There has been a big push for some time now that if you want to lose weight, you should try a low-fat or fat-free diet. Food companies have made billions of dollars by offering foods and packaged foods and marketing them as low fat. Just go to the frozen food freezers and look at all the containers from lean cuisine to south beach foods to even what people call generic low-fat foods.



Has the nation as a whole lost any weight? Unfortunately, the answer to this is a resounding no. We are overall a heavier nation than we were back in the 1960s.

What has been discovered is that the amount of fat that you eat is not what is important; rather the type of fat you eat is what you should be watching. There are two kinds of fats. They are bad fats and good fats. Bad fats are trans fats and saturated fats. Good fats are monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats.

The good fats that we eat will help to level out our cholesterol, decrease our inflammation and help settle our heart rhythms. The following is a list of foods that contain what we call our good fats - vegetable oils such as canola and olive oil, nuts such as pecans, almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, flaxseed and fish.

The bad fats are the saturated fats. These can come from seafood, other meats, dairy products and milk.

Your body produces this kind of fat, so it is best not to eat foods that are high in saturated fats. You cant completely get rid of this type of fats because some foods contain these fats, however, it would be best to keep your intake at 7% or less of your totals calories eaten.

Another bad fat is what is known as trans fat. This is the kind that a lot of the fast food restaurants have come under fire for because they have been using the trans fat in their fryers. Heating vegetable oil with hydrogen gas creates this kind of fat. The process is known as hydrogenation. It makes the oils easier to transport, not as susceptible to spoilage and able to be reheated. This type of fat can come from baked good, snack and processed food, French fries and other fried food.

With all this discussion on good fats and bad fats, what is recommended? If you stick to a low-fat diet you might lose some weight.

The best thing to do is to eat fewer calories than you burn, eating smaller meals more times per day. As far as your fat intake, place the emphasis on the type of fats that you ingest. Choose foods that contain the good fat and definitely stay away from trans fats.