Low Fat Diet Plan

 One of the biggest promoters of a low fat diet plan is the American Heart Association. One of the leading causes of heart disease is eating too many fatty foods. One of the key elements in any good diet plan is to cut down on eating foods with too much fat. The American Heart Association recommends that you keep your daily intake of fat down to 30%. That's a good idea regardless of the type of diet you plan on using for weight loss.

Another issue with a low fat diet is that not all fat is bad for you. This is where it gets a little complicated when trying to sort out good fat from bad fat. Although it gets a little dicey on what is good for you when it comes to fat, the general rule is that saturated and trans fats are definitely bad. Which often are in processed foods of any kind. The better type of fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. 

One good example of good fat in foods would be avocados. Avocados often get a bad rap but when you examine the other aspects you will see that these fruits are good for you. Avocados contribute 20 different vitamins, minerals and healthy plant compounds. One ounce of an Avocado is only about 50 calories (a medium size avocado is 5 ounces) and has mono and polyunsaturated fat which is the good fat.

But it's a good idea to keep a watch even on good fats to stay healthy. Here's a set of examples for good and bad fats.

Bad Fats That Contribute to Heart and other diseases:

• Many fast food outlets offer fried foods that also contains
  a lot of saturated fats

• Red meat and full-fat dairy foods

• Many off the shelf convenience foods (TV Dinners, etc.)

Better Fats that are much healthier:

• Any source of omega-3 fats (fish), walnuts, avocados, corn, soybean, and flaxseed oils.

• Poultry, beans, canola or soybean oil, and ground flax seeds.

• Use vegetable oil to fry foods and butter substitutes.

Any Low Fat Diet Plan has been suspect for many years. And in 2006 the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Trial, an eight-year trial which included almost 49,000 women, showed that women who followed a low fat diet plan didn't lose any more weight than women who were not on any diet plan. Smaller and shorter trials have shown the same.

Any new diet can show some initial results due to a change in eating habits and paying attention to calorie intake. But over the long haul, the initial weight loss is often put back on slowly but surely. And this is true of many diets in general.

There are health benefits in paying attention to what type of fat you consume, since the bad fats have both more calories and cholesterol. Healthy eating habits are always going to be helpful in improving general health and reduce risk of many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, some cancers, or high blood pressure. Consuming high calorie fat is never a good thing.

And many extreme versions of low fat diets can actually be harmful if all fats are eliminated from your diet. It eliminates so many items that you may not be getting enough nutrition and diversity that your body needs to be healthy. Your body does need some fat intake to have the proper balance.

And one thing you can do with any diet plan is incorporate some common sense on what foods and fat content you eat. So the best way to deal with low fat, good or bad, is to incorporate it into any other diet plan that works for you. By it's self a Low Fat Diet Plan may not be enough to garner any serious weight loss. But as an addition to other diet plans it will be healthy and add a little extra bang.

Limiting your bad fat intake is good for you even if you are not on a diet to lose weight. You don't need a Low Fat Diet Plan to start making better choices what you eat. Just consider the type of fat that may be involved and choose the healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats rather than any food with the bad saturated and trans fats. If you want to try a diet program that has specific meal plans that cut out the bad fats for you, check my diet reviews click here: Diet Review.