“Believe you can or believe you can’t. Either way you will be right.”
—Henry Ford
up to 6 teaspoons per day
Monounsaturated fats (preferably unrefined, cold pressed if oils)
Omega-3 fats
(Note: For each serving of your higher-fat, healthy, whole foods, such as nuts, seeds, avocados, and olives, simply count 1 of your fat teaspoons toward each serving.)
Greener: Organic, sold in a larger container or bulk (minimize packaging). For oils, choose cold expeller pressed or extra virgin. Local if possible.
Omega-6 fats (unrefined and cold pressed)
Saturated fat from butter—preferably local, organic, grass fed. (When you do use butter, which should be sparingly, make sure it’s good quality.)
Trans fats, partially hydrogenated oils
Margarines and shortenings. (One possible exception is if you have high cholesterol and are using a plant sterol–based spread as part of an overall diet strategy.)
Lard
Saturated fats in beef, dairy, and other animal products. (Stick to your other Lean and Green Prescription amounts.)
Here’s a fact that may surprise you: The total amount of fat you eat (whether high or low) isn’t really linked with disease. Rather, it’s the type of fat you eat that matters most. Here’s another interesting fact: Eating enough fat is one of the secrets of being able to stick with a healthier diet for the long haul.
The right kinds, in the right amounts. Once again.
If the new green cuisine is about healthy and fresh foods, cooked in healthy and fresh ways, fat is one of the central players in this new lifestyle. Why? Fat adds flavor, mouth appeal, and texture to foods, which is why we love it so much (and why many of us didn’t feel satisfied when we followed the fat-free craze). It also does something deeper: Fat provides staying power to foods because it takes longer to digest than carbohydrate. This means that you will be fuller longer if you include some fat in your meals and snacks.
Here’s more good news: If you’ve been following each part of your program thus far, including your Lean and Green Prescriptions and “Take Action Now” steps, you have already done a fantastic job realigning nearly all of your fats to be cleaner, healthier, and in better amounts. Specifically, you’re a flexitarian, including fish, wild game, and nuts and more plant proteins in your diet; you are a sustainable snacker; and you’re cooking more of your food at home. All of these changes help you mount your best defense against the typical Western eating pattern, which is too high in saturated fat, trans fats, and even omega-6 fats, and sets us up for many of our leading diseases and low-grade systemic inflammation. Good for you.
During the next phase of your pantry purge, you’ll complete your transformation by stocking up on antiaging, anti-inflammatory, beautylicious fats and eliminating the remaining aging, artery-clogging, high-carbon ones for good. Time to separate the clean and green from the mean.
I’ll admit, fats are complicated. For one, many people find the idea of eating the right fats in order to lose body fat confusing. Then there are all the nuances among the different types: Which are good? Which are bad? And how much of each should be included in a healthy diet? For some reason, even my own mother, who has no trouble at all remembering that “wine is great for you,” is still wary of peanut butter, nuts, and avocados because they’re “loaded with fat.” I have to constantly remind her that these good fats will help her look fabulous well into her sixties, and they may even keep her off of the medication that so many people her age are on. But I can understand her confusion.
So, keeping Mom (and everyone like her) in mind, I’ve done the work for you to keep things simple. If you like, simply look at the table on page 161 for your list of “lean and clean” fats to include, stick to your Prescription amounts, and you’re off and running. If you want to learn the “why” behind it, or brush up on your fat facts, read on.
Your Prescription is designed to realign your fats in the following ways.
So how does fat get you lean? Research suggests that eating heart-healthy fats actually helps with weight loss and assists in regulating body weight, all while fighting type 2 diabetes in the process.1 So reserving a portion of your calories for these types of fats is a winning strategy.
But while research in a calorie-controlled food lab is great, how it translates to your own dinner table is what matters. So here’s the added plus: Including heart-healthy fats in your diet is simply tasty and appealing to stick with.
One of the reasons the Mediterranean style of eating has become such a popular icon for weight loss and health is because it’s delicious in the process. While there are other equally effective roads to better health and weight (the Dean Ornish or the Okinowan plans are two wonderful examples), in my experience these plans might be a bit too restrictive for many people to find lasting pleasure and lasting success when following them as a style of eating. The Go Green Get Lean Diet isn’t an exact Mediterranean diet, but it leverages this same powerful truth: Fat sells.
