Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Burning the Baby Fat - Fat, the other Good Nutrient

By Teresa Brown

We live in a fat obsessed world where the perpetual battle to get rid of it from our diets and our bodies at all costs rages on. It's the "Darth Vader" of the diet industry and few are the ones who can resist succumbing to the delicious and addictive "darkside" of fatty foods. And thanks to the media, fat's reputation today as an essential nutrient has been put on the back burner. Fat is a neccessary nutrient to burn the baby fat and it's time to set the record straight.

A Big Mac and a large order of french fries certainly tastes good but if your health is at risk, then it's high time for you to lower the fat in your diet. If you are struggling to burn the excess baby fat, chances are that your eating a diet high in fat. Eating too much fat will increase your chances of developing cardiovascular disease or some forms of cancer.

To be able to burn the baby fat more effectively, you have to significantly decrease your fat intake to a normal range. This can be done by making a couple of adjustments in regards to your relationship with food such as how you shop, cook and make the foods you eat. Changing your old food habits to healthier ones will help you lose the pregnancy weight faster.

Keeping track of fat content in foods is much easier today because most food products come with nutrition labels and ingredients. Because people are becoming more health conscious consumers, some food companies and fast food restaurant chains have nutrition brochures.

Fat is an essential nutrient but it should be no more than 35 percent of your entire diet and of that only 300 mg should be cholesterol. The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as any vegetable, nut, olive or fish oils are the good fats and therefore should be the fats that take up 25 percent of your dietary fats. On the other hand, the bad fats such and the trans (hydrogenated fats) and saturated fats (bacon and whole milk) are to be eaten less and should only take no more than 10 percent of your dietary fats.

Remembering to eat fat in moderation will keep your fat consumption in the healthy range. Naturally, some days you will eat more fat than others but being aware of what you are eating will balance out your fat intake. Because of this, a healthy diet focuses on the average fat consumption over a period of months or weeks instead of daily fat consumption.

In order to maintain a balanced diet, you need to eat more of the healthy fats and less of the unhealthy ones that can be detrimental to your health. Burning the baby fat requires cutting back on your calories especially the calories from foods laden with saturated and trans fats. Eat a balanced low calorie diet and increase your physical activity and watch the weight melt off.

About the Author:

No comments: