You and I are going to be brave and we are finally going to get to know this word “Fats” and everything it entails, or at least we are going to find out more about it and take the fear out of FATS.

Every time I hear the word “fats”, I picture an obese person. Of coarse when we eat irresponsibly that is the extra weight that millions of Americans carry around and that millions of others constantly strive to either keep off or take off. It’s estimated that 30 million Americans from the ages of 20 to 75 are overweight with child obesity on the rise, particularly in those cases where children are constantly watching the boob-tube (television)or playing video games.

The diet industry in the United States has grown to over a billion (that’s with a “b”-billion)dollars and when you take ALL the diet plans, exercise clubs, books, magazines, exercise equipment, etc. into account, Americans spend nearly 10 billion dollars a year in unsuccessful efforts to permanently lose the weight. At any given time around 20 million persons are on some sort of weight loss program, and more than half will regain what they lost.

When I came across some of the statistics I was speechless. I learned that in the early part of the 20th century, the amount of fat in the average American diet totaled roughly 30 percent of the daily calories consumed, whereas now it has increased to about 45 percent. The average American now consumes about 155gms of fat every day and that’s too much.

Most all authorities on nutrition are advocating a diet with only 30 percent in fats in total calories consumed. So a person on a 2000 calorie per day diet would ingest about 67 gm of fats.  In China, the amount of fats in the diet is only 1/4 that of the American counter part which is a contributing factor to heart and colon diseases in the U.S.

Our dietary fat intake consists of foods that are high in fat content. Such things as saturated butters, creams, cooking oils and fatty meats. We also have the ‘hidden fats’ such as mixed in our foods like whole milk, luncheon meats, avocado, olives, nuts, cheeses, and chocolates.

Fats, like carbohydrates, are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but the amount of oxygen in the fat is much less than the amount of hydrogen and carbon. This is what makes fats a concentrated source of energy, providing more than twice the number of calories per gram than carbohydrates or protein.

Fats are made up of fatty acids and glycerol. The most common form of fat we store in over 90 percent of our bodies is called triglyceride.  These types of fats consists of three fatty acids connected to one molecule of glycerol. The predominant type of fatty acid contained in the fats determine its tastes and consistency, solid or liquid. There are approximately 20 different fatty acids in the foods we eat. Each fatty acid contains a long chain of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to them.

When all the spaces in the chain are filled with hydrogen that is called a saturated fatty acid. When there are two spaces in the chain that can be filled with hydrogen that is called monounsaturated and if there’s more than two spaces in the chain that can be filled it’s called polyunsaturated fats.

Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature whereas monounsaturated fats are a more heavier oil consistency and polyunsaturated fats are usually liquid.

Logically when you think of each one of those different fats coarsening through your veins the more liquid the better, right? Because if it’s more solid it can clog up the arteries, and that’s not healthy.

And now that we know a little bit MORE about FATS.  I think it’s a little less intimidating, and knowing more about fats usually will take the fear out of fats, and start the next steps to a healthier you.

Jasmine Beaupre, author

Among the highest risk factors are male sex, age over 35, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, high levels of certain blood fats, and a family history of cardiovascular disorders.

Other researchers have added to this list another risk factor: the compulsive, hard-driving, highly anxious personality. The greater the number of severity, the greater the person’s overall risk.

These threats to the heart can be divided into two main categories: those beyond individual control, such as age, sex, and heredity, and those that can be controlled, avoided, or even eliminated. Among those in the second category are what cardiologists call “the triple threat.” These are the high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and high cholesterol levels in the blood.

If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, your risk of having a heart attack is twice that of a nonsmoker. If you smoke, have hypertension, and eat a diet high in fats without any exercise at all, your risk is five times greater than normal.

The Healthy Heart

If these risk factors endanger the heart’s health, what enhances its well-being and improves its odds of working long and well?

Obviously, quitting cigarettes and eating a low-fat diet will help. The next best thing you can do for your heart’s sake is to give it what it needs: regular exercise or a complete cardio interval training.

The heart is a muscle, or, more accurately, a group or “package” of muscles, similar in many ways to the muscles of the arms and legs. And just as exercise strengthens and improves limb muscles, it enhances the health of the heart muscles as well.

