Not long ago, the battle was waged against dietary fat and its supposed cause of the
world’s ongoing obesity epidemic.
Many foods today advertise low-fat or fat-free alternatives, appealing to the belief that
fat makes you fat.
Of course, around here we can’t just accept this to be true without proper evidence.
That being said, let’s find out.
There’s no doubt that, out of the three primary macronutrients we consume, carbs,
fats, and protein, fat is indeed the easiest to be stored as actual fat.
The fat we eat are in the form of triglycerides, which is essentially identical to the fat
we store in our bodies.
It doesn’t take much effort to process dietary fat into our adipose tissue.
Carbs and protein, on the other hand, have other priorities.
Carbs are first used to produce energy and replete glycogen stores before being stored
as fat.
Proteins are used for protein synthesis and a slew of other metabolic purposes.
It will hardly be used for producing energy, let alone broken down for fat storage.
Dietary fat is also the most calorically dense macronutrient, clocking in at 9 calories per
gram compared to 4 per gram for either carbs and protein.
On the surface, it does seem like eating fat might actually translate to more fat stored
in our bodies.
However, we have to consider the bigger perspective.
Yes, our body prioritize carbs and protein for other metabolic purposes other than fat
storage, but eating these in excess will prevent our body from metabolizing dietary fat for
energy.
It’s not the fat, per se, that is the issue, but rather excessive caloric consumption above
our energy needs.
In short, if we eat too many carbs and protein, then we won’t use fat for energy, thus it
will be stored.
But now, let’s take a look at what the research shows.
Let’s first start with a 2017 meta-analysis, which thoroughly analyzed 32 controlled feeding
studies comparing low-fat and low-carb diets.
In their findings, low-fat diets had a slight 16 grams per day fat loss advantage.
Or, about an extra pound of fat loss per month over low-carb, high-fat diets.
Now before you think this proves that eating fat indeed makes you fatter, consider that
controlled studies are special scenarios.
In real life scenarios, we don’t have researchers bringing us meals in a controlled environment
to ensure adherence.
Low-carb, high-fat diets might actually have an advantage since restricting carbs means
restricting practically all junk food loaded with added sugars plus a natural increase
in protein intake.
To get a better feel for more life-like situations, we can look at a study released early last
year which I’ve also went into detail in another video.
In this study, subjects were simply instructed to adhere as closely as possible to either
a low-carb or low-fat diet with the focus of weight loss through the course of 12 months.
A lot of potential variations can exist just as it would in real life.
In the end, the researchers concluded that, while accounting for genotypical and insulin
differences, there were no significant differences in weight change between a healthy low-fat
diet versus a healthy low-carb diet.
AKA, both achieved the same weight loss results.
With all this in mind, let’s ask again: Does eating fat make you fat?
In terms of total calorie consumption, then yea, sure, consuming more fat with excess
consumption of any sort, can make you fat.
Keyword, though, is excess consumption, aka more calories consumed that you burn.
But if you’re not overeating, then having a higher proportion of your dietary intake
as fat isn’t going to make much of a difference to your waistline.
The only macronutrient that should be of priority is protein.
It’s the building block of so many metabolic processes, is very unlikely to be stored away
as fat, and as you bros know, the main ingredient to building muscle.
Sure, you still don’t want excess protein, but protein certainly should not be restricted
if you’re healthy.
Now to close, the biggest take-home message from this video is to stop trippin’ about
eating less fat or even less carbs.
What matters most is adherence.
Choose a diet that you can stick to and allows you to comfortably avoid eating in excess.
Again, keyword is excess.
Anyway, let me know what YOU think about eating too much fat.
How does it impact you and YOUR goals?
Also, I want to give a quick shoutout to Examine.com for providing the bulk of the information
for this video.
Examine.com is perhaps one of the best, if not THE best, nutrition and supplement resource
on the internet today.
All of their work is completely supported by scientific research.
I highly encourage everyone to give them a look if you need some good info on all things
nutrition.
I’ll link their article on this very topic in the description below.
If you enjoyed the video, please give it a fatty thumbs up and share it with your science-loving
friends.
As always, thank you for watching and GET YOUR PROTEIN!