THE BAD FAT
Saturated Fats are typically found in animal fats. Burgers, bacon, dairy products… They all contain the bad fats… SATURATED FATS!
If your goal is to lose weight, your best bet is to stay away from animal fats/Saturated fats. That stuff clings to your body! Think about it, it takes 4 calories to burn up a gram of a carbohydrate, but 9 calories to burn up a gram of fat. Hey, want to continue eating yogurt, hot dogs, and grilled cheese sandwiches so you have to stay on a treadmill 2.25 times longer to lose weight than if you ate fruits, vegetables, and grains? OF COURSE NOT!
Besides carrying around extra weight on your body, and maybe not looking as good as you’d like to look on the outside, it’s really the damage on the inside of your body that turns me off when consuming saturated fats.
Raising the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) increases your chances of having a heart attack, and that’s exactly what this stuff does. A meta-analysis published in 2003 found a direct relationship between saturated fat and breast cancer. In 2007, a systematic literature review published by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research found consistent evidence for a direct relationship between animal fat and colorectal cancer. Throughout the years there has been many studies and experiments done that link animal fats to cancer, and many experiments done to label saturated fats as unhealthy, but Trans Fats are the real bad news…
THE UGLY FAT
Trans Fats are typically found in packaged goods and fast food restaurants. Twinkies, doughnuts, KFC, McDonald’s… They all have/use the ugly fats… TRANS FATS!
Back in the day (late 19th century) scientists discovered that they could create a fat that would prolong the spoiling of packaged goods by simply adding a hydrogen atom to an unsaturated fat. The partially hydrogenated fat creations wouldn’t spoil as easily as nonhydrogenated fats, plus they didn’t break down during temperature changes, which made transporting them easier, and they were less expensive than animal fat. Well done boys, yet another amazing man-made invention!
Obviously food makers all over the world were all about trans fats! McDonalds, along with other fast food companies starting using trans fatty oils to fry their foods with, packaged junk foods like twinkies and cookies were all being made with trans fats… Until 1981 when a group of Welsh researchers linked Trans Fats to heart disease.
It’s like this… Trans fats aren’t naturally occurring fats. Think of them as foreign substances that you are putting in your body. The stiffer and harder fats are, the more they clog up your arteries. Over time the artery cloggers will in fact make it quite difficult for your heart to operate which could lead you to a trip to the operating room.
These artificial/man-made trans fats not only raise the level of “bad” cholesterol (LDL), but they depelete the “good” cholesterol (HDL)!
12 years after the Welsh researcher’s discovery, a Harvard experiment strongly supported the hypothesis that intake of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats) contributed to the risk of having a heart attack. Since then they have been linked to Alzheimer’s Disease, Diabetes, Obesity, Cancer, and Liver Dysfunction.
Skip out on the Twinkies and eat some fruit if you want something sweet. Drive past the McDonald’s on your way home from work and pick up a salad at your local health food store. STAY HEALTHY!
Trainer Greg 