Why eating fat won't make you fat

By The Low Carb Clinic, 10 February 2019 - 255 words (1.5 minutes)

While it’s perfectly logical to think that eating fat will make you fat, carbohydrates are actually the culprit.

One reason is that when carbohydrate consumption exceeds the body’s ability to use or store them (as glycogen in the liver or the muscles), the liver begins to convert the carbohydrates into fat, a process called de novo lipogenesis. This excess fat fills the liver and pancreas (contributing to insulin resistance and risk of diabetes), increases triglycerides and very-low density LDL cholesterol (contributing to heart disease risk), and (because there is often so much of it) causing obesity.

Compared to a high-carbohydrate diet, a low-carbohydrate diet preferentially reduces the amount of harmful visceral fat[1] and preserves higher levels of lean muscle mass.[2] [3] Another reason  fat wont make you fat is that different foods affect your metabolism very differently. While it’s true that fats have more calories than carbohydrates, these calories affect the metabolism in such different ways that the calories become simply irrelevant.[4]

Low-carbohydrate diets increase your basal metabolic rate (that is, the amount of energy your body can burn each day), while calorie restricted, high-carbohydrate diets lower your basal metabolic rate.[5] This means on a low-carbohydrate diet, you are burning more energy, even at rest. Furthermore, fat and protein are more satiating than carbohydrates, meaning you spontaneously eat less and have fewer cravings.[6]

And with worldwide obesity levels having tripled since 1975, and 63% of Australian adults either overweight or obese, one only has to look around to see the evidence that low-fat, high carbohydrate diets aren’t getting us anywhere[7].