Your Friend, Fat

You're trying to lose fat, now we tell you to eat fat?

Yes. And here's why: Some fat is good for you. (By the way, I'm not talking about Unagiboy's fat here! Please note that I said some fat is good for you)

In fact, you need fat. For starters, your brain contains fat (yes, we're all fatheads). It's an integral part of your nervous system, your spinal cord and your cell membranes.

Fat keeps your skin and hair lustrous and radiant. It cushions your organs from shock, insulates you from the cold and stabilises your body temperature.

Fat serves as a storehouse for extra energy. It's also an important endocrine organ, just like your pancreas or pituitary gland. It plays a role in producing hormones, such as leptin, and helps regulate your appetite.

When consumed with dietary fat, your body can also increase the absorption of certain fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).

Your mouth and belly (liat saja parut si Hamdi atu!!) love fat. Fat adds to the richness and taste of food and makes you feel full sooner and longer.

Not all fat is good for you, for example: saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are found mainly in animal-based foods. Trans fats, which are made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oils, are found in a variety of processed foods (e.g., margarine and some commercially processed foods can be high in trans fats).

Both saturated fats and trans fats raise cholesterol, which can clog arteries and trigger a heart attack. When it comes to disease (heart disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer's), a mounting pile of evidence points to a single culprit: inflammation. And a major potential contributor to inflammation can be excess body fat and excessive saturated fat consumption. If you're obese and sedentary, you have much higher levels of inflammatory proteins in your blood than if you're lean and active. Inflammatory proteins are mischief-makers, saboteurs of your health and longevity.

Unsaturated fats (including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats) are beneficial. Such fats are liquid at room temperature and are found in olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil and safflower oil.

Also beneficial are unsaturated essential fatty acids. They're called "essential" because your body can't make them. You get them only through what you eat. Omega-3 fatty acids are especially virtuous. They've been shown to help control inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Plenteous sources are clams, mussels and cold-water oily fish such as wild salmon, mackerel, anchovies and sardines.

Make no mistake: Fat can make you fat. It contains more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrates.

Most people accumulate excess body fat, however, not because they eat too much fat but because they eat too much, period. Excess protein and carbs will also wind up as fat.

As always, the energy equation rules: eat more calories than you burn and you'll gain weight; burn more calories than you eat and you'll lose weight. So simple, so immutable, so difficult to follow. Consume just 50 calories a day more than you burn - that's one Oreo cookie - and in a year you may be heavier by five pounds.

Insulin, the sugar trucker, is a major player. If you polish off a pile of flapjacks soaked in maple syrup, your insulin will soar and you won't be incinerating blubber. But if you jog along the beach in the morning before breakfast, when your insulin is low, your body will suck fuel from your fat reserves.

All of us have them, places where we deposit fat - bellies (this reminds me again of Hamdi's belly!), love handles, saddlebags. Your fat storage centres are filled with fat cells. When you eat too much, those cells begin to swell. If you keep overfeeding, your body will expand its storage capacity by making new fat cells and water gains.

If you go on a crash diet - shed 10 pounds in a month - most of that loss will come from shrinking your fat cells and water loss. But if you manage to maintain that loss, or if you lose fat slowly over six months to a year, your fat cells will decrease not only in size but also number.

Wow, I'm talking too much about fat already and we need to move on now. I will discuss next about our most essential nutrient, that is water. Let's leave it for the next posting. In the meantime, let's together do a HAMDI WAVE and keep ourselves healthy and fit...........

Salam hormat - Puda.