So “know thyself”; and if thyself likes to enjoy higher-fat foods on occasion, it’s critical to find a way to include them regularly. And because I know myself, I’ve designed the Go Green Get Lean Diet with that in mind. I’ve included just the right amount to help give you the most flavor, nutrition, and taste while keeping calories sustainable for your backside. If you’re not concerned about weight loss, you can be more liberal with the amounts, but stick to the “clean and lean” categories for the maximum in clean and green overlap.
Of course, as I’ve already stressed, if you are trying to slim down, portions are important. And while you don’t need a tight fist with veggies, fruits, and beans, fat is in a league of its own. That’s because fat is the most energy-dense nutrient, weighing in at 9 calories per gram, more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrate. In fact, 1 tablespoon of fat packs about 100 to 120 calories.
While all fat has the same amount of calories per gram, the type of fat you eat has a deep impact on your health. Again, it’s the package that matters. Think, for a moment, about why your mother always told you to pour bacon grease into a can and not down the drain—because you don’t want it to clog the pipes in your home. The same thing holds true for your own personal pipes (your arteries) when you eat saturated and trans fats. And here’s a little-known fact: Trans fats were originally created to be used in candle wax. Trans fat is great for industrial food because it extends the shelf life by hundreds of years, but it’s horrible for your personal pipes.
To be sure, fat alone could fill its own book. But the table on the next page offers you a quick primer on the clean, the lean, and the mean.
Simply put, monounsaturated and omega-3 fats are lean and clean because they help keep you satisfied and fuller longer, help control blood sugar swings, and may help you lose weight and keep it off.2 They may also help keep your skin beautiful and glowing, act as an anti-inflammatory in the body, keep your arteries clean and healthy, reduce blood pressure, and give your “good” cholesterol a boost. And they might even boost your brainpower (60 percent of the brain’s weight is made up of fat).
Your Prescription limits saturated fat significantly and eliminates dirty trans fats altogether. Too much of these fats acts as a pro-inflammatory in the body and can clog your arteries, raise your risk of heart disease, and accelerate the accumulation of abdominal fat that leads to an “apple shape.”3 Plus, they can sap your energy and may raise your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s.
| MONO | OMEGA-3 | OMEGA-6 | SATURATED | TRANS |
| Oils: Canola oil Flaxseed oil Olive oil Peanut oil Foods: Almonds Avocados Flaxseed Olives Peanuts Macadamia nuts Dark chocolate |
Oils: Canola oil Fish oil Flaxseed oil Walnut oil Foods: Fish (especially fatty fish, such as anchovies, herring, sardines, salmon, tuna, and mackerel) Walnuts Wild game |
Oils: Corn oil Cottonseed oil Grapeseed oil Safflower oil Sesame oil Soybean oil* Sunflower oil* Foods: Poultry Wild game |
Fats/Oils: Butter Coconut oil Cocoa butter Margarine Palm oil Foods: Dairy fat Lamb/mutton Pork fat Red meat Coconut |
Fats/Oils: Partially hydrogenated oils Hydrogenated oils Margarine spreads** Foods: (varies: read labels) Fried foods Cookies, pastries, pies, and doughnuts Nondairy creamer Crackers Chips |
*Contain both omega-3 and omega-6 fats, but the oils are listed in the category where the contribution is more significant.
**Depends on individual spread; read the label.
Another benefit to these healthy fats? When your food choices are lean and green, you’re eating foods that can help calm inflammation. Quite literally, these foods can help you slow the clock.
