By: MuscleSports.net

Total Nutrition For Size, Strength, Porformance....

When we think of the word fat we almost always have the thought of unwanted body fat, then we turn our brain towards the fats we see in our foods. Fat is one of the required nutrients we as humans need to live a healthy life along with protein. Fats are involved in hundreds of function in the body especially hormonal. Fats is also one of the most miss understood nutrients in the world of bodybuilding and fitness. In this bodybuilding 101 article we give you a quick synopsis of how fat works inside your body and how to use the nutrient for your own health and bodybuilding benefits.

TWO TYPES OF FAT

The Human Body:

Fat is a term that means allot of different things, and is not a simple as most make it out to be. When we are talking about fat on human beings or more accurately - Adipose Tissue we are talking about a collection of loose tissue composed mostly of adipocytes, which are lypocytes and fat cells. This how your body stores excess calories to be used for energy in time of starvation. One of the other problems for those who are grossly over weight is that your excess body fat is not as inert as you once thought as your body fat produce many hormonal function such as leptin, estrogen, resistin, and cytokine (especially TNFa).

There are two types of fat in your body - White Fat & Brown Fat

White Adipose Tissue (WAT), which stores energy.
Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT), which generates body heat.

When we are dieting to loose fat from our bodies to look good fro the summer beach scene the fat we are most interested in loosing is the Visceral fat located under our skin and most visible to the naked eye. ANother kind of fat we are also trying to rid our selves of is one most people know virtually nothing about. it called Ectopic Fat. This is the fat that effect the function of the liver, kidney, heart and intestine. Reducing your Ectopic Fat is the real winner when we diet and loose those pounds of unwanted body fat because without knowing it we have just improved our overall health by a very wide margin. Think about that the next time you don't want to do that extra 20-30 minutes of cardio or walking the dog after sitting all day working at your computer.

The Food We Eat:

In the previous section we discussed FAT in the terms of the human body and it functions, in this section we will discuss fat in the forms of our dietary consumption. When talking about dietary fat we going to use the term Triglycerides instead of Adipose Tissue, which is the fat we already have stored on our bodies. Triglycerides are the fats that are the main components of vegetable oils and of fatty tissue in animals, fish other protein sources that we mainly consume. The human body can produce all the fat that it needs from our food sources, except for a few essential fatty acids that must be included in the diet to help keep our hormonal system in balance.

Essential fatty acids

There are two essential fatty acids (EFAs) in human nutrition: alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid) and linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid). Other lipids needed by the body can be synthesized from these and other fats.

Saturated vs. Unsaturated fats

Different foods contain different amounts of fat with different proportions of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Some animal products, like beef and dairy products made with whole or reduced fat milk like yogurt, ice cream, cheese and butter have mostly saturated fatty acids (and some have significant contents of dietary cholesterol). Other animal products, like pork, poultry, eggs, and seafood have mostly unsaturated fats. Industrialized baked goods may use fats with high unsaturated fat contents as well, especially those containing partially hydrogenated oils, and processed foods that are deep-fried in hydrogenated oil are high in saturated fat content.

Plant and fish oils generally contain a higher proportion of unsaturated acids, although there are exceptions such as coconut oil and palm kernel oil. Foods containing unsaturated fats include avocado, nuts, olive oils, and vegetable oils such as canola.

Bodybuilder Fats Chart

Avoid These Fats:
Saturated Fats - (Trim as much excess fat from all beef steaks as much as possible, used ground beef when possible so excess fat drains away.)
Processed Oils - (Corn, Sunflower, Vegetable & Canola - Avoid all partially hydrogenated oils, and processed foods. These oils have been found to cause inflammation within the body from continuous usage. As these oils are very bad for your health despite some recommendations from government health sources.)
Used these Fats in Moderation:
Butter and Whole Dairy Cheese - (Make sure all your butter come from organic and farms fresh sources and avoid mass produced sources.)
Use these Fats:
Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil and Organic Coconut Oil - (Olive oil has been one of the most healthy daily fats in the work for the past century. Coconut oil has been riding a roller coaster of good and bad intentions for the past 20 years because of the amount of plant based cholesterol inside of the oil. I have been using Coconut oil for the past 22 years and have had no adverse cholesterol effect from use as have many persons who I've talked with about it use. Do the research and make the decession for your self but we recommend it use.)

Supplemental Fats:

1: Flax Seed Oil(Cold Pressed)
2: Nordic Fish Oil
3: Hemp Oil
4: Borage Oil
5: CLA (Conjugated linoleic acid)

In conclusion:
Fats are a very important part of your dietary menu and you need to start paying allot more attention to the kinds and amount your consuming. Keeping your fat intake at optimum levels allows your body to heal and grow after hard workouts instead of aching and regressing. Fats push you toward your goals so use them correctly and to your full benefit. Next time we will discuss fat and your hormonal system!

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