Weight Loss: Use a Higher Fat Intake To Loose Weight and Build Muscle

In part one of this article we discussed the problem which many dieters encounter in their efforts to loose fat; despite a low calorie, low fat diet the fat just does not seem to come off and weight loss after time grinds to a screeching halt. Obviously, calories need to be reduced in order to loose weight, but we need to be picky about where these calories come from in order to build muscle and loose fat. We want our weight loss diet to cause a nice, steady and slow release of insulin so that the muscle mass preferentially takes up the glucose compared to body fat. We will accomplish this in two ways:

1. Eat a lower carb-diet with less total carbohydrate and choose carbs from low glycemic index sources
2. Eat fat!

Choosing low glycemic index carbs (and lesser amounts of carbs in general) is a no-brainer if you've read the first part of this article even if it is not completely clear why- low (or lower) carb diets work. The "eat fat" recommendation may shock a few people though; we want to loose fat so you are telling me to eat more of it???? The answer, you might have guessed, is yes, we do need to eat more fat to loose fat. Before we go on, a very important point must be stressed- if you want to loose weight you need to eat a lower calorie diet! If this condition is not satisfied a higher fat intake will actually cause an increase in body fat, rather than a loss in body fat. (Damn! And I thought this was the magic solution to loosing weight while eating whatever the hell you wanted...). We also need to be careful about what types of fats we add to the diet- we want the fat that we consume to help our weight loss efforts rather than hinder them. Stay away from saturated fat; this tends to decrease insulin sensitivity even while on a low calorie diet. As a side note, there are many "diet gurus" out there who would argue that the fat source does not matter- I do not totally agree with this statement, and your cardiologist would tend to agree with me as well.

With saturated fats out of the picture we are left with the unsaturated fats and mono-unsaturated fats, some of which actually NEED to be in the diet, called Essential Fatty Acids (EFA's). Without getting too much into the biochemistry of all these fats, EFA's are unsaturated in nature and actually act to increase insulin sensitivity. Simply replacing a proportion of carbs in your diet with EFA's will cause fat loss at the same calorie level! An excellent source of EFA's are walnuts and flax seed oil' fish oil also tends to have benefits above and beyond that of some of the other EFA's. Fatty fish such as Salmon additionally provides an excellent source of EFA's. Olive oil is the most common example of a 'monounsaturated fat', although it is not essential. It is a good idea to include some monounsaturated fats in the diet, however, because the monounsaturated fats in olive oil tend to promote a healthy heart and blood vessels.

I can go on and on about the benefits of EFA's, but the take-home message is that you need them for a number of health-reasons and an increased EFA intake at the expense of carbohydrate on a low(er) calorie diet will promote fat loss and build muscle making you leaner and more muscular. Additionally, the presence of fat in the stomach slows gastric emptying (i.e. how rapidly food passed from the stomach during digestion). The presence of fat in the stomach actually reduces how rapidly carbohydrates are digested, essentially making the carbs we have eaten "lower-glycemic". A lower glycemic carb raises blood glucose much more slowly, reduces insulin secretion, and (as described in part 1 of this article) reduces the likelihood that calories will be stored as body fat.

Now that we know roughly what to eat, how do we put it all together? Knowledge is worthless if it can't be applied- check out part three of this article series explaining how to put it all together.