Episode Details

Dietary Fat Is NOT a Free Food: Have We Become Too Comfortable With Fat?

For decades, we were terrified of dietary fat. Everything was low-fat, fat-free or reduced-fat, and eating fat was almost automatically associated with gaining body fat.

Then the pendulum swung.

We learned more about carbohydrates, blood glucose and insulin. Low-carb and ketogenic diets exploded in popularity. Avocados, nuts, olive oil, cheese and other high-fat foods went from foods we feared to foods we were actively encouraged to eat.

But have we swung a little too far in the other direction?

One of the biggest mistakes Joanne sees today is the assumption that because dietary fat has very little immediate effect on blood glucose—and doesn't require a large insulin response—it somehow doesn't matter when it comes to body composition.

In this episode of Midlife Mayhem, Joanne explains where that misunderstanding came from and why “insulin stores fat” does not mean “without insulin, fat can't be stored.”

She follows dietary fat from your plate through the lymphatic system and into circulation, explains the role of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) in fat storage, and looks at why a perfectly healthy low-carb meal can quietly become extraordinarily high in calories.

You'll also hear why the combination of high fat + high carbohydrate is particularly easy to overconsume, how the thermic effect of fat differs dramatically from protein, and why the body's response to excess calories depends partly on which macronutrients those calories come from.

In this episode:

• How we went from being afraid of fat to perhaps becoming too comfortable with it
• Why dietary fat's minimal effect on blood glucose can create a false sense of security
• The difference between saying “insulin promotes fat storage” and saying “insulin is required to store fat”
• How dietary fat travels through the lymphatic system
• What lipoprotein lipase (LPL) does
• Why low-carb foods can still add up to an enormous calorie intake
• How ketogenic diets contributed to some of today's confusion around dietary fat
• Why high-fat + high-carbohydrate meals can be particularly problematic
• The thermic effect of food and the striking difference between protein, carbohydrates and fat
• What overfeeding research tells us about how the body handles excess carbohydrate versus excess dietary fat
• An introduction to nutrient partitioning—and why it deserves an episode of its own

Joanne also introduces the relationship between NNMT, 5-Amino-1MQ and nutrient partitioning, a subject she'll explore in greater depth in a future episode.

The takeaway

Dietary fat isn't the enemy.

But it isn't a free food either.

We've gone from one extreme—being terrified of fat—to another, where adding olive oil, avocado, nuts, cheese and other fats barely seems to count because they're considered “healthy.”

They absolutely can be healthy.

But healthy fat is still fat, and quantity still matters.

Sometimes what looks like an incredibly clean, low-carb diet has quietly become an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet without you even realizing it.

Mentioned in this episode

5-Amino-1MQ

To learn more about 5-Amino-1MQ and Joanne's other products, visit:

www.joanneleestore.com