06/15/20
#46 Fat loss for over 40’s: Fats & Carbs. The Good & The Bad.
All the evidence points to the fact that the quality of the carbs and fats in your diet matters more than the quantity!
Instead of focusing on keto or no carbs, we should be focusing on the quality of our carbs and fats and where they come from.
For example, some carbs keep you fat burning others put you straight into fat storage.
Some fats are good for your heart and your brain, others are detrimental.
High fat is all the rage at the moment so let’s look at that first.
FATS
Fat comes in different types.
Saturated fat is found in animal foods, meat, dairy, eggs and coconut oil. Too much saturated fat, especially from animal sources, can be harmful.
Unsaturated fat comes from olives, avocados (monounsaturates), fish, shellfish, nuts and seeds (polyunsaturates).
Unsaturated fat is supportive of women’s health, showing reduced risk of dementia, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer. It keeps our cells healthy and stops you from feeling hungry.
Trans fat is man-made and found in processed foods and increases the above risks.
- Swapping saturated fat (red meat, cheese, butter) to polyunsaturated fat (vegetable oils, nuts and seeds) can halve your heart disease risk
- Eating 2g trans fats daily from processed foods doubles your risk of dementia.
- Same with meat and dairy if you consume more than 13g of saturated fat a day you double the risk of cognitive impairment
- However, polyunsaturates improve brain health and cognitive function and have been shown to be very protective against Alzheimer's and Dementia
- There is increasing evidence that fat from animal sources has a negative effect on our hormones
- Swapping butter to olive oil reduces breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease in women
- It is well known that animal fat can increase the risk of hormone-related cancers in women, whereas polyunsaturates like flaxseed can reduce those risks
The right kind of fats are essential for brain health, heart health, hormone production and fat loss.
- So don’t avoid fats like the plague we need them - but don’t stuff your face with them either. Remember 1g fat = 9 calories, eat more than you need and you will store it! Women over 40 are very good at storing excess fat as a spare tyre
- A good balance is to use flaxseed, chia seeds and walnuts daily for brain health and cancer prevention. And avocado and olive oil for heart health too, in moderation. Both of these types of fat will help you to lose weight when used in moderation
- Swap butter to hummus, tahini or avocado as a spread
- Use nut butter instead of cream cheeses
- Make dips and spreads with tinned beans and avocado
- Make or buy a vegan mayo
- I teach my clients to get somewhere between 25-30% of their daily calories from good fat sources
CARBS
Ok. Let’s cut straight to the chase! If you are a woman over 40 years old diets that favour carbs over fat are way better for your overall health and weight control.
What do you think is going to give you a longer, leaner and healthier life - 3 slices of bacon or an apple?
Oh god! How I hate that women have been brainwashed into choosing the bacon!
We need carbs to fuel our brains, fuel our exercise, protect us from disease and to help us to burn fat!
But the type of carb that you choose is the key.
The good or bad of carbs refers to the effect that they have on your blood sugar levels.
- Go for sugars that are natural - like the apple over refined white sugar.
Natural sugars tend to come with fibre which keeps you feeling full, encourages fat burning and stabilizes your blood sugar while giving your brain the glucose that it needs.
- Refined carbs have lots of sugar and no fibre
This imbalance triggers a spike in your blood sugar levels, making it hard for your body's insulin to metabolise all that sugar.
This puts you into fat storage mode literally trapping your fat into the cells so that it can’t be used for energy.
This wears out your pancreas and makes your cells insulin resistant so that too much sugar stays in your blood.
Then when your blood sugars crash back down you want to eat more.
- Ageing and menopause reduce insulin sensitivity - making high sugar foods a threat to our brains, bodies and hormone levels, especially as we pass 40
- Insulin resistance in itself causes inflammation - diabetes, heart disease, dementia and makes us fatter and sicker
But you need good carbs for so many reasons.
Swap out White bread, Bread Rolls, Bagels, processed Breakfast cereals, fries, chips, sugary drinks, lollies, pastries, biscuits and crackers, rice and pasta and noodles….
Keep in whole grain bread, rolled oats, homemade muesli, baked kumara (sweet potato), pumpkin, squash, roasted chickpeas, soybeans and fava beans. Make flaxseed crackers, use fruit and veggie sticks as snacks.
I teach my clients to use slow low GI snacks and protein to keep their metabolisms up and keep them burning fat as a fuel rather than storing it.
The moral is that the female body runs well on good fats in moderation and slow low GI carbs, this combo works for health and fat loss simultaneously leading you down the road to a long healthy and lean life.
Next week: The Mediterranean diet and fat loss over 40.
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