Good Fats Versus Bad Fats: What Fats Should You Eat For Balanced Weight And Hormones

So you are eating what you believe is a healthy diet, but could it be that some of the fats in your diet are unhealthy and are sabotaging your health, causing you to gain excess weight and experience hormonal imbalances.

Now fat is what is termed a macronutrient, and together with protein and carbohydrate the other 2 macronutrients, it is essential for your health.

One thing is for certain, we all need a certain amount of fat in our diet to be healthy, but some of the fats you can eat are definitely not health-promoting and can actually undermine your health, including your hormonal balance, and affect weight loss.

So let’s start off with what are the bad fats.

Trans fats

If you eat what are called trans fats, then these are known to promote elevated LDL cholesterol levels also known as bad cholesterol, increasing your risk of suffering from heart disease for example.

You’ll find bad fats like trans fats in animal products like ice cream, cheese, and beef.

Yet in a vegan diet, there can also be trans fats.

You’ll find trans fats in foods like baked foods, fried foods, cakes, biscuits, and margarine.

So these kinds of fats you definitely want to avoid as the trans fats will cause inflammation in your body and can negatively affect your liver health for example, which carries out many vital functions for the human body that are linked to hormonal balance.

Trans fats like many fats hidden in the foods people eat can make it much easier for people to gain excess weight or stop them from releasing it.

So if your goal is to maintain a slim body, healthy hormones, and long-term health – avoid trans fats.

The next one is saturated fats

There’s a lot of controversy around this type of fat. Some people will say that it’s “bad” fat, while others will say saturated fat is actually healthy for you and you can eat all you want.

But what does science show us?

Well, saturated fat can raise your cholesterol levels, increasing your risk of suffering from heart disease. (2)

Also high saturated fat intake can negatively affect blood sugar levels and also your gut health.

Foods that are high in saturated fat include animal products, like meat, eggs, and cheese. (3)

If this is not bad enough saturated fat has also been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, increased cancer risk as well as putting on excess weight, causing your body to store more fat. (4,5)

So keeping your saturated fat intake low and only from plant foods to avoid all the other unwanted side effects of consuming animal foods is a very wise thing to do.

Now there is of course coconut oil, which many people believe to be health-promoting, yet scientific evidence points to coconut oil being the exact opposite and that it can in fact damage your arteries, so lead to heart disease and even strokes. (6)

When it comes to oils of any kind, you really are best avoiding these bad fats as they are basically 100% fat and a very unbalanced food product and that goes for cold-pressed oils as well.

You can see a couple of other videos we made about oils here and here.

It’s also known that a high-fat, low-fiber diet can cause a rise in estrogen levels in the body as well.

Women on higher-fat diets have been found to have measurably higher estrogen levels than women on low-fat diets.

So in western countries with a higher fat intake, this is a significant problem and this is exactly what we see in America and other western countries with women experiencing much more estrogen dominance and its unwanted health effects.

So what are the healthier fats or good fats that you can eat in moderation?

Mono-unsaturated fats

Monounsaturated fats are also found in large amounts in avocados and nuts. These fats can be useful for promoting healthy cholesterol levels and are good for brain health and function.

Polyunsaturated fats

Polyunsaturated fats are another category of fat that includes omega-3 fats and  omega-6 fats, and these are called the essential to have in your diet as your body cannot make them by itself.

These fats play a crucial role in brain function and normal growth and development.

Unfortunately, the modern Western diet tends to favor much more omega-6 fats, which are pro-inflammatory and which can get out of control when omega-3s aren’t there to balance things out.

This imbalance can also occur in high-fat diets like Paleo and keto diets.

Omega-3s are important for many health factors, including circulation, fighting inflammation, and supporting brain function.

So what can we take from all of this knowledge?

Well, eating a lower-fat diet that contains fats from whole plant foods, including sources like nuts and seeds can greatly benefit your health and can help you balance your hormones and lose that excess weight that you have.

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Sources:

       (1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3125015/

       (2) https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/resources/heart/heart-cholesterol-hbc-what-html

       (3) https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/types-of-fat/

       (4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16908733/

       (5) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.23414/full

       (6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8833174