Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Eating to Lose Body Fat, Some Facts About Fat

By Ricardo d Argence

Today you can find someone offering to sell you the latest fat loss plan or gizmo, anywhere you look. All kinds of remedies are available to fight fat, ranging from pills and shakes to electronic devices. Sounds good, right? Fat can be lost from the body by burning it off through exercise or changing diet to avoid intake. To remain healthy the body has a required fat content and consumption,the problem is there is actually some fat that we need in order. Yes, you heard correctly.

Although everyone is going crazy trying to lose a huge a mount of weight, we can't lose sight of the fact that in small amounts fat is part of a healthy diet. The purpose of fat cells is to help regulate hormonal levels, furnish energy sources, as well as provide cushioning for the body's internal organs. The problem then is not in the presence of fat but the amount. The three-percent threshold, when crossed, signals a dangerous situation to vital parts of the body.

There are basically two types of fat that you receive from your diet good and bad. Good fats are called Polyunsaturated and Monounsaturated Fats and bad fats are Saturated or Trans fats. The latter we need to avoid while the former is an essential part of a balanced diet. Things like omega 3 fatty acids are essential to the human body however; the body is unable to manufacture it. Therefore, we must get it from our diet.

You don't want to have to guess which foods contain healthy kinds of fat. Instead, you need to learn which foods to eat and which to avoid. Examples of good fat foods are nuts, avocados, sunflower seeds and fish oil.

In deep fat fried foods and heavily preserved foods will be contained the kind of fat you should avoid. When we eat high levels of saturated or tran's fats we can run into health problems in a hurry a short list of examples would lood something like eggs, cheese, french fries and potato chips.

Trans fats provide a doubly whammy to the body by increasing the amount of bad cholesterol while lowering the among of good cholesterol.

So on top of adding weight to your midsection you can see that the storage of fat can have an adverse effect on your health. Along with high cholesterol, you are flirting with the possibility of diabetes, stroke, and heart attack. The short answer is cut back on the bad fats, exercise more and you will lower you risk of these and other health problems. - 16463

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