FAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU FAT!!
Well, come on, let’s be real. If you eat excessive amounts of fat,
you will gain fat on your body. What we are talking about here is unlike
ultra low fat diets, moderate amounts of fat in your diet can be burned
for energy and your stored body fat will also be burned when you are
eating in the Zone balanced way. This does not easily occur while eating
the standard diet.
The key here is that you must be eating in a Zone balanced way
(40-30-30) in order for the fat burning to take place. Otherwise most of
your dietary fat will be stored away in your fat cells, inexorably
increasing your body fat year by year. This is the dilemma that most
Americans face today as they scratch their heads wondering why they are
not losing weight as they eat all those non-fat products like rice
cakes, pasta, bread, and cereal.
Let’s see why this happens.
First certain assumptions must be made.
1. Eating a carbohydrate loaded meal will increase your blood glucose. I
don’t think anyone would disagree with that.
2. A rapid rise in blood sugar will stimulate the pancreas to squirt
extra insulin into the blood in an attempt to lower the glucose to a
safe level.
3. High insulin levels block carnitine from bringing fatty acids into
muscle cell’s mitochondria to make energy. The FA’s are therefore turned
away, reform into triglycerides and re-enter the blood stream.
4. Meanwhile, the elevated insulin stimulates lipoprotein lipase which
helps transport the extra fatty acids into the fat cells.
5. The biochemical mechanism for this effect on the fat cells is not
thoroughly understood although we believe that insulin causes the fat
cells to be less sensitive to normal levels of circulating epinephrine.
Epinephrine normally would encourage the breakdown of triglycerides in
the fat cells and cause them to release free fatty acids into the blood
stream for use as energy fuel but since this is not happening, more FA
stays in the fat cells than exits.
Think of insulin as a storage hormone, it makes all the cells into a one
way street: it packs away the carbs into the liver and muscles while at
the same time keeps the fat cells in the storage mode.
High levels of insulin dulls the fat cell’s ability to convert their
stored fat into free fatty acids that can be used by the body as fuel.
I think you can begin to see what is happening already with the fat in
your diet. It hasn’t got a chance to be burned for energy, it is busy
being stored away by insulin.
4. Now let’s see how lower carb eating effects the picture.
If you lower your percentage of carbohydrate in the diet you will
maintain a lower insulin level. This will increase the fat cells
sensitivity to epinepherine which will encourage them to release their
stored body fat.
At the same time low insulin levels produce higher glucagon levels.
Glycogen acts to elevate another hormone, Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL)
which mobilizes fatty acids out of the fat cells to provide more energy
for the muscles. By eating low carb, you train your body to favor fat
burning hormones. (HSL)
It is not a lower level of fat in the diet that stimulates the fat cells
to disgorge their stored fuel, it is the ABSENCE OF EXTRA CARBOHYDRATES.
In other words: FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT, CARBOHYDRATES DO.
5. Let’s look at a typical scenario of fat loss at 1 1/2 lbs per week.
This amounts to 750 cals per day. That is the amount derived from 83
grams of fat per day. But since you are already eating around 50 grams
of fat in your diet, the total amount of fat you need to burn per day to
lose 1.5 lbs per week is 133 grams (the 50 from the diet and the 83 from
the fat cells). This is about 1200 cals of energy derived solely from
fat.
Now, 50 grams of dietary fat daily divided by 3 grams per block = 15
blocks. When you add 15 blocks of Protein and carbs to the fat your
total daily caloric intake is only about 1365. But since your are
burning 750 cals in body fat, the total calories used daily is 2115,
which is close to what is suggested by the ADA, etc. This is how Zone
burns fat while still maintaining adequate caloric needs.
So lets look at some actual numbers. Using a 15 daily block zone diet
(40-30-30), This is a total of 1365 cals. 30% from fat means you eat 45
grams daily of dietary fat. This is NOT a high fat diet, that is
considered a low fat diet.
30% from protein is 102 grams daily. This is just slightly higher than
the ADA recommendation which I may add is based upon the average,
sedentary (SICK) population.
40% carbs is 136 grams daily, just enough to keep the fat burning TCA
cycle operational, avoiding ketosis and muscle wasting but low enough to
avoid insulin elevation and encourage fat burning hormones to elevate.