HIGH FAT

1. HIGH FAT HEAVY COST You are what you eat, they say. So the more fat you eat? Yeah, that’s the basic idea. A diet high in fat, as most people know, can lead to several problems, including obesity, which carries its own list of symptomatic issues. But it may surprise the general public to know that eating a diet high in fat carries many other potentially disastrous results, including immediate results—we’re talking hours after ingesting it. It can even affect your brain. First let’s take a look at the body’s physical reaction to high-fat foods. Let’s say Joe eats a burger before he goes on a movie date with his new girlfriend. Want to know what the number one, short-term effect of high-fat foods is? Gas. Flatulence. Farting. Joe will probably have a very uncomfortable date after that burger, whether he holds it in or not. And besides gas, heartburn, and bloating that frequently accompanies the ingestion of high-fat foods, those sinfully delicious meals can actually have an immediate effect on a person’s vascular health. A study done by Canadian Cardiovascular Congress looked at several subjects who ate two fatty breakfast sandwiches in the morning, and then they recorded the resulting VTI (velocity time interval) of each person’s arterial health. The findings indicated that even just two hours after ingestion, the patient’s VTI was down 15 to 20 percent from previous, healthy diet readings. The VTI did return to normal over the course of the day, but the question remains: if our bodies are affected that quickly, what is being done over time as we ingest these fatty foods? Even more disturbing, what do these foods do to our mental health? Jillian Michaels, a personal trainer on ABC’s The Biggest Loser, makes it no secret that the addictive qualities in fatty foods are contributors to the contestant’s overeating habits and weight struggles, but what about the depression, anxiety, fatigue, and mental grogginess that act as a companion to it? We only have one brain, and if we damage it, it’s curtains for our brain function. A UCLA professor of neurosurgery and physiological science who has spent years studying the effects of food, exercise and sleep on the brain, Fernando Gomez-Pinilla stated, "Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain…Junk food and fast food negatively affect the brain's synapses. Brain synapses and several molecules related to learning and memory are adversely affected by unhealthy diets." Through his research, he even goes so far as to say that diet, in addition to exercise and sleep, have the potential to alter mental function and brain health. He believes that changes in diet are even a viable strategy for protecting the brain from damage, enhancing cognitive abilities, and even combating the effects of aging.   Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, Professor of Neurosurgery and Physiological Science at UCLA.

2. Due to the drastic changes high-fat and sugar diets can have on our brain, it is safe to say that they could even be a factor in bouts of depression and anxiety. Christy Goodman, a physician at the Brigham Young University-Idaho health center stated that with common anti-depression prescription, the advice of adopting a low-fat diet with daily exercise is sure to follow. “In my years of practice,” she stated, “I’ve found much more rapid improvements in the students who change their eating and exercise habits in addition in medical treatment.” One student, who has struggled with depression for three years, shared that he noticed frequent panic attacks brought on by the consumption of deep-fat fried foods, and that after eliminating such items from his menu, his mental and emotionally demeanor dramatically improved. Though the physical effects of a high-saturated fat diet are clearly recognized, and often rapid in growth, mental side effects are more often than not slower, and less noticeable, however, are no less important. If you monitor your diet more closely and eat well, your brain will be able to remember it.  Okay, so what is the best way to keep the diet low in fat? Eating healthy does more than make our bodies look right; it helps our bodies do their job from the inside as efficiently as possible. As a result of eating healthy, for example, a student can have better focus when studying for school. When we eat a high fat diet, we are depriving our bodies of what they need most to meet the daily demands of our busy lifestyle. Many Americans today focus on what is being eaten, but the correct portions play a crucial role in nutritional health as well. To attain the dream body we see everywhere in the media, we believe that we have to do “calorie counting” or “limit” by how much we eat. Instead, what has been suggested instead is to learn to trust our body’s instincts, to learn how to stop when we feel full so we can meet the nutritional requirements our bodies crave. . Sometimes it takes more to make us full, but that usually only happens when what we eat doesn’t have sufficient nutrients. French fries, for example. The body makes up for the slack by eating in disproportionate amounts. In order to avoid this misconception, and to avoid the fad diets that promote losing weight by eating their foods only, we focus more on how we can change our lifestyle habits in what we are eating. By changing the foods that we have in our pantry, we don’t have to change how much food our bodies need to get through the day, but what foods we are eating so that our bodies are getting the appropriate nutrients. These nutrients that are in our foods can help to shape our bodies physically, mentally, and spiritually for the better when we are eating correctly. All things in moderation is also a rule, along with you are what you eat. So perhaps the take-away from all this research is this: Don’t eat so much of that fatty food that you start to look and feel like the floppy, greasy piece of pizza you’ve been craving! And remember that foods high in fat have more than just long-term consequences.