Since World War II, several large-scale statistical studies have evaluated the relationship between physical activity and cardiovascular disease. One well-known survey compared 31,000 drivers and conductors of some bus companies. The more sedentary drivers had a significantly higher rate of heart disease than the conductors, who walked around the buses and climbed stairs to the upper level.

The why and how behind these statistics were bet explained by classic experiments with dogs whose coronary arteries were surgically narrowed to resemble those of humans with arteriosclerosis. Dogs who were exercised were had much better blood flow than those kept inactive.

The exercise seemed to stimulate the development of new connections between the impaired and the nearly normal blood vessels, so exercised dogs had a better blood supply to all the muscle tissue of the heart. The human heart reacts in the same way to provide blood to the portion that was damaged by the heart attack.

To enable the damaged heart muscle to heal, the heart relies on new small blood vessels for what is called collateral circulation. These new branches on the arterial tress can develop long before a heart attack — and can prevent a heart attack if the new network takes on enough of the function of the narrowed vessels.

With all these facts, it is now boiled down to a single question: What should be done in order to prevent such dilemmas?

Some studies showed that moderate exercise several times a week is more effective in building up these auxiliary pathways than extremely vigorous exercise done twice often.

The general rule is that exercise helps reduce the risk of harm to the heart. Some researches further attested the link between exercise and healthy heart based from the findings that the non-exercisers had a 49% greater risk of heart attack than the other people included in the study. The study attributed a third of that risk to sedentary lifestyle alone.

Hence, with employing the cardio interval training, you can absolutely expect positive results not only on areas that concerns your cardiovascular system but on the overall status of your health as well.

This particular activity that is definitely good for the heart is a cycle of “repeated segments” that is of intense nature. In this process, there is an interchange periods of recuperation. It can both be comprehensive activity and moderate motion.

Consequently, the benefits of merely engaging into this kind of activity can bring you more results that you have ever expected. These are:

1. The threats of heart attack are lessened, if not eliminated

2. Enhanced heart task

3. Increase metabolism, increase the chance of burning calories, therefore, assist you in losing weight

4. Improves lung capacity

5. Helps lessen or eliminate the cases of stress

Indeed, cardio interval training is the modern way of creating a healthy, happy heart and body.

Resources:

Cardio Assurance [Circulatory] blends heart-benefiting ingredients that are designed to support your heart and cardiovascular system, including hawthorn berries extract, vitamin K2 (MK7), resveratrol, folic acid and vitamins B6 and B12.

All Natural Whole Foods Supplement:
Standard Process – Cardio-Plus 330 Tablets

Beans (legumes), berries (especially blueberries), broccoli, green tea, nuts (especially walnuts), oranges, pumpkin, salmon. soy, spinach, tomatoes, turkey, whole grains and oats, and yogurt can all help stop and even reverse diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and some forms of cancer. And where one might have an effect on a certain part of the body, it can also affect the health of other body functions and performance, since the whole body is connected.  With these 14 foods as the base of a balanced, solid diet, weight loss gimmicks and other fly-by-night programs can become a thing of the past in your life.

Conversely, the ill-effects of an unbalanced diet are several and varied. Low energy levels, mood swings, tired all the time, weight change, uncomfortable with body are just a few signs that your diet is unbalanced.  An unbalanced diet can cause problems with maintenance of body tissues, growth and development, brain and nervous system function, as well as problems with bone and muscle systems.
Symptoms of malnutrition include lack of energy, irritability, a weakened immune system leading to frequent colds or allergies, and mineral depletion that can trigger a variety of health concerns including anemia.

And since the body is connected, realizing that an unhealthy body will result in an unhealthy spirit only makes sense.  When we nourish our body with these superfoods and complement them with other nutrient-dense and healthy fresh foods, our spirit will be vitalized and healthy as a direct result.
Many modern diets based on prepackaged convenience foods are sorely lacking in many vitamins and minerals, which can affect our mental capacities as well, and cause irritability, confusion, and the feeling of ‘being in a fog’ all the time.

Superfoods can be the basis of a sound, healthy, nutritious solution to curing many of these ailments and more.