Are Avocados Fattening or Can They Help You Lose Weight? Please Read

One of the biggest and most persistent dietary myths is that it is primarily eating fat that makes you fat.

 

According to Jim Dillan of Superfoods profiles, there is such a world of difference between the various types of dietary fats that lumping them all together, as some doctors and dietitians are still doing, is almost unbelievable. 

While you could debate the merits of saturated animal fats (and some, like the very knowledgeable people at the Weston Price Institute would argue in their favor). And the trans and hydrogenated fats found in margarine and the vegetable shortening and processed oils in so many supermarket products are clearly cause for concern. There is a lot of evidence that the highly refined carbohydrates, that are so prevalent in the modern diet, are far bigger source of the growing epidemic of obesity and associated diseases.

Avocado, Calories and Monounsaturated Fats

While avocados may be considered a reasonably high calorie food (approximately 160 calories per 100 grams), around two thirds of those calories come from healthy monounsaturated fats. Research has shown that monounsaturated fats are much more likely to be used as slow burning energy for your body than saturated fat. They are also less likely to be stored as body fat.

As an added benefit, diets high in the oleic fatty acids found in avocados may help reduce your blood levels of unhealthy LDL cholesterol at the same time as raising beneficial HDL cholesterol.

Monounsaturated fatty acids also aid in the absorption of fat soluble nutrients from the meal they are eaten with. 

The nutritional properties of avocado on its own are outstanding, but when eaten in a salad or with other antioxidant rich vegetables, it can greatly increase your uptake of their nutrients as well.

Hunger and Weight Gain

Aside from the obvious health benefits of getting more out of the food you are eating, this can also help reduce excessive hunger over time. This is because the feeling of being hungry is not always associated with a real need by our bodies for more food.

Often we mistake thirst for hunger, so it’s always a good idea to have a glass of water before reaching for unhealthy snack food.

At other times, especially if you’ve eaten not that long ago, feeling hungry can be our body’s way of telling us it needs more nutrients.

When you are regularly eating nutritious foods you are less likely to feel hungry again soon after eating. In fact, with their rich taste, healthy fats, low carbohydrates and high protein and fiber content, avocados are well known to increase increase satiety – that feeling of satisfied fullness after you eat.

By comparison, meals based primarily around high carbohydrate foods like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes generally stimulate hunger by the way they raise the levels of insulin in our blood.

 

Insulin is, amongst many other important things, the hormone that removes excess glucose from our blood. It stores this, sometimes in the muscles or liver, but obviously more commonly for many people, in the adipose fat cells around the waist.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, this storage process often leads to low blood sugar, which stimulates more hunger for carbohydrates. It’s called the insulin rollercoaster for good reason and the brief highs really aren’t worth all the weight gain, tiredness and hunger so many people are putting themselves through on it.

The only good time for a high carbohydrate meal is generally after heavy exercise if you are already fit. The rest of the time there’s a much better daily energy, and a natural steady weight loss to be found in meals low in concentrated carbohydrates like grains, and based instead around a variety of nutrient rich vegetables, along with healthy sources of protein and fat.

Losing weight is rarely just about calories and ‘energy in energy out’. A rarely discussed but essential component is intestinal health and how it impacts weight gain.

Have you tried eating more not less healthy fats like those found in avocado for weight loss? I’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s had success with going against the old counting calories methodology.

Goodluck!