per day is far more effective in weight loss than a very low fat intake. This is thought to be because people do not stick to diets extremely low in fat through boredom and restriction.

How many grams of fat should I have each day?

The amount of fat will depend on the person and the calories intake per day, guidelines can be given but it is not essential that you stick to any set amount every single day.

Will a completely fat free diet help me lose weight quicker?

It would be almost impossible to have a completely fat free diet as all food has a small amount of fat even fruit and vegetables.

Our bodies need a certain amount of fat as there are certain components in fat that our body’s cells need, our bodies are insulated by fat and a small amount keeps the major organs protected. Vitamins A, C, D and K are fat-soluble and are found in foods that have a high fat content.

Therefore, a completely fat free diet would mean that the intake of these vitamins would be extremely low. There are also certain essential fatty acids that our bodies need to help maintain healthy skin and protect against disease, omega 6,s and omega 3,s are not made by our body and must be eaten in the diet.

There is even evidence that suggests that omega 3 fats can actually help you lose weight as it helps to keep the blood sugar level steady. This means that you are less likely to feel the need to snack in-between meals.

Is there an easy way to tell how much fat is in food?

Labels on food can be very misleading because foods labelled “reduced fat” are not automatically low in fat, all this means is that the food must contain less than 25% fat than a “normal product” would.

Foods labelled low in fat are also not necessarily low in calories so it’s always worth checking labels carefully especially the calorie content of the product.