The word 'fat' has a negative connotation in society. It's not a good word at all. Which is probably why a lot of people avoid it in their diets like the plague. Avoiding some fats like trans fats and saturated fats is a good thing. Those fats can cause a lot of different problems like pre-mature aging, heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and the always hideous subcutaneous body fat. Avoiding good healthy fats is not a good thing.

Here's why—Eating healthy fats in your diet on a regular, everyday basis, is critical to your overall health. Some of the functions of fat in the body are for aiding in vitamin and mineral utilization, enzyme regulation, energy (9 calories per gram), healthy hair and nails, and helping your burn body fat throughout the day. And I'm not talking about essential fatty acids, even though that's just as important if not more so to get into your diet. I'm talking healthy fats—mono- and polyunsaturated.

A lot of health professionals, dieticians, and doctors say that in order to get and stay lean you need to be on a low-fat diet. This is wrong. This is the old way of thinking, a lot like do 'cardio' everyday for an hour to lose weight. It's the unnatural, processed fat that you want to avoid. Anytime you cut back on 1 of the 3 macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) severely, then something in the body needs to react and perform double duty. Meaning your body is not performing at an optimal level.

Fat intake should be at about 20-30% of your daily calories, with less than 10% coming from saturated fats, and less than 2% from trans fats. These are the 'experts' recommendations. However, nothing ever good will come from you eating trans fats. It should literally be 0%. And not all saturated fats are bad for you. Eggs, coconut, and avocado are all great sources of saturated fat, but contain much more healthy benefits that you should not avoid. You want the majority coming from healthy fats. And let's try and avoid trans fats all together; nothing good will ever come from digesting it.

So what are healthy fats? Some good healthy fat choices are olive oil (if I cook it on the stove, I always add it), nuts (any kind), avocados, guacamole, seeds, fish, coconut oil, palm oil, canola oil, nut butters (peanut, cashew, almond, etc...), and whole eggs (best saturated fat you can eat).