Poly-Unsaturated Fats, Fatty Acids, and Essential Fatty Acids August 18, 2008

The Truth About Fat

Fats are broken down into 3 categories:

1. Saturated fats

2. Mono-unsaturated fats

3. Poly-unsaturated fats (this includes Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids [EFAs])

Let’s take a look at:

Poly-Unsaturated Fats, Fatty Acids, and Essential Fatty Acids

The key roles that fat plays in your body are in the breakdown for their fatty acids and in energy.

Fatty acids are vital to your health and well being. Fatty acids are the acids that are produced when fat is broken down. Your body uses fatty acids to perform key functions in your body which involve the brain, eyes, heart, lungs, nerves, skin, hair, digestion, and hormones.

Your body also burns fat for energy. The extra energy that is not burned or used in your body is stored in adipose tissue. Adipose then protects and cushions the organs in your body. The “fat” that many people dislike on their bodies (in the form of love handles, big thighs, or flabby bellies) is not fat per se, it’s adipose tissue.

The human body can produce all but 2 of the fatty acids it needs. These 2 fatty acids are linoleic acid (LA acid), which is the “parent” fatty acid to the Omega 6 family) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA acid) which is the “parent” fatty acid in the Omega 3 family.

Essential fatty acids (EFA’s) . When the word “essential” is used in a nutrition context, it refers to something that body cannot make on its own and must find from outside sources – i.e., your diet.

Foods High in Omega 3 include:

• Flax seeds
• Cold water fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel
• Sardines

Foods High in Omega 6 include:

• Sunflower seeds
• Vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, sesame, soybean, safflower
• Margarine
• Pumpkin seeds

And then of course there are Essential Fatty Acid Supplements in pill form – stay tuned for info on the doctor recommended EFAs to supplement your diet!

The Skinny on Your Fat August 12, 2008

Your body produces new fat cells only until you reach your early teenage years! During puberty, fat cell production ceases and that’s it – that’s the total number of fat cells you are stuck with for life. Then, when you gain or lose weight, your body doesn’t make new fat cells, rather the fat cells that have been produced in your childhood increase as you gain weight or decrease as you lose weight.

When you diet, exercise or use any other weight loss method, your body burns fat for energy – decreasing the size (not the amount) of your already existing fat cells. Extra energy not burned or used in your body (like when you skip the gym) is stored in adipose tissue. Adipose protects and cushions the organs in your body. The “fat” that many people dislike on their bodies (in the form of love handles, big thighs, or flabby bellies) is not fat per se, it’s adipose tissue.

Presently, liposuction is the only FDA-approved way to remove or destroy adipose, i.e., fat cells. Therefore, the best candidate for liposuction is someone who has one or more areas of fat collections (reserves, bulges, rolls, or whatever other unpleasant term you prefer) that are disproportionate to the rest of their body. Any other diet or weight loss method can only shrink the size of your existing fat cells.

Since liposuction physically removes adipose, post-liposuction weight fluctuation – loss or gain, is less apparent in the treated area. However, if you gain considerable weight, those untreated areas may suffer by gaining more fat since there are physically more fat cells there. Therefore, if you remove fat via liposuction – after the procedure you will gain and lose weight proportionally with all the fat cells that are left in your body – in other words, if your weight gain used to go to your thighs and after lipo those fat cells are no longer there – your body will distribute them evenly throughout the rest of the fat cells in your body.

So beware! Weight gain post-lipo may create new and undesirable “problem areas” that you never knew you had!