Healthy vs Unhealthy Fats for Performance
Not all fats are made equal – let’s break down the different types of fats and why they’re important for strength training.
Our unhealthy fats are our ‘saturated fats’ which mainly come from animal products, as well as some plant based products (e.g. palm oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter).
Examples of these animal-based fats include:
- The fats in dairy (e.g. milk, yogurt, cheese, butter)
- The fats in meat (e.g. fat around steak/ chicken, the skin of chicken, fatty cuts of meat or processed meats like sausages, salami, bacon)
Our bodies don’t actually need saturated fats, so we should try and limit these as much as possible. High amounts of saturated fats can also cause increases in blood cholesterol, which over time places pressure on our arteries and can cause heart diseases long-term.
On a less chronic scale, however, saturated fats also cause inflammation in the body which can prolong the rate of recovery from our training sessions and increase the risk of injuries and getting sick.
So what can we do to reduce our intake of saturated fats?
Well we don’t want to cut out meat and dairy all together as they still provide us with a significant amount of protein, calcium, iron and other essentials nutrients.
Instead we want to swap what we can to reduce the fat intake.
This could look like swapping full-fat dairy products to low-fat alternatives.
Swapping butter to an olive-spread.
Swapping a salami sandwich for a chicken breast sandwich.
Not eating the skin of chicken or cutting the fat around steaks.
So what about our healthy fats?
Unlike our saturated fats, our unsaturated fats come from merely plant-based foods to promote better brain function, skin health, heart health and of course reduce inflammation and cholesterol in the body!
Our unsaturated fats can be broken down into monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats (Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s).
Our monounsaturated fats are not essential fatty acids as our bodies can produce these themselves, however they still have those anti-inflammatory, heart healthy benefits and include our avocadoes, olive oil, peanut butter and tofu.
Our Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s however contain essential fatty acids that our bodies can’t produce themselves, so it is essential we get an abundance of these polyunsaturated fatty foods from our diet.
In western society, we tend to reach our recommended intake of Omega 6’s quite easily. These include foods like nuts, seeds and vegetable oils (e.g. sunflower oil which a lot of our chips and packaged goods are made of!).
However, getting enough Omega 3’s is where we tend to struggle. In fact- if we have too many Omega 6’s and not enough Omega 3’s, this can also lead to increased inflammation in the body. To avoid this we want to eat more foods like fatty fish (such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines), flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, and certain oils (like flaxseed or avocado oil)
So – here’s a simple breakdown of healthy vs unhealthy fats. From here it would be worthwhile to see what animal-based foods you could reduce the fat content from, and what plant-based unsaturated foods you could ADD into our diet, especially upping those Omega-3’s to support better immunity and recovery from training.
