Is Your Low-Fat Diet Is Making You FAT?

By Kevin DiDonato MS, CES


Who says you can’t eat fat and still lose weight?

Well, frankly, there are a lot of people that feel this way.

In fact, the other day at my gym, I asked 10 random strangers what they thought about higher fat diets and how many of them regularly ate fat.

Two people.

That was it!  Only two people admitted to eating fat—granted it was unhealthy fats.

Of those 10 people, ALL of them (even those eating fat) were nervous about including too much fat because they didn’t want to have a heart attack or get fat.

It was eye-opening for me, as a trainer, because it shows that we haven’t done a good enough job of debunking those crazy low-fat diets.

But maybe this will help…

7 Year Study PROVES Fat To Be Good

That’s right, a SEVEN year study showed that eating fat was better for weight loss compared to low-fat diets.

Not surprising to me in the least bit.

But it was pretty surprising to those who swear by a low-fat diet.

You see, mainstream media has made fat the enemy and that a low-fat diet may be the only way to truly lose body fat—and keep it off.

But, they couldn’t be more wrong!  According to a new study—one that took 7 years to complete—researchers have proven that a higher fat diet may actually lead to better weight loss and improvements in health.

That’s not all!  After carefully looking through the date comparing higher-fat groups and the low-fat groups, they found that those on the low-fat diet had much large waist circumference compared to those who ate the higher fat diet.

Sounds pretty great right?  Well it’s about to get better!

You see, the diet the researchers were looking at was two different forms of the Mediterranean diet.

One version of the diet, which was rich in olive oil, resulted in greater weight loss.

The other version, that substituted the olive oil for nuts, resulted in smaller waist circumferences at the end of the seven year study!

From their work, the researchers concluded: “A long-term intervention with an unrestricted-calorie, high-vegetable-fat Mediterranean diet was associated with decreases in bodyweight and less gain in central adiposity compared with a control diet. These results lend support to advice not restricting intake of healthy fats for bodyweight maintenance.”

Take Home Message

Over the year, there has been an increase I the amount of people following a low-fat, low-calorie type of diet in order to speed up weight loss.

Although this approach looks good, the results are far from great!  In fact, more people on a low-calorie- lower-fat diet may actually GAIN weight compared to other higher-fat diets.

And according to the latest research, a higher fat diet (consisting of nuts or olive oil) may boost overall weight loss and shows lower belly fat stores.

So, if you’re looking to blast away body fat and shed some serious pounds, you may need to ditch the low-fat diet and include more healthy fats, vegetables, nuts, and lean proteins into your diet plan.

References:

Estruch R, Martinez-Gonzalez MA, Corella D, Salas-Salvado J, Fito M, Chiva-Blanch G, Floi M, Gomez-Gracia E, Aros F, Lapetra J, Serra-Majem L, Pinto X, Bull-Cosiales P, Serli JV, Munoz MA, Basora-Gallisa J, Lamuela-Raventos RM, Serra-Mir M, Ros E.  Effect of a high-fat Mediterranean diet on bodyweight and waist circumference: a prespecified secondary outcoems analysis of the PREDIMED randomized controlled trial.  Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.  2016 June.