Cavewomen Don't Get Fat by Esther Blum Page A

of trans fats, poor quality vegetable oils (see number 5 opposite),hydrogenated oils, processed foods, and grain-fed meats. When you eat foods with high-quality fats, you can get 40 percent to 50 percent of your calories from fats and still lose weight. This may seem like a lot of calories from fat, but when you’re not eating overprocessed, empty carbohydrates, your body needs another source of fuel in order to run optimally and stave off hunger.
    3. Lowering body fat isn’t only about your dietary fat intake. Whether or not you lose weight is also influenced by the quality of the proteins and carbs you eat. So make sure that you’re eating grass-fed meats and organic eggs. Get the majority of your carbs from vegetables and fruits in the range of 100 grams per day. And say sayonara to sugar—as well as limit your intake of alcoholic beverages to one to two per week—if you want to lose weight.
    4. Avoid all processed foods. Period.
    5. Balance your omega-3 and omega-6 fats. Omega-3s are essential fatty acids found in fish and fish oil. Fish contain the omega-3s eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). According to the National Research Council, more than sixty health conditions have been shown to benefit from fish oils. Omega-3s help reduce systemic and localized inflammation, treat dry skin, heart disease, depression, PMS, autoimmune conditions, and poor circulation, to name a few benefits.
    It’s important to have the right balance of different fats in your diet. Most sources of pro-inflammatory omega-6s can be found in vegetable, corn, cottonseed, safflower and sunflower oils, and should be avoided. However, there are a group of beneficial omega-6 fats, which are anti-inflammatory: black currant seed, borage, and evening primrose oil, found mostly in supplement form. The trick lies in keeping omega-6 fats in balance with omega-3s to the tune of at least a 3-to-1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats.
    Most of us consume too many omega-6 fats and not enough omega-3 fats, due to our high consumption of vegetable oils coupled with eating grain-fed animals, corn, and soy; the typical American has a 20-to-1 ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s. This is a deal breaker for the human body!
    Eggs from factory chickens contain twenty times more omega-6 fats than omega-3 fats, compared with organic, free-range chickens, which are rich in omega-3 fats. Farmed salmon contains more omega-6 fats than omega-3–rich wild Alaskan salmon do. Fish liver oil, fish eggs, egg yolks, organ meats, and seaweed are rich sources of omega-3s, but many people are unfamiliar with them, and so they don’t cook or eat them.
    Some people like to take flaxseed oil as an additional source of omega-3s. About 15 percent of the alpha linoleic acid in flaxseed oil will also convert to omega-3s in a healthy body. If you are diabetic, or your diet is too high in sugar, the conversion to EPA can be much more difficult. So relying on flax oil alone for omega-3 fatty acids can lead to a deficiency. It is also noteworthy that flax oil can raise men’s levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a biochemical marker used to screen for prostate cancer, so they should stick to ground flax for all of the benefits and none of the prostate problems.
    Last but not least, let’s also give a shout-out to an omega-6 fat called gamma linolenic acid. GLA has tremendous health-promoting effects and fights inflammation, skin conditions such as eczema and acne, and PMS. Evening primrose oil is another rich source of GLA. Taking GLA in conjunction with omega-3s will establish a healthy balance of essential fats from within.
Making Fat Work for You
    Given the powerful regulatory benefits of fats, let’s put them to work and keep you in skinny jeans! The following are my top ten favorite ways that fats will make you gorgeous from the inside out.
    1. Healthy Fats Reduce PMS. Premenstrual syndrome is a condition of imbalances,