Jessica Budgell, Holistic Nutritionist

I love fat. What I mean is, I love eating healthy, delicious, satiating, satisfactory, fats. These fats actually help to keep the belly flat, not fat.

How? Because every single cell in your body is made up of a layer of fat (called a lipid bi-layer). If you don’t have fat to make up those cells (that are constantly being produced), then they cannot function at peak efficiency. Think about your car: if you don’t keep it greased and oiled then it starts to operate less efficiently and before you know it repairs are needed. Our bodies are like that too. Cells are what make up our entire body. If they don’t have what they need to function, how can we expect our body to perform without problems?

This logic is why undamaged, unprocessed, healthy, wholesome fats actually INCREASE metabolism. They help to keep your body running smoothly, and prevent it from slowing down like a rusty car engine.

Examples of good fats:
• Raw seeds and nuts (ideally soaked and rinsed)
• Seed and nut oils
• Olives and olive oils
• Avocado
• Coconut meat and oil
• Fish and fish oil

We carry 2 of these options at Northshore Naturopathic Clinic:

1. Coconut Oil –saturated fats have been tagged as “bad” in mainstream media for being correlated to an increase in cardiovascular disease. This is because long-chained fatty acids can be difficult for our body’s to break down and are more easily stored. Coconut oil is primarily a saturated fat, however, it contains a high amount of medium-chain fatty acids, which are easier for our bodies to convert into energy rather than be stored in adipose tissue.

2. EPA-DHA (fish oil)–EPA and DHA are the active constituents in fish oil. This “ingredient” provides your body with a host of benefits such as cardiovascular disease prevention, increasing HDL (“good” cholesterol) while lowering overall cholesterol, reducing inflammation and associated symptoms, slowing the aging process, and aiding in the stabilization of mood, anxiety and depressive disorders.