Eating Fat DOESN'T Make You Fat

I figured that today I would talk about fat since it is the other factor that Weight Watchers uses to calculate points. The first thing we need to mentally do is separate the meaning of the word fat and our preconceived notions about eating fat. This is important to do because

EATING FAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU FAT

I was able to find this great article that really summed up what I wanted to share with you and truly how important fat is for our bodies.

"One of the other huge myths is that fat makes you fat. It doesn't. When you eat fat, your body has to break it down into its little building blocks and then absorb the pieces. The fat you have in your body is not the same as the fat you eat. In fact, the fat naturally found in whole foods is fat you actually need for your body to function properly.
Essential Fatty Acids are the name given to the types of fat that you need to eat. This is why they are called essential. Your body cannot make them, you must eat them. And these essential fatty acids are only found with fat that naturally occurs in whole food. What are these essential fatty acids used for in your body? Well, literally everything.

Every cell in your body is partly made up of these essential fatty acids. To breathe, to have your heart beat, to run, walk, think, to make hormones, to remember anything, you need essential fatty acids for all of these and basically, to live. And if you don't eat them in the food you eat, your body will not function properly. And the only place you can find essential fatty acids is in food that has naturally occurring fat in them. So if you try and cut fat out of your body, you will actually be causing harm and not really be doing anything to get rid of the fat already in your body."

It is so tempting not to want to eat the daily recommended healthy fats because they may have seem like wasted points. Hopefully after reading this you realize that is one of the most counterproductive things we can do for our bodies and weight loss.

Olive oil, eggs, salmon and nuts are great places to find these fats. My favorite is to add a teaspoon of olive oil to veggies. Remember though that eating the fat off a steak isn't the same thing as getting your fat from an egg or olive oil.

You may ask after reading all of this why ww seems to encourage low fat or fat free foods?

Fat is twice as calorie dense as carbohydrates or protein so it is very easy to go overboard if not limited. We need to make sure that we are getting the essential fats and limiting unhealthy fats such as grease. Deep fried foods aren't going to give you the same results you read about as essential fats.