4 Healthy Fats For Losing Weight

Firstly, let’s briefly touch on the unhealthy dietary fats: saturated fat and trans fat.  These fats are commonly found in animal food sources.  Saturated fat raises blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) and can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes.  Trans fats are most often a result of food processing and are often referred to as synthetic or industrial.  Synthetic trans fats can increase LDL and lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL or “good” cholesterol), thus increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s focus on healthy dietary fats: monounsaturated fat (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fat (PUFA).  MUFAs are found in many food sources, including oils.  PUFAs are most commonly found in plant-based foods, also including oils.  Research has shown that a diet rich in both MUFAs and PUFAs can improve cholesterol levels, thus decreasing your risk of heart disease, and may also positively affect insulin levels and blood sugar levels, important considerations for those with type 2 diabetes.  Omega-3 fatty acids are a type of PUFA often found in fatty fish and may be beneficial to your heart by decreasing the risk of coronary artery disease, lowering blood pressure and protecting against irregular heartbeats

Here are 4 healthy fats to add to your diet optimal for losing weight: 

1. Grass-Fed Butter: Fats are a core part of any healthy diet. The key is where are you getting them from? Eating a lot healthy fats is actually better for you than eating a lot of almost any other type of food. Adding a healthy fat like grass-fed butter, which is high in fat-soluble vitamins, antioxidants, healthy fats and vitamins A, E, D and K, will help keep you full but at the same time make your food tasty. To optimize health benefits of butter, always choose grass-fed. 

2. Avocados: This superfood are a fantastic plant source of monounsaturdated fats which we touched on above. It's easy and may we add, delicious, to add avocado to any meal. They are one of the healthiest fats you could eat and keep the liver healthy. Avocados are great for our liver because they help our bodies produce a powerful antioxidant called glutathione. Glutathione helps the liver get rid of harmful toxins. Avocados are also loaded with heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, fiber, and potassium and are extremely nutritious. They can also help lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels, help you lose weight, and may even help prevent cancer. 

3. Grass-Fed Animal Fat: This includes bone marrow, tallow, and larg but doesn't include poultry fat. High in nutrients, essential fatty acids, protein, minerals and antioxidants as well as fat-soluble nutrients, this type of animal fat is the way to go. Try adding it to stocks for creamy and flavorful soup or stew. 

4. Coconut Oil: The most stable type of fat is saturated. Canola, corn, peanut, and soybean oils are polyunsaturated and not as healthy for us. Therefore, enter coconut oil. Also called virgin coconut oil, this delicious add on has more saturated food that almost any other food. It great for cooking and even try adding it to your coffee in the morning. It helps with brain function and assists in fat loss. Pure virgin coconut oil that contains no added hydrogen contains 92% saturated fat, which is the highest amount of saturated fat of any fat. Most saturated fats found in animal products contain cholesterol. Unlike animal fats, tropical oils like palm and coconut, are saturated fats but depending on room temperature can be solid, semi-solid or liquid and do not contain cholesterol. Coconut oil is a blend of fatty acids and because it stems from coconuts, there are important and beneficial plant chemicals that haven't been discovered yet, but may exist in coconut oil