Is fat a friend or foe?

There is a lot of talk and jargon about fat as a nutrient and what or how much of it we need. If you follow the carb haters they eat enough fat to feed a starving third world country almost every day and think this is fine. But we all know for all around good health and wellness it is not right to deprive or overindulge in any one nutrient. I look at it from an open minded more sensible approach. I hate to use calories as they are an empty measurement but they will give a good reference. Carbohydrates are four calories per gram fat is nine you can do the rest of the math to figure that one out. So it would only make sense that if you cut down on your fat intake it would lower your caloric intake much more than carbs or protein as they are less than half on the calories right? Well as you know by all the low carb diets out there, I think they are starting to out number the number of people out there. The answer is no. As with all good things it is far more complicated than just a simple answer like that. The most anabolic hormone in our bodies is insulin. Insulin is affected by how sugary a carbohydrate or simple the carbohydrate is. So the more sugary carbs you eat the more insulin is released rapidly. Although insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body it is also responsible for fat storage as well. This is how the carb diets all work it is at there core. No insulin response low to no fat storage so the body has to tern the fat into carbs for the muscles. And it works great until you have to turn on the insulin again eventually. There was this condition that the pioneers called rabbit or squirrel starvation. What this was was when all they had to eat was one of these two animals lots of protein and some fat and no carbs. So there bodies would convert there fat into glycogen until the fat got so low in there bodies they starved to death. Go low carbs! So to answer the key question is fat all that bad as a nutrient? No. But we need to eat less of it than all this foolish carb talk. I personally get most of my fat in the form of essential fatty acids also referred to as the omega fatty acids. These are healthy fats that our body's need to survive and keep us healthy.They are involved in everything from our brains to fat metabolism itself. There are all kinds of products out there today to get these health fats out of our regular food like smart balance buttery spread and penut butter for instance. These are awesome products that everyone should use in my opinion. Even with these I would still keep my fat intake below sixty or seventy grams a day. You can eat fat just not too much and you want it from the right sources it is healthy for you. As of the carbs look at my article titled good carbs bad carbs what carbs for more information on that. So until then eat good and train hard.