Debunking Fat Myths: The Essential Guide to Fatty Acids and Optimal Health

Are fats the villains they’re often portrayed to be, or unsung heroes of nutrition? Join me, Rob Maxwell, as we unravel the fatty myths and discover the truth about macronutrients, particularly those misunderstood fatty acids. Say goodbye to the days of casting all fats in the same greasy light, because it's time to highlight why your body genuinely needs a balance of these essential nutrients. We're navigating through saturated and unsaturated fats, addressing why your Saturday morning bacon should be more of a cameo than a regular cast member in your diet and how the unsung heroes—omega-3s—deserve the spotlight on your plate.

This episode isn't just about the what, but the how; it's about understanding the ideal fat balance for not just surviving, but thriving. I take you on a journey, a detailed map in hand, steering clear of the treacherous trans fats and charting a course toward healthier, unsaturated shores. Your health odyssey doesn't stop when the podcast ends—connect with us through email for weekly nuggets of wisdom, and by downloading our content, you're not just feeding your mind but fortifying your body's nutritional foundation. Get ready to be empowered to make informed, balanced, and delicious choices in your quest for better health.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to. There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I'm the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to talk about the science, to educate everybody so we really know what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing. Hence the name Method to the Madness.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Today I'm going to talk about fat, the fat that we eat and how it impacts us. Before I get to that, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden Group at Realty Pros. They currently have over 280 five-star reviews on Zillow. They're consummate professionals. Jonathan has a degree in real estate from FSU and Lynn has an MBA. So you know what. They went into this, realizing that they're going to get into the business world. And in the business world you got to be good to be competitive, and they're the best. If you need any help, give them a shout 386-451-2412. So let's talk about fats.

Speaker 1: 1:19

You know, a lot of times I kind of take for granted the information that I know because I really think it's so basic. But maybe that's because so often I've been hanging around with people in the health and fitness world. I taught sports medicine for over 10 years. I've taught workshops put on by the American College of Sports Medicine. A lot of my friends are in the fitness world so you know, oftentimes I'll have to remind myself that this is really interesting to me, health and fitness stuff, and it's second nature in many ways and a lot of stuff is like super, super, super basic concepts as far as I'm concerned. But then I realized, you know, not everybody is into this right and that's why they are hiring professionals in the allied health industry to help them, and so some of these concepts really aren't basic.

Speaker 1: 2:23

One of those happens to be macronutrients. So macro means large, that's what macro means Nutrients and I should say macro essential nutrients. So nutrients are things we consume and essential means it has to come from outside of the body that your body just doesn't make it itself. So macroecentral nutrients are your carbohydrates, your proteins, your fats and water. Micronutrients are your vitamin and your minerals. So these things have to come from outside of the body to give us what we need. So fat happens to be one of our macro-nutrients and I don't think people understand the difference with macro-nutrients. I know that, the difference with macronutrients.

Speaker 1: 3:30

I know that there's a big debate constantly over the best one to eat, so to say, and the ones to avoid, and both of those statements are completely false. If you ever hear it, if you ever hear, the best one to eat is this turn the channel, keep scrolling. It's total BS. If you ever hear never eat this or severely limit this, turn the channel, keep scrolling. It's total BS. If you ever hear never eat this or severely limit this, turn the channel, keep scrolling because it's BS.

Speaker 1: 3:52

The reality is we need, of course, all four of our macronutrients we need water, we need protein, we need carbohydrates and we need fats. They all have a purpose and we need to consume them. We need to consume them all in moderation. So should we limit any? Of course we should limit all. I mean we just can't eat unlimited, anything we want. I mean you just can't.

Speaker 1: 4:22

If you eat too much protein, you're eating too many calories in general and you're going to put an enormous strain onto your kidneys. If you eat too many carbohydrates, you will be eating too many calories and thus you will be gaining weight. If you eat too much fat, you will be eating too many calories and you will be eating something that's hard for the body to break down and you could have some gallbladder issues or other issues like that. So, yeah, I mean we have to limit anything and even water. Hyponatremia means water intoxication. You can poison yourself literally from too much water, because what that means is you are flushing all of this sodium and other micronutrients and minerals out of your system and you literally will be causing yourself distress. I mean hyponatremia can kill somebody and it has in marathons in the past, where somebody consumes water without any sodium base or sports drinks. So that's not what this is about at all, but it is to show you that of course we can consume too much of anything and we can consume too little. We always have to find that little dance of how much is enough, and you know that's hard for everybody because it is different for everybody.

