Essential Fatty Acids and Weight Loss

An essential but often overlooked part of any nutritional diet or weight loss program is the inclusion of sufficient healthy fats in one’s diet.

Fats have incorrectly been given a bad name and have been wrongly viewed as something to avoid.

There are unhealthy fats which can cause weight gain and health problems when consumed in excess. On the other side of the coin,Essential Fatty Acids and Weight Loss Articles there are healthy and essential fats which are necessary in the body and which actually assist in weight loss efforts.

This article is not an official medical document and does not serve to give specific instructions on how much of which types of fats should be consumed by whom, or under which circumstances, etc.

It only serves to raise awareness on the existence and importance best eca stack of healthy and essential fats, and what some of them are.

“Good fats” contain essential fatty acids.

Essential fatty acids are the fats which are needed in the body, but which the human body can not synthesize. In other words, the body can not make these fats on its own, and it can not use components from other foods to create these fats. It has to obtain them directly from food.

They are called:

Linoleic Acid

Arachidonic Acid

Linolenic Acid

But don’t worry if these seem like big confusing words. They are just the scientific names of the three essential fatty acids.

Principle sources of essential fatty acids include the following:

Natural vegetable oils, corn oil, soybean oil, and cottonseed oil (containing 35%-70% essential fatty acids) Safflower oil (containing 85%-90%).

One can also get essential fatty acids from other substances in smaller amounts. Some of these foods are not the healthiest though. These include:

Animal Fats

Cream

Butter

Fish-liver Oils

Egg Yolk

Natural Lard (the richest animal source, containing 5% – 11%)

Avocados

Almonds

Olive Oil

Now lets look at the difference between essential fatty acids and that fat that accumulates in our bodies when we eat more sugar or starch than the body can immediately use.

Since the body can not create these essential fats, which we need for health, that means that the an over-abundance of body fat will not replace our need for them.

Therefore it is incorrect to consider that one “does not need to eat anything with fat” just because one is overweight.

On the contrary, a lack of essential fatty acids can contribute to weight gain!