Eat Fat, Get Thin

Let’s start with the fact that a calorie is NOT a calorie.

Yes, 100 calories in honey and coconut oil will release the same amount of energy when burned in a vacuum, but (important caveat!) YOUR BODY IS NOT A VACUUM.

Dr. Hyman tells us: “Think about this rationally when applied to human biology: If you eat the same amount of calories in kale or gummy bears, do they do the same thing to your body?”

Short answer: Of course not!

The idea that a calorie is a calorie is closely tied to the idea that, to reach your optimal weight, you simply need to make sure your calories in are balanced with your calories out. This is known as the “energy balance hypothesis.”

But, alas, that hypothesis is just not true.

The more accurate approach is what is called a “hormonal” or “metabolic hypothesis” that accounts for the fact that different types of foods effect your body in different ways.

Specifically, we now know that “Fat calories burn differently than sugar calories do.”

Whereas fat calories speed up our metabolism, calories from sugar and fast-acting carbs trigger insulin while promoting fat storage (not to mention hunger and food cravings).

In short: Different types of foods flip different metabolic switches.

Therefore, it’s not “how much you eat but what you eat.”

And, the practical wisdom from all of this research is very simple: We need to reduce/eliminate our consumption of fast-acting ultraprocessed carbs and increase our consumption of good fats.

What are good fats you ask? We’ll get to that in a moment.

P.S. Dr. David Ludwig did a lot of the underlying research that proves this wisdom. Check out our Notes on Always Hungry? for more—including his FASCINATING research on how fast-acting carbs light up our reward centers in the same way that addictive substances like cocaine and alcohol do.

For now, remember: “Foods with similar nutrients can affect hormones and metabolism is profoundly different ways, determining whether we store or burn calories, build fat or muscle, feel hungry or satisfied, struggle with weight or maintain a healthy weight effortlessly, and suffer from or avoid chronic inflammation.”

That’s from a chapter on “The Surprising Truth About Fat and Heart Disease” in which Dr. Hyman walks us through a bunch of research on the fact that, despite what we’ve been led to believe, high-fat diets are NOT the cause of heart disease.

In fact, “Doubling or even tripling saturated fat in your diet has no impact on saturated fats in your blood. It’s the carbs that spike your blood levels of saturated fats. Many studies confirm that blood levels of saturated fat are significantly correlated with the development of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But these fats in the blood are not coming from the fat you eat. They are produced by the liver in response to the carbs in your diet.”

Fascinating, eh? Hyman walks us through the scientific details of all that in the book. For now, know that saturated fat in our DIET is not what causes saturated fat in our BLOOD LEVELS. That comes from the carbs.

He also walks us through the same research that David Ludwig cites that should “seal the coffin on low-fat diets.” (Check out the Notes on Always Hungry? for more.)

Basic idea: In the span of a year (2013), two huge studies on low- vs. high-fat diets were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Both were stopped before completion—one for “futility” because the low-fat approach was not leading to any benefits and it was clear it never would and the other for ethical reasons because the high-fat approach was so much better than the low-fat that it was unethical to continue the study.

So, again, although we have been led to believe that the saturated fat was the root cause of disease, that’s not what the research shows. “… the connection between high-fat and saturated-fat diets and heart disease was not because of the fat, but because people who followed high-fat diets ate fewer vegetables, less fiber, more sugar, and more refined and processed foods.”

Which leads us to an important caveat: Saturated fats “are a problem only in the face of a high-carb, low-fiber, omega-3-deficient diet.”

In other words, DO NOT increase your saturated fats UNLESS you also decrease your processed carb intake and add more fiber via plants while also making sure you get enough omega-3s via healthy fats—which leads us to our next Big Idea…

That’s from the chapter called “Vegetable Oils—A Slippery Subject” in which Hyman presents a bunch of scientific data on why vegetable oils ARE NOT optimal.)

So, which fats are good for us and which are bad?

First, let’s highlight the one thing EVERYONE agrees on: trans fats are evil. DO NOT EAT ANYTHING with “partially hydrogenated oil” in it.

Now let’s take a quick look at the good fats (then more on the bad):

• Extra virgin olive oil. <— “Liquid gold” is what Hyman calls it. Fun fact: Did you know oil is extracted from olives in multiple pressings? Yep, apparently the first squeeze is the best, hence you want “extra virgin” oil. Other things to consider: organic, cold pressed is best and store it somewhere dark and cool (note: not by the stove—I just moved ours to the pantry away from the stove!)
• Extra virgin coconut oil. Coconut oil (and MCT oil) are super healthy. Great for cooking and Dr. Hyman calls MCT oil “superfuel for your cells.”
• Fats from whole foods like avocados, nuts and seeds. Yum. Tip: Eat the nuts and seeds raw and soak them overnight to help remove some anti-nutrients.

