Where are we at?? And the truth about "Fats"

Well hello and welcome to something like day 10 or 11. I have lost count now and it has started to become more and more pertinent for me to continue to paleo now. I am noticing huge changes in energy, and definitely noticing when my balances are off or when I haven't eaten in the right amount of time. The biggest difference I am noticing a GREAT deal is when I don't eat enough fat throughout the day. So I wanted to spend some time discussing fats. I pulled the following diagram from:

http://www.omega-3-fish-oil-wonders.com/omega-3-fatty-acids.html

This website has a HUGE amount of information about fatty acids....
It is interesting how this particular website, which is of course promoting the need for Omega-3 fatty acids (so we can get to a ration of 2:1 like we are supposed to be) talks about this: " It is correct folks, we need to eliminate mostly all grains , cereals and grain oils if we are overweight, have hypertension or diabetes, in order to bring back the balance to our body. Watch out, I said eliminate most grains, not carbohydrates. We need carbs, not from grains but from all vegetables and fruits."

WOW.. what is paleo all about?? It's about balancing the body and getting everything back to how it should perform at it's ideal and optimum level. this includes fats.

OK.... so the lowdown.... And remember I am SIMPLIFYING to the ridiculous to keep it simple

Three main MACRO nutrients - Protein, Carbs, Fat and... I'll add Alcohol as a macronutrient...

Protien- typically broken into Essential, non-essential and semi essential Amono Acids. Essential simply means I can NOT produce within the body, therefore it MUST come from the food we eat. Semi-essential.. means half of that... and non-essential means our body produces it.

Carbs- Simple- one or two sugar molecules hooked together. Not always a bad thing, but better in natural occuring forms (fructose rather than sucrose)

Complex0 chains of sugar molecules creating starches and fibers.

Fibers further broken down into soluble and insoluble- Soluble fibers are like the pipe cleaners for our arteries and veins where insoluble fibers.. are kind of like pipe cleaners for other stuff... (you know how corn looks the same coming in as it does going out... Come on.. you know it does!!! )

Saturated- Solid at room temp (typically animal sources) (not necessarily a bad thing.. once thought to be the cause of all cholesterol and bad things in our bloodstream. Could have some benefit including Omega 3. The challenge comes in that we have an extreme imbalance between Omega 3 and Omega 6 (almost a 20-30 to 1 ratio or greater). this is why we have to balance out with our Omega 3 sources

Unsaturated- Typically liquid at room temperature. Also typically from veggie sources

Two types- Mono and Ploy unsaturated. As you can see from the chart above, the ploy unsaturated sources are GREAT for Omega-6 Fatty acids... WAIT.. didn't you say Coach that we are overeating our 6's? YES.. that's why we focus on our mono-unsaturated or "good" oils because they are higher in Omega 3's. As you can see- Walnuts, cashews, macadamia nuts (according to Koshi) Fish, Olive oil, Coconut... Coconut oil are all higher in omega-3 fatty acids.,. thereby giving us a better balance.

HYDROGENATED/TRANS-FATS. This man-made horror is a doosy. Interesting enough, they take an unsaturated fat, inject a hydrogen atom into it to create a different chemical bond and create a solid. WHAT? turning a liquid into a solid via chemical reaction? How can THAT be good for our body??? IT CAN'T be... and alas it's not.

So the trick is to avoid Hydrogenated fats at all costs.... processed foods aer full of them even though they may say "Contains no trans fat" Look carefully into the labelling guidelines for the nutrition industry and you'll see there are "not so strict" guidelines on the "No" on the labelling.

That's a nutshell overview of fat... If you want more information, please look at the website. I also found some good websites when I was researching "coconut oil" It comes up with some great information on why coconut oil is very good for us.

How is everyone doing on their challenge???