The association between the fat we eat and the unwanted flab we carry around our waist is so firmly cemented in the minds of so many that it’s impossible to wedge free. To be fair, this misconception was backed up for over a decade by researchers, scientists, the government, even random strangers on the street, but let’s try again: Eating fat does not make you fat. Even the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services raised the limit on daily fat intake.
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You need fat for basic functioning as well as a healthy metabolism. In one study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that when dieters followed a low-fat diet for four weeks, their metabolism took a dramatic nose dive, leaving them burning 300 fewer calories—the amount burned by during a 30-minute interval workout—a day. It also disrupted important hormones that keep cholesterol and insulin levels in check. For real weight loss, follow the long-heralded, high-fat Mediterranean model. In a five-year study of 7,447 men and women published in the June 2016 online edition of Lancet Diabetes Endocrinology, researchers found that those who ate the diets highest in olive oil, nuts, and other healthy fats (like fish and avocados) had the highest weight lost and the slimmest waistlines.
“Fat also adds a pleasant mouthfeel and flavor to your food, which increases your enjoyment and satisfaction, which is important when you want to lose weight,” says Leslie Bonci, M.P.H., R.D., sports nutritionist at Pittsburgh-based company Active Eating Advice and co-author of Bike Your Butt Off.