NUTRITION
FATS
If all’s going according to plan, your post-festive paunch should be a distant memory by now. But of course, faty fare is not just a Christmas issue, for fats form a complex part of our diet the year round. Here, I’ll explain these complexities and help you hit the water in the best shape possible.
The first thing to mention when discussing the role of fat in our diet is that it’s extremely energy dense, containing nine calories per gram, compared to four for carbohydrate and protein.
Secondly the term ‘fat’ actually refers to a ‘lipid’ in a solid state, so think substances such as margarine, buter and lard. In a liquid state, we refer to lipids as oils. For the sake of this article, I’ll use the terms lipid and fat interchangeably. Some lipids are good for us, some are less good, and others are somewhere in between. The aim here is to help you make informed nutritional choices regarding dietary fats. On food packaging, fat content is given in breakdown format:
saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated, and then there are omegas 3 and 6. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.
Fats have a complex and important role to play in both general health and swimming performance, writes Joel Enoch
SATURATED FAT We are constantly being warned of consuming too much food with high cholesterol. But cholesterol is not all bad; we need it for cell- membrane health as well as for the production of important hormones. It is produced in the liver from saturated fat, and if we eat more or less cholesterol than the body needs, then the liver simply produces the right amount to compensate, keeping cholesterol levels constant. Saturated fat is bad for us because it increases a type of cholesterol called low density lipoprotein (LDL), and it is this that circulates in the blood, collecting on the side of arteries and may well increase the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers. In the UK, intake of saturated fat is around 20 per cent higher than official government recommendations. Saturated fat comes from animal products such as buter, lard and cheese, and is solid at room temperature. Because a significant amount of baking involves buter or lard, cakes, pastries and biscuits are high in saturated fat, and it is for this reason that we need to be careful how much of these foods we consume. Current nutritional guidelines state that the recommended daily amount (RDA) of saturated fat is no more than 20g, but I would suggest that you keep it as low as possible.
MONO-UNSATURATED FAT Mono-unsaturated lipids are usually in a liquid state at room temperature, and are generally considered to be the healthiest of the three main types of fats. You will find mono-unsaturated oils in many plant-based foods, such as nuts and seeds, as well as olive and vegetable oils and avocados. This type of fat is good for us because it works against the effects of saturated fats:
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