Speaker 1: 5:45

So today I want to talk about one of those macronutrients because I think it's very much misunderstood, and that is fat. All right, so fat comes from different sources. We have fat that comes from animals and that's typically saturated fat, which, don't worry, I will get into Now. There are two plant sources that create saturated fat, and that is palm and coconut oil, but all other saturated fat comes from animal products. So saturated means that it is thick, it is solid at room temperature.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Saturated fat is the unhealthier of fats. We definitely want to limit, but not completely exclude, saturated fats. Unsaturated fats, which there are different varieties, there's monounsaturated and there's polyunsaturated comes from plant sources. All right, those we want to limit to an extent because they're simply calorically dense. All fat has nine calories per gram of fat, compared to protein, which only has four calories per gram, and carbohydrates, which only has four calories per gram. And if you're keeping score at home, you should know that alcohol has seven calories per gram. And if you're keeping score at home, you should know that alcohol has seven calories per gram. So fat is simply the most calorically dense of your macronutrients. And no, alcohol is not a macro or a micronutrient. I was just throwing it in there to teach you about the calorie density, caloric density. So fat is the most calorically dense nine calories per gram, compared to four for protein and carbohydrates. That's why we do want to limit it to an extent, especially the polyunsaturated, monounsaturated. For this reason, because you're simply getting in more calories than you would if you ate a gram of carbohydrate or protein. But we still need to eat fat and, yes, we even need some saturated fat as well.

Speaker 1: 8:11

So the problem with a lot of these fad diets and a fad diet is defined as a diet that really restricts or completely eliminates a macronutrient. So if somebody was on a non-fat diet which essentially would be impossible, I mean you would starve to death because that would mean you're eating nothing but lettuce and broccoli all day long. So you know, most things have a little bit of fat in it and it should. So if you were on a super restricted fat diet, that would not be healthy at all. Fat's got its very, very important properties to it, which I'm going to get into, do not worry. But the problem again with any of these diets is it says severely limit or try to eliminate the macronutrient. We can't do that. We need carbohydrates, we need fat, we need protein and of course, we need water. All right. So we have to find the right balance. So what does fat do for us Now? Do for us Now? Number one fat is an energy dense foods. So when we eat it we're eating more calories. We need it. We need fat for long term energy use.

Speaker 1: 9:32

When our metabolism is run by basically trying to produce more adenosine triphosphate, I'm not going to get too far in the weeds here, but we should understand that there is a method to the madness. So, to stay alive, your body is constantly regenerating adenosine, more energy. So not producing new energy, because the first law of thermodynamics states that energy is never nor created nor destroyed, so it's always there. We're not. It's sort of semantics, but we have to understand. We're not making new energy, we're regenerating energy. So we bring in energy from food, we use energy, we excrete energy, we bring energy back. It's a constant regeneration process.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Now, the immediate energy that your cells can use is called ATP, adenosine triphosphate. That's the only energy source that your cells can use at the time and we store it directly in the muscles. We literally only have enough for one to two seconds. So you snap your finger, you just ran out of that amount of ATP in that location. So your body is constantly regenerating new ATP.

Speaker 1: 10:56

And how is it doing that? It's doing that by the breakdown of fats and carbohydrates, not protein. Protein is not an energy macronutrient, it's not at all. That's why it's kind of funny when people say, well, you need more protein for energy, you need protein for this. It tells me you don't understand protein when you say that, it tells me you don't understand protein when you say that. So protein is actually a repair macronutrient and yes, we do need it, but it is not used in the metabolic processes unless we're in extreme starvation mode. Then your body will start to break down proteins, but other than that it does not. It uses carbohydrates in fats. So our body's in a constant flux of breaking down carbohydrates and fats to regenerate more ATP.

Speaker 1: 11:46

At lower intensity moments for example, me making this podcast right now I'm just sitting here. I'm using hardly any energy, I'm not using any of my larger muscle groups, so I'm predominantly using fat for fuel. Right now, when the energy gets more intense, when the exercise, when the activity gets more intense, we start to burn carbohydrates for fuel. So low intensity moments is mostly fat. Never all Intensity moments is mostly fat. Never all High intensity moments is mostly carbohydrates. So this is called the Krebs cycle and this is how fats and carbohydrates are broken down for energy.

Speaker 1: 12:31

So the primary role of fat is to provide energy for the body in long duration and low intensity moments, which is most of the time. This is why, when we're dieting, we actually are losing fat because we're not taking in enough calories, so your body starts to break down the fat for energy. We're using the fat that's in the bank because we simply have banked too much fat. We're finally using our savings that we maybe shouldn't have allowed it to accumulate so greatly, but that's what it is when we lose weight. So that's fat's primary role when we consume it. The other thing fat does is for the body wise, as far as when it gets to the body and we store too much of it is adipose tissue, so it creates some cushioning and things like that. But I'm mostly talking here about dietary fat and dietary fat consumption.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Now, the other thing we have to be aware of which is why we don't want to be on a super, super low fat diet is it's very much involved in the processing making of hormones and other bodily systems. So when we're not consuming enough fat, we can really mess up our endocrine system because we're using fat to make different hormones. Very, very important to understand that. Like, for example, sterol is a fat, so cholesterol, saying it slow, like that, so you hear it sterol is a fat, cholesterol is a fat, it's a blood fat, and that happens to be like what, and that happens to be like what steroids are made of in the body anabolics, the testosterone. We need our fats to help produce this. When we become too deficient, we aren't producing enough of these hormones. We eat too much. We sure our hormonal system might be getting a little bit better in that regard, but now we're gaining too much weight. So we always have to find the happy medium with that, all right. So just to recap that, because I want to make sure you understand, I'm going to make the case for not being on too low of a fat diet, and then I want to talk a little bit about you know which types of fats to consume and all that. So just to recap, we need it for long-term energy and we need it to help produce and create the bodily system, such as our endocrine system, which is our hormonal system. Main reasons we need to consume enough fat All right, has to come from the outside, remember, because essential means body can't create it, so we do have to consume enough fat for this all to occur.

