Low Fat Diet and Weight Loss

One of the healthiest diet types is a low-fat diet. This does not mean that you eliminate all types of fat in your diet. The fact is that your body does need certain types of fats, but the fat content in your diet should be in moderation. A low fat diet is better for your heart, it does promote weight loss, and it also inhibits the development of certain forms of cancer, especially breast cancer.

If started at a relatively young age, a low-fat diet can really be effective against preventing such dreaded health problems. However, it’s important to note that a low fat diet will be more effective for weight loss if implemented wisely.

Since your body does need some form of fats, it’s important that your daily calorie intake has about 30% fat in it. This doesn’t mean that you take just any kind of fats, though. Whenever possible, choose sources of good fat over bad fat. Salmon has good unsaturated fat, so do almonds and some other types of nuts. Whenever applicable, choose non-fat over full-fat dairy. Along with your low-fat diet, it’s also good to incorporate a low sodium diet, which means cutting back on canned food, instant noodles, and the likes as these typically contain high levels of sodium.

Another thing that can help make your low-fat diet more effective is cutting down on refined carbohydrates such as white sugar and white flour. This means cutting down on cakes and other pastries that use white sugar. When buying bread in the grocery, opt for the whole wheat kind. Not only does it contain no refined flour or sugar, it also has a good amount of fiber that can help you with digestion.

There are different kinds of fats that can be found in the food that we eat:

• Trans Fats – a type of unsaturated fats, these are unhydrogenated fats that raise the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) and at the same time lower the level of good cholesterol (HDL). When checking the nutritional facts on the label of what you eat, look for anything that contains “hydrogenated oil” because this means that it contains trans fat. Trans fat is usually used to extend the shelf life of some processed food products like chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, fries, and the like.
• Saturated Fats – these are sometimes found in some plant-based oil such as coconut oil, but are most likely to be found in animal products like eggs, dairy, poultry, and other meat. It is generally a good idea to avoid saturated fat because this is the kind of fat that can most easily clog your arteries and significantly raises the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) in your body.
• Unsaturated Fats – fatty acids that come from plants. The two types of unsaturated fats are polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated fats are known to lower the bad cholesterol in your body but if taken excessively can also lower the level of good cholesterol. Monounsaturated fats which are typically found in olive oil and peanut oil are proven to be able to lower the level of bad cholesterol while maintaining a good level of good cholesterol.
• Omega 3 Fats – fatty acids that are absolutely essential to the body and cannot be manufactured outside of it. A good source of Omega 3 Fats is found in several types of cold-water fish.

While a low-fat diet can definitely promote weight loss when done the proper way, it may also be beneficial to balance it out with sufficient exercise, sufficient sleep, a balanced diet, and at times even natural weight-loss pills such as Proactol.