Women's Fitness

NUTRITION

100 womensfitness.co.uk | September 2016

Forget what you think about fat. It’s time to

reassess your diet – and reap the benefits

I

t’s tragic how fat has earned such

a bad reputati on in diet circl es.

The trut h is that when it comes

to healthy eating unsaturated fat

reigns supreme – but the prob lem

is that most people still don’t

understandthe difference between

saturated and unsaturated fats.

Loading your plate with good

fats can help to supercharge

your health and achieve a better

body and in his new bookEat Fat

Get Thin(£14.99 Yellow Kite)

renowned American health expert

Dr Mark Hyman seeks the trut h

behind some of th e bi ggest fat

misconceptions. ‘So many people

• doctors patients and eaters
  alike –are all confused about fat
  and still hold on to myths and
  misinformation but knowing what
  to eat and how to use dietary fats
  can help you regain your health
  and ideal body weight’ he says.

A big fat mess

To find out why fat is so

demonised we have to rewi nd

backto th e 1970s when levels of

obesity and heart conditions

started to rise. In a bidto tackle

the increasing rate of disease

official di etary guidelines were

set which urged an increasein

carb ohydrate intake to 55-60per

cent of to tal daily calories and a

reduced fat intake of 30-35 per

cent. The general message was

that fatmakes us fat and causes

heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

So instead the advice was to eat

more sugars and carb s and cut

backon saturated fatfrom meats

eggs butter an d whole milk. ‘Quite

simply this turned out to be the

largest uncontrolled experiment

ever carried out on human beings 

and it failed miserably’ says Dr

Hyman. This ideology soonspread

across the glo be and before we

knew it pasta suddenly became a

health food and fat a diet derailer.

Lay down the fat

foundations

Dietary fat affects all aspects of

health and wellbeing. ‘Being

deficient in healthy fat has an

impact on our emotional and

overall health. It affects our

hormones immunesystem

digestive health skin weight and

ability to deal with stress. Fat

deficiencies can also adversely

affect our mood cognitive health

behaviou r and overall brain

The

skinny