Fats, Fats! Read all about it!

Hey all,

This week we are going to talk about the difference between Saturated and Unsaturated fats! Which ones you want to incorporate in your diet and which ones you want to try to avoid. This information can easily be found on nutrition labels.

Let's get started:

• Saturated fats:
•  It is called saturated fat, because of the number of hydrogen bounds in this fatty acid molecule
•  All of the bounds are full. 
• They help with the absorption of fat soluble vitamins
• A,D,E,K
• The human body can make these saturated fats as needed 
• Raise both LDL and HDL cholesterol
• A.K.A.- Bad and Good Cholesterol (we will save this topic for another day.) 

• Unsaturated Fats: 
• All the hydrogen bounds are not full
• Derived from:
•  Plant
•  Animal sources
• Fish
• Sources that are liquid at room temperature
• Contribute to reduced Cholesterol levels 
• Raise (HDL) Good cholesterol levels 
• Lower (LDL) Bad cholesterol levels 

Ok now that you have a general idea of what these fats are and where they come from, let's look at the structures. 

Ok, we can see here that all the bonds are formed in the Saturated molecule, and we have one double bond in the Unsaturated, as talked about above. 

If you will, think of Saturated fatty acids as bricks. They fit nicely and evenly on top of one another making a dense and compact structure. Think of Unsaturated fatty acids as puzzle pieces fitting together, and filling in those extra places, taking up less room. 

Let's put this information to use! So, it takes more energy (higher temperature) to separate more tightly packed molecules. Therefore you have to workout longer, harder, and increase that core temperature even more so, to burn that Saturated fat vs. Unsaturated. Making it a lot harder to burn that fat away. 

Try to keep it natural, good healthy Unsaturated fats. Liquid at room temperature. Avoid those Saturated unhealthy fatty acids, let your body make those. 

Hope you guys enjoyed this weeks topic. Have a great weekend and keep working hard you'll reach that goal. Remember good things take time! 

Pistols....Out

Xo