Fat that makes you slim
The Fat Paradox: Why you need fat to become healthier (and slimmer)
Fat is perhaps the most misunderstood subject in our kitchen and in our bodies. In popular parlance, body fat is often seen as an enemy that we must fight at all costs. It then seems like a logical step to eliminate fat from your diet. Over the past thirty years, insights have changed. Healthy fat is an essential component of our diet and contributes to a healthy, slim, and fit body.
Body Fat vs. Dietary Fat: The Great Confusion
It is a widespread misconception that fat makes you fat. In reality, your body produces visceral fat (the dangerous fat surrounding your organs, often visible as a ‘beer belly’ or ‘love handles’) when you consume an excess of the wrong fuel—especially through an overabundance of sugars and processed carbohydrates. This body fat is, in fact, stored energy that your body could not use. Dietary fat, on the other hand, is an essential building block.
Not all fats are 'fuel'. Instead of looking at calories, we should look at their function. You can divide fats into two categories:
- Fuel fats: Fats that your body simply burns or stores.
- Signal fats (Smart Fats): These are fats that act as 'software' for your cells. Olive oil, and particularly polyphenol-rich olive oil, falls into this category.
Why polyphenol-rich olive oil is different. When you take a spoonful of our olive oil, you are indeed consuming calories. But you are primarily consuming a huge dose of polyphenols (such as Oleocanthal). These substances instruct your body to:
- Inhibit inflammation (the source of almost all Western lifestyle diseases).
- Stimulate fat burning by making your metabolism more efficient.
- Activate your sense of satiety, which actually reduces your need for unhealthy snacks throughout the day.
The conclusion? Stop counting calories and start counting nutritional value. A diet with the right, healthy fats is not the cause of excess body fat, but rather the key to a balanced body. Therefore, do not view our olive oil as 'fat', but as a liquid supplement that protects your cells against oxidative stress.
Want to know more?
Our blog delves deeper into the matter. There is also an interesting publication on Substack that explains it well. Of course, you can also start immediately with a polyphenol-rich diet. That means lots of fruit, with the peel as much as possible, colored vegetables, and one of our olive oils.