TeamFLEX Newsletter

Weight Loss Spotlight

Low Fat Foods

The greatest health hazard in the American's foods is too much high fat foods. If you reduce the fat in your foods you have already taken a step towards a healthier, lighter you. Most of the energy reserve of fat in your body is simply dead weight. We gain no benefit from carrying it, nor from eating the fat food that put it on. Every ounce of extra body fat increases the energy required for the body to move.

By reducing the fat in your foods you automatically lower the risk of heart disease, certain forms of cancer and obesity. To be able to bring a low fat lifestyle to your family's table you need to become a health-conscious shopper and learn how to read food labels. The more knowledge you have about how to eat a low fat nutritional foods, the less time you have to spend in the super market reading nutrition facts of the groceries.

Be ware of certain low fat food such as low fat milk containing 2% fat which would equal 25% fat of the total caloric intake per serving. Just because it says low fat on the label doesn't guarantee a low calorie food.

A great deal of the fat in our food is hidden, either by false advertising or by not being mentioned at all. Refuse to buy any food that does not give the fat content. Fat content is given by weight, so add a zero to get the approximate calories of fat. Then locate the total calories per serving of that particular food on the nutrition fact label. If the calories coming from fat are more than a fifth of the total calories, I suggest you leave it on the shelf. There are many foods that don't have fat label at all. Protein foods like fish, eggs, chicken and cheese seldom list the fat content however they do contain high fat. By choosing non fat instead of low fat foods, you might just end up eating a lot more than if you go with a low fat version.

There are good fats and there are bad fats and anybody who wants a great looking healthy body should make a clear distinction between the two. The bad fats are the saturated fats and should be completely avoided at all cause in your foods. The unsaturated fat is the fat you need a little bit of in your daily foods to stay healthy but not more then 20% – 30% of your total caloric intake for the average person and around 15% for the athlete.

According to the Food and Drug Administration's requirements, the low fat products are only allowed to be called low fat if they have less then 3 grams of fat per serving. This should your rule of thumb when shopping for your new low fat foods. Save the high fat favorite foods for once a week if you have a hard time eliminating them completely from your foods.

Keeping track of your fat intake during two to three weeks can help you identify the major sources of fat in your typical foods and the changes you need to make to begin a low fat way of eating for life. Good low fat food that you should include daily in your foods is vegetables. Greens are high in fiber, contain virtually no fat and provide your foods with a ton of vitamins and antioxidants.

A low fat foods means be on the look out for all visional fat such as the skin on the chicken, remove the yolk from the egg, stick to vinaigrette dressings instead of creamy ones on your salad etc. It does pay off to spend a little extra time in the supermarket or grocery store to compare labels and learn more about the food you bring home.