What Are Healthy Fats?

Fat has gotten a bad rap in the media, but the fact of the matter is that your body needs high quality fat daily for your body to perform at an optimal level. Typical symptoms of insufficient fat intake include fatigue, delayed recovery, depression, overeating, constantly hungry and more. Fats are found in both animal and plant-based food, but plant-based fats are predominantly unsaturated fats which help to reduce blood cholesterol levels. A good source of unsaturated fats includes nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil, avocados and coconuts.

These fats are either used by your body as energy or passed as waste – which means no stored body fat! This is a win-win situation for you: improved performance and decreased body fat. When you increase your clean fat intake, there are two things you will notice within two weeks: improved endurance and not hungry all the time. The reason for this is because most individuals don’t consume enough high-quality fat, a simple fix with huge benefits.

Fat is one of the most beneficial substances in your diet, and it is often the missing link in developing and maintaining good health and ultimately optimum performance. But a misunderstanding of the role of fat and a well-financed misinformation campaign has misled the public and led to an epidemic of fat phobia. Just think of the amount of money spent each year on low fat and no fat food and you’ll understand why you might not have been told the whole truth about fat.

Fat sources like vegetable oil, butter, fats in eggs, meat and cheeses and other animal-based fats can be harmful if overeaten. In fact, too much or too little is dangerous and hence the importance of understanding the role of fat and ultimately your personal needs for optimal health and performance.

Consuming a balanced amount of healthy fat helps maintain health, prevent disease and facilitate optimal performance. Eating too much of one type of fat, saturated fat, or too much omega 6 from vegetable oil can disturb the delicate balance of fat in the body. Eating processed fats, such as hydrogenated oil, and overheated fat, such as a fried food, causes dysfunction and disease. This means many mainstream foods and snacks are out such as chips, french fries, and fried chicken.