It might sound funny, but it’s no laughing matter to be completely preoccupied with fat. Certainly, a low-fat diet is an essential part of being healthy. However, taking this concept to radical extremes can place serious restraints on social eating, let alone set you up for a serious eating disorder. If your reason is weight control, think again. Some fat is helpful, and I promise you can maintain your ideal body weight (within reason, of course) and still allow yourself to enjoy foods with fat. In fact, joining a “fat-free cult” doesn’t necessarily mean that you automatically lose weight. Quite frequently, I meet clients who cannot seem to drop an aggravating 5 or 10 pounds—even while following a strictly fat-free regimen. How can that be? The answer is rather obvious: they simply overcompensate with the fat-free products. For the most part, the explosion of lower-fat foods on the market has been a wonderful tool, enabling people to painlessly lower their cholesterol and total fat intakes. Unfortunately for some people, the expression “low-fat” means carte blanche to eating huge amounts. Just because a product is fat-free doesn’t mean it’s calorie-free. As a matter of fact, many lower-fat foods can pack in just as many calories as their original fat-containing counterparts (compensating by pumping in more carbs). Do you have a friend who will not go near a “real” chocolate-chip cookie but doesn’t hesitate to inhale half a box of the fat-free version? Which is worse: the cookie with fat at 75 calories or 10 no-fat cookies at a whopping 500 calories? Remember, no matter where they come from, calories still count in the battle of the bulge.
