The Skinny on Fat
Fat’s been given a bad wrap in our society. Everywhere you turn, new diets are being introduced to reduce your fat and products are advertised as “fat-free” or “low-fat”. Even the quintessential health foods like carrots and lettuce contain trace amounts of fat. What does that tell you? Yes, we need fat! The key is to identify what types of fats are good and which are bad.
First, the good. Unsaturated fats are the best for you and they can be divided into two groups: monounsaturated fats which includes canola, peanut and olive oils and also avacodoes, nuts and pumpkin seeds; and polyunsaturated fats which includes sunflower, corn and flax oils, along with flax seeds, walnuts and fish.
The next best for you is saturated fat. This should be limited because our body already makes what we need. You can find saturated fats in meats, skin on poultry, seafood and whole milk products.
The worst – trans fat. We’ve all heard that you need to avoid this at all costs and it’s true. Trans fats are a result of a process called hydrogenation that takes vegetable oil (good) and heats it in the presence of hydrogen gas (bad). Doesn’t sound too appealing. Obviously most processed and fast food will have trans fat in it. As a matter of fact, a medium order of french fries has only 2% of your recommended daily intake of fat. However, it increases the chance of heart disease by 23%! (Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition)
Our body needs fat and because we are women, we store most of it subcutaneouly - under the skin where it jiggles. Even top elite women cyclists have an average body fat ratio of 18% to 25% compared to men who only have 10% to 15%. So, is there any advantages to this extra padding?
Besides the extra cushioning which really does help pad our bones and internal organs from injury, it does help keep us warmer too. Don’t laugh, but most endurance swimming records are held by women because the extra fat keeps them warm and (get this) more bouyant than their male counterparts. As far as cycling, not really, but there is also no disadvantage either. There is more research being done for endurance level competitions, especially for marathons, since women have began to even out the playing field. Some sports nutritionists indicate it’s because of the extra fat reserves, while the psychologists argue women can handle pain and stress better than their male counterparts.
Bottom line – we need fat. Get rid of the trans fat, limit saturated fat, and only 2 to 4 tablespoons of unsaturated fat in a healthy diet. Remember that reducing your fat leads to reduced effectiveness of your training, needing more time to recover from injury and illness and having a reduced immunity to viruses and bacteria. Embrace your fat ladies, it’s a natural consequence of being a woman and lets us have all the right curves in the right places.