Fats, probably not the first word you want to hear when thinking about health.
You're probably more used to hearing fat in the same sentence of words like heart disease,
obesity, high cholesterol, and clogged arteries.
Fat's reputation is pretty bad compared to everything else we eat, but what is fat exactly?
The fats that you eat and store in your body is known as triglycerides.
Triglycerides are compounds consisting of glycerol as the backbone that holds together
three fatty acid chains.
And just like carbohydrates and protein, fat is a macronutrient and by the far the most
dense macro.
Each gram of protein and carb contains 4 calories, but a gram of fat is more than double at 9
calories per gram.
But that's a good thing as far as energy production.
The glycerol in a triglyceride can be metabolized into the carb glucose, and as discussed in
our carb video, a glucose molecule via glycolysis produces 2 energy molecules called ATP.
Fatty acids go through a process called beta oxidation that produces acetyl CoA.
This molecule is further metabolized into energy through a very complex process called
oxidative phosphyloration, resulting in 12 ATP molecules generated, 6 times more than
glycolysis.
And the longer these fatty acid chains are, the more Acetyl CoA can be produced.
The only catch: Oxidative phosphyloration takes a long time, 100 times longer than glycolysis.
That's good news for exercises that aren't too intense such as jogging and swimming,
but its effectiveness is restricted during sprinting and weightlifting.
It also explains why aerobic exercises in general are touted for its fat burning properties.
There are two types of fats known as saturated fats and unsaturated fats.
Saturated fats get their name from being fully saturated with hydrogen atoms because its
carbon only have single bonds, which also makes it solid in room temperature.
Unsaturated fats have double bonded carbon atoms that prevent full hydrogen saturation.
Some have a single double bond, called monounsaturated fats, and some have more, called polyunsaturated
fats.
Saturated fats are typically seen as the bad fat, being connected to increased LDL cholesterol,
or bad cholesterol.
But there is no research directly indicating these claims, but what was found is that whenever
unsaturated fats are consumed in replacement of saturated fats, overall heart health is
improved.
Unsaturated fats are indeed better.
One of the most popular unsaturated fats are omega-3 fatty acids, which have been linked
to lowering fat storage, reducing depression, reducing ADHD symptoms, reducing blood pressure,
increasing good, HDL cholesterol levels, and much much more.
But not all unsaturated fats are good.
Trans fat is also an unsaturated fat.
The big difference is the structure of the double bonds.
In a standard unsaturated fatty acid, the hydrogen on the double bond are on the same
side.
These are called cis fats.
A trans fat has the hydrogen atoms attached on the opposite sides of the double bond.
This small, but extremely important difference, causes the fat to be very dangerous for your
health with links to not only significantly increasing bad cholesterol in your body but
also direct links to coronary heart disease.
Trans fat has been deemed to be so bad that in 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration
required that all food manufacturers must remove trans fat in the form of partially
hydrogenated oils, completely from their products by 2018.
If you're still eating foods containing trans fat, it's probably time to stop.
Fat should make up roughly 15 to 30 percent of your daily calories, which is about 30
to 60 grams per day.
If you're concerned about saturated fats, a good idea is to replace them with healthy
unsaturated cis fats, such as the fats found in fish and fish oil.
And in case you're wondering, the fat stored in your body doesn't only come from eating
fat.
All excess calories, whether it's from proteins or carbs, will be processed and stored as
fat in your body.
At the end, it's all about how many calories you consume versus the amount of calories
you burn.
Oh, and you can't turn fat into muscle, sorry.
To learn more about the macronutrients protein and carbs, please click over here.
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