Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Why You Love Fat

So let's take a hypothetical 5'6" 132 pound woman with 25% body fat set adrift in a life-boat with plenty of water and no food.  Her 33 pounds of adipose tissue is about 85% by weight triglyceride, so she has about 115,000 Calories of fat reserves.  She can also burn about half of her body protein content (10,000 kcal of her 20,000 total) before she dies.  Sitting quietly in the boat (i.e. no rowing) she'll start out burning about 2000 Calories per day.  This implies that she'd last about 62 days.
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Kids, I don't recommend that you try this at home.

But I can't think of a better illustration of the role fat plays in the human genome.  It's the human grade A diesel, it's the stuff we're made to run on for the majority of human function.  We need glucose for the brain, and to fuel top end physical output and a few other body functions - and we can use glucose for a bunch of fuel options when needed.

The big takeaway?  If you over glucose yourself, the body converts the glucose to fat, but the process isn't healthy; it's an emergency reaction to a glucose toxicity problem.  If you eat too much fat, on the other hand, it's no big deal.  The body easily manages fat storage and liberation and you will run just fine.

Fat is your friend, your ally, and your best fuel once you get the carb intake under control.  Eat meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar no wheat.

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