One of the reasons you tend to feel less hungry and more satisfied while still losing weight when you follow Atkins is that you are consuming a higher percentage of fat than you would on other diets. So how can fat make you thin? Along with protein, fat helps make you feel full. And because fat carries flavor, it makes food more satisfying. It takes twice as many calories from refined carbs than from fats to provide the same level of fullness, which makes fat a better choice if you want to lose weight. Dietary fat also slows the entry of glucose into the bloodstream. This keeps your blood sugar in check, which means you’re less likely to be as ravenously hungry after eating fat than you’d be after eating refined carbs. Bottom line: eat fat in place of carbs, and you’re less likely to overeat.
And, we now have a fair amount of hard data to demonstrate that consuming as much as 60 percent of calories as fat on a low-carbohydrate diet is not hazardous to your health and in fact has a number of benefits. For example, in one study, HDL (good, protective) cholesterol increased twice the amount, resulting in a significantly improved cholesterol risk profile, and the subjects also experienced a large drop in triglycerides, leading to a superb triglyceride to HDL ratio. Research has shown that when triglycerides are high and HDL is low, this is a significant marker and predictor for cardiovascular disease, while the Atkins Induction phase has consistently corrected this.
There are three main types of fat, and all three play a role in Atkins. Although most foods contain a mixture of fat—the three main classes are based on chemical structure—they’re typically categorized by their predominant fat.
- Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) are found in olive oil, canola oil, peanut and most other nut oils, as well as avocados. MUFAs are usually liquid at room temperature.
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are always liquid at both room temperature and in the refrigerator. They’re mostly found in oils from vegetables seeds, and some nuts. Sunflower, safflower, flaxseed, soybean, corn, cottonseed, grape seed, and sesame oils are all high in PUFAs. So are the oils in fatty fish like sardines, herring, and salmon.
- Saturated fatty acids (SFA) tend to remain solid at room temperature. Butter, lard, suet, and palm and coconut oil are all relatively rich in saturated fats.
- Remember, most fatty foods contain more than one type of fat. For example, canola oil contains twice as much monounsaturated fat as polyunsaturated fat, so it’s considered a MUFA. And although most people assume all the fat in a steak is saturated, certain cuts of beef actually contain almost as much MUFA as SFA and even a small amount of PUFA.
It has been shown that all three types of fats are necessary and important to human health and should be incorporated into the diet in a balanced proportion. If you follow Atkins correctly, even saturated fat, particularly in the early phases of Atkins, when carbohydrate intake is very low, is not dangerous to human health, on the contrary, when balanced with mono- and polyunsaturated fats in a controlled carbohydrate dietary environment, saturated fat may actually have real and measurable benefits in a number of different arenas.
The key to eating delicious fats while improving your health is to keep carb intake low. Carbs are the metabolic bully that stands in the way of fat burning. The very essence of Atkins is to switch your metabolism over to using predominately fat for fuel. So it is much more important to concentrate on the amount and types of carbohydrate to allow the body to burn fat. In other words, as long as you are controlling your carbs, the calories from fat are used directly for energy and are unlikely to be stored.
With that being said, it’s essential that you eat enough natural fats to provide satiety, keep your fat metabolism humming along, and make foods tasty. But that doesn’t mean you should eat so much that you wind up with a calorie bomb. Use enough oil when sautéing food to keep it from sticking to the pan. Use about a tablespoon of oil (plus lemon juice or vinegar) to dress a salad. A typical day’s intake of fat might include the following:
• 2 Tbsp. oil dressing salads and for cooking
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. cream
• 2 oz. cheese
• 2–3 eggs
• 2–3 servings of meat, poultry, fish, shellfish
• 10 olives and/or
• ½ Haas avocado
• 2 oz. nuts or seeds (after the first two weeks of Induction)
*Note: These are general guidelines. Petite women will may need less and tell men may be able to have more. You may swap out more cream, for example, if you cut back on say, cheese.
Dietary fat is a key source of energy and essential nutrients. It enables your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, as well as certain other micronutrients. Fat-containing cells cushion your bones, organs and other body parts, and help insulate you from cold. Your brain cells contain specific essential fatty acids that are necessary for healthy brain function, enabling your nerves and hormonal system to send signals to the rest of your body, among other important functions. Quite simply, you can’t live without fat.
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