Speaker 1: 15:21

Now back to saturated and unsaturated fat. As I said, saturated fat primarily comes from animals, animal products, with the exception of coconut and palm oil. Those are the only plant sources, and palm oil, those are the only plant sources. Now it's the saturated fat that has been linked mostly to heart disease and too much plaque buildup in your arteries. That can occur from other reasons too, but it's the saturated fat that, according to the Framingham Heart Study and other cardiac studies through the years I mean we've known this for a really long time it's the saturated fat that leads to the plaque buildup. It doesn't mean we completely eliminate it, but it does mean we reduce.

Speaker 1: 16:08

We do want to keep our saturated fat levels low, for sure. We want to keep them low, without question. How low? I mean most studies show that we should keep our saturated fat well under 10% of our take-in. All right, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fats primarily come. Well, they don't. Primarily they do come from plants and those are your healthier fats. You want to consume omega-3s and omega-6s. Those are fats, those are free fatty acids, omega-3 fatty acid, omega-6 fatty acid. Now, according to most research, the American diet is full of omega-6s. So we apparently get enough of the omega-6 fatty acids. That's some of the nuts and um foods of that nature, some of the oils.

Speaker 1: 17:03

I'm not saying really eliminate it, though, like well. I'm definitely not saying eliminate. I'm not even saying like overly reduce it unless you are having, like, obesity issues, body weight issues, body fat issues. Now some experts do, because they just think in this country we're so out of whack between our omega-6s and omega-3s that we actually have to start reducing the omega-6s. I haven't seen that really in my experience. I see more people consuming way more saturated fats than they need to. When I analyze a diet and it's a high-fat diet, it's typically the saturated fat. So I'm not going to go out and say necessarily cut back on that too much. Again, unless you're cutting calories in general and losing weight in general, then you need to cut everything.

Speaker 1: 17:49

But one thing we absolutely know for sure, we all agree on, is we need to be consuming enough of the omega-3s, which primarily, interestingly enough, do come from animal source, come from fish, come from fattier fishes like salmon and tuna is where we get more omega-3s, which is why there's the big push to take fish oil and all that, which is fine, but like I would rather see people get it more from natural sources than that, and also walnuts are a good source as well, so we want to consume them again because they're good for our hormonal system. We just don't want to consume a large amount of saturated fat. Now, the fat you absolutely want to avoid the one I will say that you don't need any of and you should always try to have zero is trans fats. You want to eliminate any trans fats that come from cooking processes and basically cookies and baked goods and things like that. You want to eliminate the trans fats, but we do want to make sure we're getting enough omega-3s again from good natural sources. So fatty fishes we don't need that much maybe like three servings a week should give us our adequate amounts.

Speaker 1: 19:13

But the best way to know and I tell everybody this and people sometimes say, well, I don't have time for this and I look at them. I say you're going to actually save yourself time that is, if you really care and you want to get better, by tracking your foods Like if you track your foods for at least a while, you might see where you're deficient, where you have enough and what you can improve upon. Because it all does come back to budgeting. Food really really does, and once we become aware budgeting Food really really does, and once we become aware, we tend to make better choices.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Now, my dietary recommendations I've often stuck with has essentially been somewhere around 10 to 15, maybe as high as 20% of your diet in protein, somewhere around 50 to 60% of your diet in protein, somewhere around 50 to 60 percent of your diet in carbohydrates. And yes, of course, the carbohydrates should be good choices, just like fat. There's good choices and bad choices, so or good choices and not so good choices. So we want to eat more complex whole grain carbohydrates versus refined sugar carbohydrates. So yes, within our macronutrients we can make better choices. And then, for fat, I always recommend between 20 and 25% of your diet.

Speaker 1: 20:39

When people get on ultra low fat diets, like 10% of their diet is of fat, I think it's too low. Very hard to do too, by the way, because fat, with being more calorically dense, it is, you know, a little easier to get those numbers up than the other two. But 20 to 25% of your diet in fat, and again, most of that being unsaturated fat, you're not going to completely eliminate saturated fat, and nor do I really think you need to, but you do need to reduce it. You do need to try to do your best to eliminate trans fats, all right. So that is the fat on fat, that is the skinny on fat. I hope you're more educated now to make better choices and understand the method to the madness and why we eat certain foods, why we eliminate certain foods and why we reduce certain foods. There truly is a method to the madness.

Speaker 1: 21:40

Now let me thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the premier garage door company in the state of Florida, and we're lucky to have one right here in Daytona Beach. Jeff and Zach Hawk are the owners. I vouch for them. I've known Jeff for over 30 years. They're the simply, they are the absolute best. Give them a shout at overhead doordaytonacom. Make sure you are subscribing to our email, because we send out a lot of information weekly on different tips and workouts and things like that. Please download this. It helps our numbers and have a great week. Have a great couple of days, be max fit and be max well.