The 19th installment of The Weight List with George Lockhart features discussion on “fat free” foods, prepared diet frozen foods and the best low calorie options for dieters.
Fad diets, detox cleanses, juicing…these are all part of the trend towards health consciousness and physical fitness. Sadly, there is a litany of misinformation out there that is difficult to wade through in our never ending efforts to find good data. Our weekly series, The Weight List, featuring weight cutting specialist George Lockhart and our own Iain Kidd, is an attempt to get as much science-based, factual information as we can to our listeners and readers.
We’re not suggesting that this series is the end-all-be-all in nutrition and wellness, but it’s absolutely a good starting point to help you out with your own research. This week marks the 19th installment in the series, and our topics for the segment were:
-The “fat free” craze and the drawbacks to these grocery options
-Prepared diet frozen foods (Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine)
-The best low calorie options for dieters
Here are a few quotes from the episode regarding “fat free” food:
George Lockhart: First off, fat is extremely important to your body. Your body runs off of essential fatty acids. Essential in this context means your body can’t make them yourself. A lot of the time the food industry is trying to sell you on “fat free” with this idea that if there’s no fat in food, it can’t make you fat. In reality nothing could be further from the truth. They increase the amount of sugar, salt and synthetic ingredients in this stuff.
Now Iain, neither of us are “synthetic stuff is so bad for you,” guys, but many of these fat free foods are so far outside of the realm of natural with stuff that’s just not good for your body.
Remember, to increase the taste of food you can use fat, salt or sugar. When they take all of the fat out they increase the amount of salt and sugar in these foods to astronomical levels. Just because it says fat free, don’t think it can’t make you fat.
Iain Kidd: Fat gets a bad rap in part because it has a higher calorie content per gram than carbohydrates or protein. What people tend to lose sight of is that simple carbohydrates, as a general rule, make you hungry. Fats and proteins are good for satiating your hunger, but there’s a feedback response from foods high in carbs which makes you hungry, and makes you more likely to overindulge compared to foods high in fat or protein.
George Lockhart: 100%. Our body produces a hormone called leptin, which tells your body you are full. Leptin is actually produced by fat, and it tells your body that you are full. As you said, there’s a question of whether or not food will make you feel satiated or make you want more food. Everyone knows if you eat candy, cupcakes of french fries — anything that spikes insulin — all you want is more and more. Sugar craves sugar, and that’s something you want to try to stay away from.
If you have a question you’d like to submit to The Weight List Mailbag, please e-mail [email protected] or shoot him a tweet @iainkidd. You can also drop your question off on our Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/threeamigospod
You can check out the entire segment here at the 30:55 mark of the audio or via the embedded player below. Remember, if you’re looking for us on SoundCloud or iTunes, we’re under the MMA Nation name. Follow our Twitter accounts: Stephie Haynes, Three Amigos Podcast, Geroge Lockhart, Iain Kidd and Mookie Alexander or our Facebook fan page, Three Amigos Podcast.