Chronic, systemic low-grade inflammation is an underlying factor of nearly every degenerative disease, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, insulin resistance, autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, weight gain, food sensitivities, and metabolic syndrome. It’s no wonder millions of Americans report “GI troubles” to their physicians each year. With two-thirds of your immune system residing in your gut, it’s often one of the first places where signs of inflammation (bloating, diarrhea, etc.) can show up. Some evidence suggests that inflammation slows weight loss, promotes weight gain, and ages you more quickly. Here are a few tips for calming inflammation.
| ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FOODS | PRO-INFLAMMATORY FOODS |
| Omega-3 fats Blueberries, cherries, pomegranates, red cabbage, and beets (These foods are all high in antioxidants, and especially in anthocyanins, which are nature’s COX-2 inhibitors.) Green tea and ginger |
Omega-6 fats Trans fats Many margarines Fried foods Refined carbohydrates (white flour, refined sugars) Alcohol in excess |
| ANTI-INFLAMMATORY BEHAVIORS | PRO-INFLAMMATORY BEHAVIORS |
| Not smoking Healthy, manageable stress levels Rest and sleep |
Smoking High stress levels Lack of sleep |
While we’re on the subject of inflammation and dietary fat, let’s talk for a minute about your own body fat. While most of us would like to feel fewer wibbly wobblies on our arms or backsides (and of course, exercise will help tighten that), where fat hangs out on your body makes a big difference to your health, too.
Your fat stores are more than just your own personal Department of Energy storing excess fuel for a rainy day. Fat is a metabolically active organ, receiving and sending signals to and from other organs in your body. And just like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location.
Subcutaneous fat (the aforementioned wibbly wobbly bits) may be unpleasant to you, but it’s relatively harmless compared to the fat that resides around your middle. Belly fat, located in your midsection and clinically known as more benign-sounding “visceral fat,” lies in between your stomach muscles and vital organs. This is the fat that can give you an “apple shape” with a big belly, and it is directly linked to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome. It’s also linked to higher rates of nasty inflammation in your body.
Belly fat is directly impacted by how sedentary you are. The more time in front of the TV or computer or being a couch potato, the more likely you are to carry a hefty middle. Good-bye skinny jeans, hello elastic waistband.
Fortunately, although it is a complicated element in many of our food choices, managing the amount of fat in your diet is a key part of living a leaner lifestyle. The table below illustrates how just a few easy swaps can trim calories—and carbon—from your diet.
| INSTEAD OF THIS | CHOOSE THIS | SAVE THIS |
| Butter, 2 Tbsp on toast, 200 calories |
Hummus, 2 Tbsp on toast, 50 calories |
150 calories |
| Mayo, 2 Tbsp on sandwich, 200 calories |
Grainy mustard, 2 Tbsp on sandwich, 20 calories |
180 calories |
| 1 cup chocolate premium ice cream 380 calories |
1 cup 100 percent local fruit sorbet 266 calories |
114 calories |
| 1 slice Cheddar cheese on sandwich 110 calories |
½ cup sprouts and ½ cup baby spinach on sandwich 5 calories |
105 calories |
| 16 oz pumpkin spice latte 380 calories |
16 oz nonfat latte 130 calories |
250 calories |
| 2 cups microwave popcorn 130 calories |
2 cups homemade popcorn cooked in canola oil 83 calories |
47 calories |
Here’s one way you probably haven’t thought about that your new lean and green lifestyle is going to trim your carbon footprint—helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions the next time you step on an airplane. Seems overpacked suitcases aren’t the only thing weighing down the friendly skies these days. A 2004 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study found that because of the average 10-pound weight gain of Americans in the 1990s, in 2000 airlines burned an additional 350 million gallons of gasoline just to fly that extra poundage, releasing an extra 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.5
Another hidden benefit? Significant fuel savings on the road—in fact, keeping your tires pumped up is small potatoes compared to the fuel savings of keeping your waistline slim. That’s because every 1-pound increase in the average per-passenger weight in America translates to approximately 39.2 million gallons of extra gasoline that are required to transport that extra weight. In fact, experts estimate that nearly one billion additional gallons of fuel are burned annually in the United States each year to tote around all our extra pounds gained since the 1960s.6 It seems fuel efficiency of cars may have less of an impact on greenhouse gas emissions than would stemming our obesity crisis. My goodness.
But back to fats. When it comes to looking at fats with an eye for green, let’s use a hypothetical situation. Suppose the question is, “If you live closer to a dairy farm than an olive grove (which, let’s be honest, most Americans do), does this give you the green light to slather on the butter instead of opting for that virginal olive oil?”
Nice try.
