Here are some common misconceptions about fat:

1. If you eat fat, you’ll get fat: Not really. The fact is that all types of macro-nutrients, be it carbohydrate, fat or protein will be converted to fat if consumed in excess of your bodily needs. While studies suggest that dietary fat is more easily converted to body fat, eaten in moderate quantities and combined with exercise, dietary fat will just as likely be used as energy, as carbohydrates and protein.
2. I can reduce fat from my abdomen alone: Once and for all: Spot-reduction of fat is a huge myth perpetuated by late night infomercials touting the next biggest “tummy-trimmer” (there is no such thing as a tummy trimmer - you can either burn fat throughout your body or not at all). When you burn calories, the energy comes from fat reserves stored throughout your body. You cannot predict where it comes off from first. Want to trim your abdominal fat? Reducing your body fat percentage is the only way to go.
3. Fat is bad for me: On the contrary, if you had no fat, your brain would cease to function - it is 60% fat! Certain key nutrients like carotene (yes, you salad lovers) can only be absorbed when combined with fats (so get rid of fat-free salad dressings right now! switch to a low-fat alternative or a simple home-made combination of olive oil and vinegar). Fats are essential energy stores allowing us to survive without food for a certain period of time when the need arises (otherwise you would have to constantly feed your body at exact intervals or risk major harm). Essential fat is also required for normal bodily functions and is stored in bone-marrow, the heart and lungs and other organs.

The most important thing to remember about fats is the understanding that in moderate quantities and of the right type (mono-unsaturated and un-saturated as opposed to saturated-fats), fats are an essential nutrient for the body. I will be writing soon in detail about the various types of fats. Watch this space!

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The word diet is primarily defined as The usual food and drink of a person or animal. There is a second definition of this word as well: A regulated selection of foods for cosmetic weight loss and unfortunately when someone mentions “diet” today, people almost always associate it with the second definition.

Diet originates from the Middle English diete, from Old French and from the Latin diaeta, and means “way of living”, making it clear that the foods they ate were indeed the way of life of our ancestors (remember: the motto of this site is that fitness itself should be a way of life). In reality, a diet is the staple selection of foods that is associated with a particular region or peoples. For example rice is the staple diet of the Chinese and fish, that of the North-East Indians.

When used in the second definition, diets lose their original meaning and efficacy. It is no longer natural for the human body and hence it’s no wonder it does not work. Artifically restricting entire food groups (Atkins Diet, Sugar Busters Diet) or restricting oneself to only one type of food (Grapefruit Diet, Bread Diet) might work for sometime but only because the total calorie intake is reduced - more on that later. After a while, though, the natural body cravings for a variety of foods will take over and the person is forced to give up on these restrictions causing him to bounce back, rather painfully, to his old lifestyle and gaining back with a vengeance any artifical weight loss he may have achieved.

The bottomline is that artifically restricitive diets(second definition) might work for a short time by reducing total calories, but only a true diet (first meaning!), with a variety, will help people achieve their fitness goals in the long run. Of course one has to practice control over the quantity and quality of the foods one eats but this blog will never say never to a food group.

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