Posts Tagged ‘High Fat Diet’

7 Ways to Swap Fat Out of Your Diet

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

To have success on a fat loss diet, creating a calorie deficit through your food intake, exercise program or a combination of both is essential. If you want to see fat loss, you have to give the body a reason to start using up its body-fat stores as fuel. If you don’t, be prepared to struggle along, seeing only modest results at best.

One of the simplest ways to create a calorie deficit is to trim off some of the fat from your diet because, gram for gram, fat contains the most calories. If you can shave off even 25 grams of fat each day, that’s the equivalent of 225 calories, which would have you seeing almost half a pound of pure body fat loss each week.

Think eliminating 25 grams of fat will be quite the challenge? Think again. The following are some of the best ways to instantly cut fat from your diet and see great fat loss results quickly by swapping out bad fats for good fats — or not fat at all.

Fat swap: Choose skim milk instead of cream

The first simple change you can make to help shave off fat is to swap the cream you use in your morning cup of coffee for skim milk. Skim milk is virtually fat-free, thus, this move will save about 4 grams of fat per cup (based on a 30 ml cream serving).

If you find that milk doesn’t add enough flavor to your coffee, try some vanilla protein powder or one of the fat-free flavored creamers available — just make sure that it doesn’t contain too much added sugar.

Fat swap: Choose cottage cheese instead of cream cheese

Cream cheese is one of the most popular bagel spreads men use. Instead, try cottage cheese. You’ll save about 15 grams of fat in the process, assuming you use low-fat cottage cheese, and significantly boost the protein content of this meal.

If you need more flavor, try drizzling on some low-sugar maple syrup or sprinkling cinnamon over the top.

Fat swap: Choose ham on your pizza instead of pepperoni

Pizza can be a very high-fat choice if you’re not careful. By simply choosing ham as your meat source over pepperoni, you can save as much as 9 grams of fat per ounce of meat used.
Another great way to lighten the amount of fat with this meal is to ask for reduced-fat cheese or, if that’s not available, ask for less cheese than what they would normally put on.

Fat swap: Choose an egg white omelet instead of a regular egg omelet

A home-cooked omelet is a great way to start your Saturday morning off right, but make sure you prepare it without the yolk. By simply doubling the egg whites used and tossing the yolks, you’ll save 15 grams of fat per 3-whole egg omelet.

Be sure to add plenty of chopped vegetables as well to boost the nutritional value.

Fat swap: Choose a grilled chicken burger instead of a hamburger

When the summer months hit and you’re in the mood for a grilled sandwich, make it a grilled chicken burger to save on fat instantly. On average, frozen burger patties contain 22 grams of fat, while if you opt for a chicken breast you’ll only take in a mere 3 grams of fat.

This swap alone is almost enough to reduce your total daily fat content by the 25 gram goal mentioned above. From foxnews.

Mother’s High Fat Diet Increases Birth Defect Risk

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010


British scientists have found a link between mothers who eat a high fat diet before and during pregnancy and an increased risk for certain birth defects, such as congenital heart disease and cleft palate.

Jamie Bentham of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University studied mice that were genetically altered to be lacking in a gene called Cited2. A deficiency in this gene is known to influence risk for congenital heart defects, such as atrial isomerism, where the left-right asymmetry of the heart is disturbed.

Half of the mice were fed a high fat diet before and during pregnancy, while the other half received a more balanced diet. The researchers studied the development of the babies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The offspring of the mice given the high fat diet had a sevenfold increased risk of cleft palate and double the risk of atrial isomerism, suggesting that a combination of diet and genetic defect was responsible. The high fat diet appeared to interact with the Cited2 deficiency to reduce the expression of another gene called Pitx2, which is necessary for heart development and the body’s natural asymmetry.

“These are very important findings as we have been able to show for the first time that gene-environment interactions can affect development of the embryo in the womb,” said Bentham. “We know that poor diet and defective genes can both affect development, but here we have seen the two combine to cause a much greater risk of developing health problems and more severe problems.”

“We are excited by this as it suggests that congenital heart defects may be preventable by measures such as altering maternal diet,” he said in a statement about the findings.

About one in every 33 children born in the United States has some form of birth defect, according to data from the CDC. Congenital heart disease is the most common form of birth defect, and previous studies have shown that children born to mothers who have diabetes or who are overweight have an increased risk of it.

Most birth defects occur within the first three months of pregnancy, so healthy behaviors should be in place before a woman becomes pregnant to minimize the risks. From emaxhealth.