Eating clean fat is such a critical part of creating better health and making it easier to lose weight and keep it off, that this is one area where it seems wiser to strike a balance between health and carbon cost. While they may be local, animal fats still aren’t green. So eat only as much as your Prescription allows, or perhaps a small bit more if your calorie intake is much higher.
For the small amounts of butter in your diet, yes, choose local to the extent that you can. Even better if it’s grass fed or organic (and you may notice this butter has an amazing flavor, reflecting what the cows ate). But cows and cow products are still likely to be the SUVs of your diet—even a local cow.
As it is with fish, the exact carbon count of your fat is going to be hard to determine. Indeed, much olive oil in the United States is imported, which certainly flies in the face of localism. Yet clean fat is still in the plant kingdom, so might we be able to hedge our bets a bit and salve our conscience, thinking that plant foods are better? I think so. In addition, here are a few other reasons that make the carbon case for sticking to lean and clean.
So stick to your Lean and Green Prescription even if you’re smack-dab in the middle of dairy country. Even if you’re off a carbon point or two, don’t sweat it. Use Your L.E.A.N. Cheat Sheet (see page 154) to keep you pointed in the right direction. Green up your saturated fats by looking for local dairy products or meats, which will be fresher and help cut food miles. And be sure to eliminate the mean—those nasty trans fats. They are high carbon, aging, and pro-inflammatory; they may hasten that lovely “apple shape” of fat deposits; and they may harden your arteries. Why is that such a problem? Your arteries are your lifelines. Literally.
Congratulations, you’re doing great! And you’ve done so much of the heavy lifting already—and lightened yourself in the process. You’re well on your way to reaping big savings with your new lifestyle. Now that we’ve tackled all the elements that go into the state of your plate, let’s revisit our snack habits once and for all.
1. P. Garcia-Lorda et al., “Nut Consumption, Body Weight and Insulin Resistance,” Eur J Clin Nutr (2003) 57, Suppl. 1, S8–S11; K. McManus, L. Antinoro, and F. Sacks, “A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Moderate Fat, Low-Energy Diet with a Low-Fat, Low-Energy Diet for Weight Loss in Overweight Adults,” Int J Obes (2001) 25(5):1503–11; L.S. Piers et al., “Substitution of Saturated with Monounsaturated Fat in a 4-Week Diet Affects Body Weight and Composition of Overweight and Obese Men,” British J Nutr (2003) 90:717–27; R. Jiang et al., “Nut and Peanut Butter Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women,” JAMA (2002) 288:2554–60.
2. Several studies have found that diets rich in heart-healthy fats can help with weight loss. K. McManus, L. Antinoro, and F. Sacks, “A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Moderate Fat, Low-Energy Diet with a Low-Fat, Low-Energy Diet for Weight Loss in Overweight Adults,” Int J Obes (2001) 25(5):1503–11; L. S. Piers et al., “Substitution of Saturated with Monounsaturated Fat in a 4-Week Diet Affects Body Weight and Composition of Overweight and Obese Men,” British J Nutr (2003) 90:717–27.
3. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, “Trans Fat Leads to Weight Gain Even on Same Total Calories, Animal Study Shows,” ScienceDaily, June 19, 2006 (accessed) June 9, 2008 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060619 133024.htm.
4. H. Kaunitz and C.S. Dayrit, “Coconut Oil Consumption and Coronary Heart Disease,” Philippine J Int Med (1992) 30:165–71; G.L. Blackburn et al., “A Reevaluation of Coconut Oil’s Effect on Serum Cholesterol and Atherogenesis,” J of the Philippine Med Assoc (1989) 65:144–52; R.F. Florentino and A.R. Aquinaldo, “Diet and Cardiovascular Disease in the Philippines,” Philippine Journal of Coconut Studies (1987) 12:56–70.
5. A. Dannenberg et al., “Economic and Environmental Costs of Obesity. The Impact on Airlines,” Am J Prev Med (2004) 27(3):264.
6. S. Jacobson and L.A. McLay, “The Economic Impact of Obesity on Automobile Fuel Consumption,” Engineering Economist, winter 2006. http://www.entrepreneur.com/ tradejournals/article/156363600_4.html. Accessed August 25, 2008.