I do not know if you will remember but when I was little, I did not even think about studying Nutrition and I knew that the worst thing in my diet was fats, which was what my mother had to limit if she wanted to lose weight and protect her health. However, all that has changed and today science exonerates fats leaving them free of guilt and charge. On the contrary, its adequate consumption can help you lose weight.

The state of fats today

Fats were placed on the dock for a long time because of the link between cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases, as well as saturated fats and such pathologies , established by the American physiologist Ancel Keys from 1940 onwards.

After the Second World War, said physiologist published his article “Seven Countries Study 1” where the link between saturated fats and cardiovascular diseases was made clear. However, this study analyzed data from 22 different countries, drawing conclusions with information from the only 7 that coincided in demonstrating correlation between fats and pathologies.

That served to make saturated fats or animals and cholesterol were the worst enemies of our diet and health for a long time. However, when the twentieth century was coming to an end science began to exonerate fats, showing for example that there is no correlation between cholesterol and atherosclerosis and that saturated fats are not linked to increased cardiac risk or cardiovascular disease.

Even more recent research published in the Annual Review of Nutritionpoints out that replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates, especially sugars, considerably increases cardiovascular risk, as does the replacement of saturated fats with trans fats. This indicates that the fats were moving away from the bench of the accused leaving the new villain this place, that is, sugar .

Consuming fats is not the same as storing fats

The excess of fat in our body is what we now consider obesity, one of the most prevalent diseases at present and for which, we can still continue to confuse dietary fats with poor health. However, consuming fats is not the same as storing fats .

In fact, while there are fats such as trans fats that are linked
to greater fat accumulation in the abdomen as demonstrated by a study published in the journal Obesity , there are others such as unsaturated fatsthat can help us produce the opposite effect.

Thus, Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids , especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) present in fish fat can have an anti-adipogenic effect, as stated in research published in the scientific journal Lipids, since they reduce the possibility of that new fat cells are formed and that existing ones increase in size.

As if that were not enough, compared to diets reduced in carbohydrates , those low in fat are less effective at the time of losing weight, so reducing the consumption of fat does not mean that we will store less fat in the body or lose lipids and lose weight , but they can cause the opposite effect.

Eliminating fat does not ensure you lose weight (and can make your health worse)

When we initiate a change in our diet with the objective of losing the extra kilos, we often reduce fat intake to facilitate the achievement of a negative energy balance, since fats are the macronutrient that contributes the most calories (9 Kcal per gram) ), with its reduction we can make a big difference.

However, eliminating fats does not help to lose weight as we said before, since eating is not the same as storing fats. Even if we know how to choose sources of healthy fats, we can benefit from their intake at the time of losing weight and obtain many benefits for the body.

Fats are necessary, some of them essential because our body does not produce them, and their consumption can offer different benefits . Therefore, eliminating fats from the diet can make your hypocaloric diet less appetizing and unsustainable over time, as well as less healthy, as fats improve the absorption of vitamins such as A, D, E and K, and also They can help prevent diseases, as a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concludes .

Also, some fats can help us lose weight as unsaturated even without modifying the calories in the diet, if we use them in replacement of less healthy fats such as trans for example.

On the other hand, omega 3 or polyunsaturated fatty acids can help improve body composition, reducing fat mass and increasing lean mass, all of which is a great help to lose weight. This has been proven with fish oilthat also helps reduce stress, and with the consumption of nuts .

Therefore, if we seek to lose weight, eliminating fats from the diet is not a good option , but we will achieve more and better results by consuming healthy fats every day.

Learn to choose the most suitable fats

Eliminating fats from the diet is not a healthy behavior, but if we seek to lose weight or take care of health it is best to include fats on a daily basis but of the healthiest ones .

Among all available fats we find trans fats that can harm health byincreasing inflammatory processes and favoring the storage of fats, as well as palm oil that abounds in processed and ultra-processed but which also does not offer quality fats to the body but can adversely affect us.

Avoiding these fats that can harm health and hinder our desire to lose weight, the most suitable fats to include daily are unsaturated fats which include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats . Among the first is the omega 9 and between the second the omega 3 and omega 6 that must be in balance in our diet .

Thus, sources of healthy fats are vegetable oils (except palm), where monounsaturated fats, seeds and nuts with alpha linolenic acid and omega 6, fatty fish rich in omega 3 like EPA and DHA, avocado and rich olivesoften predominate. in omega 9 and oily vegetables with a lot of omega 6 such as soy and peanuts and their derivatives.