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Fat and the real elephant in the room

I was for a time over 27 stone ( 378 pounds or 171 kg ) in body weight with a height of 6 feet ( 1.82 meters ) and even with a ‘heavy bone and build structure’ this gave me a body mass index that was off the scale.

As this was some years ago and having lost just over 40% of this I am still over weight and according to some would be termed obese, morbidly obese or just ‘fat’.

Body fat is a source of contention and causes many in the ‘first world’ to have negative feelings about themselves and others who they perceive as being ‘fat’. So I know what it feels like to be seen by others as fat and to have negative feelings about myself because of my weight.

Fat in our diet is also a source of distress as in recent years we have been led to have a firm belief that eating fat is totally bad for us and that we should avoid it at all cost.

I have been on a journey to lose weight and to understand the role of fat in our diet and in our bodies. I have learned a lot and I am still learning. I have also come to understand that fat is not necessarily the enemy. It is far too simplistic to think that eating fat makes you fat.

Research and opinion suggests that over past centuries humans have consumed fat as part of a naturally occurring diet and have not suffered from obesity or other health issues as a result. It is only in the last 50 years or so that fat has been attributed to obesity and other health issues.

My research into fat does suggest that fat sources are not all good though. Some sources of fat are potentially harmful to our health whilst some are not. But this is still contrary to the common and widely held belief that all fat is bad for us.

I came to the conclusion that I needed to consume healthy fats, avoid unhealthy fats and exclude with extreme prejudice the real ’elephant in the room’, sugar and carbohydrates. Specifically ‘processed’ carbohydrates which are found in many foods that we eat today and are more available to us than ever before.

So fat and being overweight is something associated with a great amount of controversy and oftentimes is something that raises peoples emotions and can cause some to have fixed and inflexible opinions.

Fat has been fundamental to me as a key to unlocking the maze of weight loss, type 2 diabetes and other associated health issues. I have come to understand that eating healthy fat is not the enemy and that it is not a cause of obesity and other health issues.

#fatman


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