I am excited to discuss fats. They have been hated on for such a long time, and the mainstream media is just coming around to discerning the real benefits and issues when it comes to fats. Fortunately, nutritionists and fitness experts have been preaching the necessity of having fats in your diet for a while. The key is what types of fats you are getting and where you are getting them from. If you're eating good fats, you'll notice a difference, in your muscle growth, energy, fat loss (yes, good fats help with fat loss) and your testosterone levels.

Fats are necessary for your body to function at its optimal potential. Your brain needs fats to function, along with fats being a necessary precursor to hormones that control essential functions, such as blood pressure, inflammation and blood clotting.

Let's start with the bad fats that you shouldn't be eating. These fats are the ones that clog arteries, mess with your hormones and overall stunt your potential:

• Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. These are saturated fats that have been chemically altered to fit specific needs of the food industry, such as having a high melting point, smooth texture and being reusable as a deep-frying oil. These are in most processed foods, which you can tell by looking at their labels.
• Trans-fatty acids. This type of fat comes from taking polyunsaturated fat and heat processing it. Trans fats allow processed foods to have a longer shelf life, which is gross once you think about it. Creating a fat that chemically alters the natural decay of food cannot be good for your body. Trans fats are one of the biggest contributing factors to heart disease in America, and the FDA is currently looking into making them illegal in the United States. Lets hope they go through with it.
• Omega-6 cooking oils. These also come from polyunsaturated fats, but are chemically altered in a different way to create cooking oils. These oils you have to be careful with, because they cause us to consume extreme amounts of Omega-6 fats, which have been shown to promote cardiovascular disease, cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Basically, you want to avoid fats that come from processed foods. As humans, we've spent 2.5 million years digesting natural fats, not Oreos.

Now the good fats:

• Monounsaturated fats. These most commonly come from high fat fruits, such as avocados, along with nuts, such as pistachios, almonds and walnuts. Olive oil is another common place to get your monounsaturated fat from. They have been shown to lower bad cholesterol, raise good cholesterol and may even help with fat loss.
• Polyunsaturated Fat. This category of fat is made up of by omega-3 and omega-6 fats. Although I bashed on Omega-6 in cooking oils a second ago,they are healthy fats when consumed in a 1:1 ratio with omega-3 fats. You can find these fats in naturally good ratios through salmon, fish oil, sunflower oil and seeds. Having a good dose of omega-3 fats in your diet is so important that I recommend taking cod liver oil supplement daily.
• Saturated fat. This is just one more controversial thing I'm adding to the list. Conventional wisdom has unfortunately taught most people that saturated fats are the devil and should be avoided at all costs. This would mean avoiding animal fats and topical oils, e.g. coconut oil. There have been hunter-gatherer tribes that have consumed 50-70% of their calories from saturated fats without health problems. People who live in Tokelau, a territory in New Zealand eat a diet that is half saturated fats and yet have the best cardiovascular health in the WORLD. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard, has acknowledged that saturated fats are not the cause of the obesity crisis or heart disease after a year review of research. Luckily, more and more studies are starting to come to show that saturated fats are not the problem. So eat saturated fats, its one of the best energy sources for your body, it's one of the most satiating foods, meaning it will keep you full longer, and it's the best food to boost testosterone.

When it comes to fats, it's all about asking if conventional wisdom is correct. Look at human history. We have been omnivores since the beginning of our species. We have been hunting and eating meat for over a million years and have thrived as a species. Our ancestors didn't have the obesity rates we did, or they would have struggled to make it this far. The best to balance your fat intake is to split your fat consumption into 3rds. 1/3 from saturated, 1/3 from monounsaturated fat and 1/3 from polyunsaturated fat, making sure to keep at least a 1:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats. To learn more about fats, which ones to eat and how to get them into your diet, read my article dedicated to them, here.