Most people realize that it is sensible to limit the amount of fat grams in their daily diet. The nutritional reference intake amount for an grown person ranges from 20persent to 35persent[i] of daily calories; or about 44 to 55 grams per day[1]. Since a single slice of pecan pie carries with it 27 grams of fat, and a mere tablespoon of thousand island salad covering have 8 grams of fat[ii], it is not amazing to see more and more people checking food labels and “passing over” an order of onion rings[2] as they struggle to lose, or maintain, inches and pounds.
However, the persistent avoidance of fat – even of healthy unsaturated fat – is creating a disturbing situation for many persons. Instead of losing weight when they go “fat free”, in fact they are gaining weight.
A lot of people on the road to weight loss neglect – or simply do not realize – that the words “fat free” do not also indicate “calorie free”. As a result, lots of people eat far too much “fat free” food, believing that it will not gain weight, since, unfortunately, it is dubbed “fat free”. Yet it is the calories in these fat-free foods that reason the weight gain; not the fat grams themselves[iii].
A single gram of fat has nine calories, which is more than double the quantity of calories in a gram protein or carbohydrate. Therefore, exactly speaking, an eater can eat two times as many protein or carbohydrate grams than fat grams, and attain the same caloric intake. Since many high-fat foods have an too much amount of fat grams – for example onion rings – it has become a staple of dieting wisdom to decrease fat intake and evade such oily, greasy foods[3].
Yet it bears doing again that the reason to avoid full of fat foods is not because of the word “fat”; it is because every fat gram contains a scale-tipping 9 calories. In other words: the weight-conscious reason for staying away from surplus fat grams is because it leads to a higher caloric intake.
Dieters who ignore to realize this basic nutritional fact – that weight increase is about calories and not about fat grams themselves – not succeed to realize, and often at their eventual shock, how the body really gains and loses weight.
The typical adult male American diet describes for 2000 calories per day because this is how many calories are jointly use and burned (i.e. changed into energy) by the body every day. As an example, an regular male dieter who devoured 1800 calories a day will “save” 200 calories per day. As there are 3,500 calories in a pound, the dieter in this situation will “save” 3,600 calories over the course of 18 days (18 x 200 calories). This explains into a loss of one pound. Similarly, if this dieter consumes a surplus 200 calories per day, a pound of weight will be increased in 18 days.
A dieter who is not attentive of this mathematical formula may definitely avoid fat in total and consume, such as, 6 tablespoons of “fat free” caramel topping per day; considering that this is not a part of the weight increase equation, because it is labeled as “fat free”. This is not fake publicity, as fat free caramel topping contains no fat grams. However, fat free caramel topping delivers 103 calories per two tablespoon serving [iv].
If this dieter is remaining to a diet routine of 44 fat grams per day -- and does not count calories -- then he will merely not know that in these 6 mere tablespoons are a considerable 309 calories; or 15persent of the total daily caloric consume for a 2000 calorie/day diet.
In actual fact, a dieter could subsist completely on “fat free” foods, and simply surpass their target daily caloric intake by their second meal of the day. These extra calories are obviously not gain from fat grams; but they are coming from another resource, most possibly carbohydrates.
Again, the message here that many dieters do not obtain from the publicity and marketing media is that fat grams in and of themselves do not essentially “cause” weight gain. Somewhat, fat grams contribute to the whole caloric intake, and they should be added alongside carbohydrates and proteins.
Adding an excessive layer of intricacy here is that many “healthy foods”, such as energy bars, contain an extreme amount of calories. A chocolate chip Energy Bar™, for example, have 230 calories; which is in fact only 40 calories less than a Butterfinger™ candy bar[v]. Regrettably, because the Energy Bar contains 2 grams of fat and is consequently “low fat”, some dieters eat quite a lot of per day; and quantity on 230 calories each time, regardless of the fact that virtually none of those calories come from fat. It does not matter; the dieter will still increase weight if his or her every day caloric intake threshold is surpassed. Dieters who expect yogurt-covered bars to be “healthier” are also misinformed; the yogurt-berry Balance BarÔ contains 200 calories per serving, in spite of the fact that only 25persent of the calories come from its 6 grams of fat.
However, there are some responsible nutritional supplement products on the marketplace that are engineered to be both low fat and low-calorie. These foods are of benefit to dieters when they are losing weight, and also in the susceptible period after the weight has been lost. Unfortunately, many very well intentioned dieters who have made marvelous steps and sacrifices to lose weight get back it within the first few “post-diet” months. While many factors influence whether a dieter will get back weight, including surroundings and heredity, one major reason is that dieters are not presented with low-fat, low-calorie, and pleasant food sources once they have attain their weight loss ambitions. They consequently return to earlier eating habits, and the surplus weight returns within weeks.
However, as declared, there are wise nutritional supplements on the marketplace that do fill this void, and morally serve dieters – and post-dieters – with foods that they need to stay healthy, and ward off weight gain. For the sake of recent and future dieters who are going to great effort with misleading “fat free” advertising, it is hoped that such bright companies, and their products, quickly become the average of the opportunity, rather than the exemption of today.
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[1] Fat grams contain 9 calories each.
[2] 3 grams of fat per onion ring!
[3] As briefly noted above, many dieters are unsuccessful to understand that there are healthy unsaturated fats that the body needs; the body cannot produce fat on its own, it must obtain it through diet. Yet even unsaturated fat grams contain 9 calories each, and so the realizing the fats should be severely limited holds true.