These ideas are Michelle’s and may not represent the opinions of OPL.
If you’ve been around for a while, diet culture and its craze about low fat may have caught your attention. Best guess? It’s probably because you’ve been trying to bring your dietary fat under control, but it’s getting hard to tell which tips are syncretic, pseudo-scientific woo, and which are backed by real research.
Well, if that describes you (or you want to know about low-fat dieting for some other reason), you’re in luck. This short and easy guide will tell you all you need to know about low-fat eating.
Low-Fat Diets: What Are They?
Low-fat dieting is trending, but as is the case with trends, there’s a bit of mud in the water about what it is exactly—especially as some may mix the term ‘low-fat’ with ‘low-carb.’ Let’s get rid of some of that mud here.
A low-fat diet is simply one that’s low in fat, especially saturated and trans fats (the latter are the worst for your health.) The idea of a low-fat diet plan is that your daily nutrition emphasizes not only a reduction of fat intake but also an increase in other more healthy nutrients. For instance, there would be lean proteins, whole grains, and lots of vegetables. While on a low-fat diet, things like fried foods, high-fat snacks, processed meat, and sugary drinks are taboo.
Low-fat Diets: Why Are They?
Vegetables? Lean proteins? Sounds boring to the tongue (though, as we’ll see soon, they’re not necessarily so). Why would anyone want to put themselves through that? Well, here are a few reasons.
Burn More Calories on the Side
The fear of excess calories is the beginning of dietary awareness, and we’re always trying to get rid of those extra calories. But did you know that eating low fat contributes massively to how quickly you burn off those calories? It’s true. If you speak Nutritionist lingo, you may know this as increased metabolism. And it gets better.
Your body doesn’t just burn calories when you work out; it also burns calories at rest (about 45 calories per day, on average). This rate will increase when you cut back on fat, making it easier for you to get rid of more calories for less work.
It Does the Heart Good
Fats are known for being great clogs, and your heart may be where they work best. We tend to imagine the arteries slowly getting clogged up with fat until oxygen can’t get in, and tissue damage comes to herald other heart problems. However, while this may not necessarily be the case, as at least one study on the matter suggests, it is true that saturated fats increase the bad cholesterol in your body and put you at a higher risk of heart disease.
However, a low-fat diet will ensure you never have to worry about something like this. And if you already do, it helps to reduce the problem, especially if you also throw in some exercise.
Fitness Value
Not everyone can be as ripped as the Hulk. Besides, so much buff is probably bizarre, even on a non-green body. However, you can still be that well-proportioned, fit, energy facility of a person, capable of powering through any task. We are talking about improved energy management, a better physique, and even clearer skin as a bonus. Additionally, digestion happens more smoothly and efficiently.
The body usually has to put in more work to digest high-fat foods compared to low-fat ones. And with your energy patterns spiking and slumping like the Dow Jones, you may feel tired after doing nothing. On the other hand, low-fat foods will digest better, increasing your energy efficiency.
Types of Low Fat Diet
When talking about low-fat diets, there are two types we have to consider:
- Low-fat diets
- Very low-fat diets
For starters, both slash your fat intake significantly. The difference, however, is in how much fat reduction each requires.
If you’re going for low fat, you’re slashing your fat intake to 30% (or less) of your daily calories. For example, suppose you had a diet containing 100 calories; only 3 grams of that would be fat.
Then, there’s the very low-fat diet, which is what you do when you need to bring in the big guns on your fat intake. With a very low-fat diet, you’re looking at reducing fat intake to less than 10% of your daily calories. That’s very serious business, and not only is such a diet hard to maintain, but it may also potentially result in nutritional deficiencies with time. That’s why you should never go very low fat without advice and guidance from a dietician or any relevant specialist.
What Should a Low-Fat Diet Plan Contain?
So, we know some of what a low-fat diet doesn’t contain and why. Now, let’s see what it does contain and why.
Fruits and Vegetables
Calling both together surely makes the latter category sound more appealing than it would on its own. Although, in defense of vegetables, there are many sweet ones you can enjoy. But more to the point, fruits and vegetables are usually rich in vitamins and minerals. Consequently, both have the effect of preventing visual and digestive problems. They are also known to keep the nerves healthy, make blood clot properly, lower your blood pressure, and make you less likely to end up on the floor, gripping your chest.
Whole Grains
A low-fat diet will contain whole grains like black rice, barley, millet, brown rice, cracked wheat, farro, etc. And why do you need any of these grains? Well, there is the fact that, like veggies and fruits, they contain vitamins and minerals.
However, they also contain fiber and other things to help lower your risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels.
Low-fat Dairy Products
The deal with low-fat dairy products is that they give you basically everything milk does but with way less fat, especially the bad type. This means you get the same vitamins, proteins, and minerals as you’d get from whole milk but none of the saturated or trans fats. Some Yogurts come to mind here.
Lean Proteins
When we talk about lean proteins, we’re on about the type that you get from some types of fish like Tuna and Tilapia, birds like chicken, as well as other foods like Tofu. The benefits of these proteins include a lower blood cholesterol level, higher metabolism, and better brain function.
Downsides to a Low-Fat Diet
While we’ve talked quite a bit about the benefits of a low-fat diet, we’d be remiss to ignore the cons. You will find that each of these makes it important for you to ask a professional before starting a low-fat diet plan.
Hunger
It’s a real problem you might face when going low-fat, and if you’re doing very low-fat, you will almost certainly be very hungry all the time.
Nutritional Deficiency
Especially when you’re getting your dietary tips from a non-expert, you’ll likely miss out on some good nutrients. Not all fats are bad (for instance, omega-3 acids), but you might not be sure which ones. You should ask your dietician what nutrients you should and should not include.
Feeding Disruption
It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that food is not an illegal substance when you’re on a diet, especially if you really, really want to lose weight. When that happens, you might destroy your nutritional balance altogether by eating fewer calories than you burn off. And If your body has no extra calories to burn, it will burn itself. Don’t let it.
Final Thoughts
These are basically all of the most vital things you need to know about low-fat diet plans. We’d recommend a few plans of our own, but your dietician knows you better and can tell you exactly what you need. Also, you should never substitute online advice for real help from a professional to whom you can communicate your exact circumstances.
That being said, it stands factual and true that a low-fat diet plan’s benefits will be marvelous when done right. And so, we wish you the best of luck and results.