The bad fats? Veggie oils. Corn oil, soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil…

Vegetable oils were almost unknown in the food supply at the turn of the 20th century.

Now? Did you know America consumes 18 BILLION pounds of soybean oil per year? Yep. A whopping 20% of our calories come from soybean oil (TWENTY PERCENT!!). Soybean oil is in almost everything and it is 50% linoleic acid which is an inflammatory omega-6 fat.

It’s outside the scope of this Note, but it’s important to know that our overconsumption of vegetable oils which are high in omega-6 (and are in basically ALL processed foods) contributes to an imbalance in our omega-3 to omega-6 ratio which contributes to inflammation which is the root cause of a ton of problems. Addressing this is super important. Eliminating veggie oils and replacing them with the good fats is a wise step.

Sidenote: Another source of the imbalance is from industrialized/factory farming. “Because industrialized farming practices have led farmers to switch their feed from grass to corn and cereal grains, and now those omega-6 vegetable fats comprise a significant portion of ‘animal’ fat. You are what you eat. Or more accurately: You are what your food eats.”

<— So, for this and a myriad of other reasons: Don’t eat conventional/factory farmed meat.

Here’s a little more on that:

A key aspect of the plan after the 21-day reboot is going “pegan”—which basically integrates the best of a vegan diet with the best of a Paleo diet. (Hyman has been vegan/vegetarian and approaches the highly sensitive issue with grace.)

In a chapter dedicated to “Meat—Doesn’t It Cause Heart Disease and Type 2 Diabetes?,” he talks about the fact that no research has connected meat (in and of itself—outside of highly processed meats like conventional bacon and hot dogs) to disease. (In the research showing a connection, the results are confounded by other variables as the meat eaters tend to also smoke more, drink more, eat less fiber, more sugar, etc.)

The best of both vegan + Paleo includes “Ideally organic, local, fresh, whole foods… Very low glycemic load… Very high vegetables and fruits… Very few to no chemicals… Higher in good-quality fats… Low in refined, processed vegetable oils… Moderate protein…”

Of course, the discussion around vegan vs. Paleo is often an almost-religiously fervent one that’s part of a longer chat. Hyman tells us: “LeBron James, considered one of the greatest basketball players of our time, follows a Paleo diet. The number one tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, cut out gluten and dairy and ate a higher-fat diet and went from losing match after match to winning every major tennis tournament in a year. Rich Roll completed five Ironman triathlons in seven days on a high-fat vegan diet. Humans are amazingly adaptable. But the only important question is, What is the right diet for the human that matters most—you?”

Dr. Hyman recommends we eat plenty of carbs—just making sure we’re eating the RIGHT ones. So, what are the right ones? Let’s review the good doctor’s advice:

• It will have phytonutrients and fiber—aka: it’s a plant.
• It will have a very short trip from the field to your fork. Not a lot of processing. As Michael Pollan says in Food Rules: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”
• And, very importantly, it will have NO (important emphasis on NO—as in NONE of): “refined flours, additives, preservatives, fillers, sweeteners, dyes, or any other ingredient normally found in processed foods.”

How’s your carb intake over the last week or so looking relative to that optimal carb perspective? And, what’s in your pantry RIGHT NOW that’s not supporting the cause?

Of course, Hyman has a complete list of what to eat on his plan. Check out the book.

In the meantime, quit buying the edible foodlike substances and throw away all the junk in your kitchen if you’re feeling so inspired. (Clearing out your kitchen is step 1 in both Dr. Hyman’s and Dr. Ludwig’s plan, btw.)

Another key theme in this book and others like it is the fact that we need to focus on the ROOT CAUSES of our issues rather than just on the symptoms.

In Clean Gut, Alejandro Junger tells us that the whole “pill for an ill” approach of modern medicine is kinda like a gardener who notices some leaves turning brown and decides to PAINT THEM GREEN.

Of course, that’s C.R.A.Z.Y. But, in many ways, that’s essentially what we’re doing when we only treat symptoms (here’s some insulin to deal with your blood sugar issues!) without addressing the underlying cause (hmmm… maybe my diet needs to be tweaked!).

I love the image of an overflowing sink. Imagine that. Picture the water just flowing out and spilling on to the ground. Ooops. Now, imagine deciding to address the issue by simply mopping around the sink. C.R.A.Z.Y., right? Same thing here.