Trans Fat

While we all know that food labels have listed the content of saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats for quite a while, trans fat is somewhat of a new addition to our food labels. Now, that right there should tell you something. If trans fat was a good thing, it probably would have been the first thing printed on that label. The fact that it wasn't even listed to begin with should tell you that trans fat is... well... terrible for you.

It's found in foods such as vegetable shortenings and margarines, as well as most of your basic junk foods. This includes most doughnuts and pastries, deep fried fast foods such as fried chicken and french fries, and certain snack foods such as potato chips and cookies. Trans fat is basically found in all of the foods you know you shouldn't be eating. Now you know even more.

Trans fats can be a cause of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obviously obesity. This is only a partial list of why this fat is bad for you, however I'm sure you are smart enough to pretty much get the picture. So, long story short, if any of the food you are eating has trans fat in it... STOP EATING IT! Next...

Saturated Fat

Before you put away the piece of paper that you just wrote "Avoid eating trans fat" on, you might want to wait a second. Something tells me you're going to want to add saturated fat to that list as well.

Found in most of the same foods as trans fat, saturated fat is the other of the bad fats. It's found mostly in dairy products such as whole milk, cheese, butter and ice cream, egg yokes (one of the reasons egg whites are so popular), poultry skin and red meat.

Hang on, the fun doesn't end there. Saturated fat is also found in coconut oil and palm oil, which are the oils commonly used when making typical snack type foods. One of the many effects of saturated fat is that it raises you total blood cholesterol level. For the uninformed, that's a bad thing. It's actually the #1 dietary cause of high LDL levels, which is the bad cholesterol. This all means that saturated fat will help cause heart disease.

See, I told you you'd want to add it to the "Things To Avoid" list with trans fat.

So, to sum up, there are both good types of fats and bad types. Whether you are just trying to lose weight, just trying to gain muscle, or trying to do both, goal #1 should still be to make sure you DON'T eat foods high in the bad type. That means staying away from foods containing trans fat and saturated fat.

Goal #2 should be to make sure you DO eat foods high in the good fats. For more on that, go here: polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat

Questions, comments or feedback? Feel free to e-mail me at:
IntenseWorkout@gmail.com

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