Healthy Fitness Ideas

Fats are an impor­tant part of a bal­anced diet. Some of the most impor­tant dietary func­tions of fat include keep­ing your skin healthy, insu­lat­ing your body, cush­ion­ing your vital organs and allow­ing your body to absorb the fat-soluble vit­a­mins A, D, E, and K. Fats also play a role in the metab­o­lism of car­bo­hy­drates and pro­teins, and help us feel full after meals. Our daily meals con­tain sev­eral types of fats, includ­ing sat­u­rated, polyun­sat­u­rated, monoun­sat­u­rated and trans-fats. Some kinds of fat are essen­tial to your health, and other kinds of fat may increase your risk of heart dis­ease and stroke. You don’t need to com­pletely avoid eat­ing fatty foods. Instead, focus on eat­ing the health­ier dietary fats. So how can you tell the good fats from the bad fats?

The Bad Fats: Sat­u­rated and Trans Fats

Gen­er­ally, you can rec­og­nize the sat­u­rated fat in your meal because it is solid or semi-solid at room tem­per­a­ture. But­ter, hard mar­garine, lard and short­en­ing are sat­u­rated fats. Palm and coconut oil are excep­tions to the rule, because while liq­uid at room tem­per­a­ture, they’re loaded with sat­u­rated fat. Sat­u­rated fats tend to raise cho­les­terol lev­els and are plen­ti­ful in ani­mal pro­teins, includ­ing red meat and in most whole dairy prod­ucts, like milk, cheese and butter.

In addi­tion to sat­u­rated fat, the other unhealth­ful, bad fat is trans-fat, a man-made health men­ace. Trans fat is cre­ated when cer­tain polyun­sat­u­rated oils are heated. Some trans fat foods, such as mar­garine, con­tain hydro­genated oils, which allow them to remain solid at room tem­per­a­ture. After being heated, polyun­sat­u­rated fat devel­ops some of the neg­a­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics of sat­u­rated fat. Other trans fat foods include com­mer­cial baked goods (crack­ers, cook­ies and cakes), fried foods (dough­nuts and French fries), and short­en­ing. Trans fat foods are capa­ble of rais­ing unhealth­ful LDL cho­les­terol in the body, while low­er­ing the level of health­ful HDL cho­les­terol. Accord­ing to the FDA, just elim­i­nat­ing the trans fats present in mar­garine would pre­vent 6,300 heart attacks per year. Every­one con­cerned about good health should reduce the dietary intake of sat­u­rated and trans fats.

The Good Fats: Polyun­sat­u­rated Fats

Monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids are good fats, but non-essential in the diet since the can be syn­the­sized in the body. Good dietary sources of monoun­sat­u­rated fat include avo­ca­dos, nuts, and olive, peanut and canola oils. Nutri­tion researchers believe that increased dietary intake of mono unsat­u­rated fats can help lower LDL cho­les­terol and reduce the risk of coro­nary heart dis­ease. Monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids also con­tribute to heart health by low­er­ing lower serum triglyc­eride levels.

Polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids are also good fats, and are essen­tial in the diet since the can­not be syn­the­sized in the body. Polyun­sat­u­rated fats can be broadly divided into two groups, linoleic acid, better-known as omega6, and alpha-linolenic acid, better-known as omega3. Omega3 fats lower the risk of heart attack, and reduce triglyc­erides lev­els in the blood. Accord­ing to the fed­eral government’s Insti­tute of Med­i­cine, men should get 1.6 grams of omega3 fatty acids a day. Women should con­sume 1.1 grams of omega3 fatty acids each day. The Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion rec­om­mends that those with heart dis­ease get at least 1 gram of omega3 per day, and those with high triglyc­erides should con­sume as much as 2 to 4 grams of omega3, under a doctor’s super­vi­sion. Omega3 fats can be help­ful in treat­ing other med­ical prob­lems, includ­ing depres­sion, asthma, and rheuma­toid arthri­tis. Polyun­sat­u­rated fatty acids are the build­ing blocks for postaglandins, pow­er­ful hormone-like sub­stances which reg­u­late inflam­ma­tory and aller­gic responses and play a role in keep­ing our skin sup­ple and our hair and nails healthy. Omega3 fatty acids also pro­mote proper eye­sight and brain devel­op­ment in babies and small children.

Mod­ern food pro­cess­ing takes away many dietary sources of omega3, such that an esti­mated 99% of peo­ple in the United States do not con­sume the rec­om­mended amounts of omega3 fatty acids. Two serv­ings per week of a non-fried, omega-3-rich fish source (for exam­ple, Pacific salmon) will boost your blood lev­els of omega-3. Foods rich in omega 3 include oily cold water fish such as salmon, mack­erel, her­ring, alba­core tuna, anchovies, sar­dines, hal­ibut, shrimp, snap-per and scal­lops. Eggs are also good sources of omega3, although high in cho­les­terol. If you enjoy sal­ads, you can use flax seed oil (an omega-3 oil) and olive oil (omega-6 oil) as a tasty and very health­ful salad dress­ing. For veg­e­tar­i­ans, there are many omega3 plant sources as well. Very good non-animal sources of omega3s include cau­li­flower, cab­bage, cloves and mus­tard seeds. Soy-beans, tofu, and dark green leafy veg­eta­bles (kale, spinach, mus­tard greens, col­lard greens, and Brus­sels sprouts) are also good sources. Other good veg­etable sources include flax seed, hemp seeds, sun­flower seeds, wal­nuts, pump-kin seeds and wheat germ. Soy­beans, grape seed oil, pine nuts, pis­ta­chio nuts, sesame seeds and pump­kin seeds are also abun­dant sources of omega3 fats.

Tips for Get­ting More Healthy Fats in Your Diet

· A con­ve­nient way to sup­ple­ment your diet is to add flaxseed oil to your break­fast cereal, or add it to soups, or your smoothie or a salad.

· Sprin­kle your favorite nuts or sun­flower seeds on sal­ads instead of using bacon bits.

· Use canola oil when cook­ing and baking.

· Rather than reach­ing for the potato chips or crack­ers, try snack­ing on a small hand­ful of nuts.

· Add peanut but­ter or other nut but­ter spreads to cel­ery, bananas, or rice cakes.