How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 3 Ep. 144

Ready to shake off the lingering fears of the low-fat craze from the '90s and embrace the luscious world of dietary fats?
Today's episode in the macronutrient series promises to enrich your understanding of fats and their indispensable role in a well-rounded, gluten-free lifestyle. I'm sharing how fats have long been portrayed as the enemy, shedding light on the benefits—from energy storage to hormone production. You'll come away with a new perspective on how to include the right kinds of fats into your daily meals for optimal health.

Transitioning to a gluten-free diet can be a confusing path,. But fear not! In this final episode of this 3 part series, I'm guiding you towards the treasure trove of whole, nutritious foods that should be the cornerstone of your eating habits.
Forget empty calorie counting; it's about packing in the nutrients with every bite. 

Join me, and let's navigate the gluten-free landscape with eyes wide open to the power of informed choices.

Previous Episodes Mentioned:
How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 1 Ep. 142
How Macronutrients Support a Celiac's Gluten Free Diet - Part 2 Ep. 143

Want to know how I've nailed living with Celiac Disease? Ultimate Celiac System has all my exclusive tips, secrets and insights.
Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
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Music Credit bensound.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Benefits of Adding Healthy Fats
• 15:10 Gluten-Free Diet Nutrient Focus

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

All right, welcome back to part three of our three part series on macro nutrients. So on today's episode, we are talking about fat and the benefit of adding healthy fats into your diet. So on the previous two episodes, we talked about carbohydrates and protein. So if you haven't listened to those episodes, I recommend you go back and listen to those first and then come back and listen to this week's episode. But if you listened to the other two episodes and you're joining me again this week, thank you for coming back and learning more from me about these macro nutrients and why they are important in a healthy, gluten-free diet, and ready to learn more about why you need to be consuming fat, because, let's be honest, many people are scared of fat and think that fat makes you fat, and that's simply not the case. So we're going to break that down today so that you can understand why you need to consume fat, what types of fats are the best to add into your diet and lifestyle, and how you can basically get a lot more health benefits from consuming the correct type of fat. So let's jump on into it today.

Speaker 1: 1:42

So, depending on your age, I'm in my mid 40s well, nearly mid 40s. I shouldn't age myself, but I'm almost in my mid 40s and when I grew up, I was a young, impressionable girl in my early teens in the 90s and back then there was this massive movement about low fat. So everything that you would hear was about low fat. There was so much about it in magazines and TV and all the products on the food shelves were all about low fat. It was like this massive movement that started and I personally think it's done a lot of damage to the way that we think about fat. So so many people because this way of life was brought in that everything's low fat or no fat or fat free, all these different labelling, that because it was focused on that, many people started to believe that fat was bad. So if you were one of those people that grew up in that time and you're aware of that movement, you totally understand what I'm talking about. So you know there was things like low fat yoga. There were diet salad dressings, like. There were so many different products that came out and that was their be all and end. All on the front of their packaging was about their fat content being pretty much next to zero. But what people didn't understand was that a lot of these products were adding extra sugar into their products to make up for the lack of flavor. So they might not have been consuming fat, but they were consuming sugar, which often makes people fat, anyway. So it was just it wasn't the best thing to have people focusing on. So what I'm doing is helping people focus on consuming fat in a way that supports their body.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So I wanted to share this with you today so that you are no longer scared of fat and understand the role that fat makes in your diet and why it's beneficial to consume fat in a healthy way for your body. So let's dive in. So, basically, when, back in the day so let's just kind of rewind back into cavemen time our bodies were designed to store fat because back then you didn't know when you were going to get your next meal. Okay, sometimes these cavemen would eat and they might not eat for a couple of days. So the body was designed to store fat, right? So when your body stores fat, it holds onto that fat as a reserve for energy. Okay, so if you're consuming fat, what happens is, yes, you need carbohydrates for energy. We talked about that in the first episode of this series. Your body would need those carbohydrates for that instant energy correct, but with fat, what it does is it stores some of that energy for later, so think of it like a slow release of energy, okay, so when you're having fat, it helps you not only have that longer energy, it helps you feel fuller for longer as well, which is a massive benefit, and there's so many other benefits that go with it. So we talked about last week with protein that it helps with hormone production, and fat is the same. So if you have not enough fat in your diet, your hormones might be all over the show or you might struggle to fall pregnant because your body is too low in body fat.

Speaker 1: 5:28

So you need to have a healthy amount of fat for a number of reasons. So people with anorexia tend to be very cold all the time, and this is because they don't have enough body fat on them and they're not consuming enough fat. So you'll see that when you consume fat, you don't feel as cold in the winter months. You don't feel as cold when the weather starts to change. So it's really interesting some of the benefits that we can get from consuming fat. It's one of those things that is essential in our diet. Okay, you might be scared of fat and you might be freaking out that I'm telling you to consume fat and add it into your diet, but trust me when I say it is important. When you consume healthy fat, it helps with cell growth. It helps with the absorption of essential nutrients from your diet, so things like vitamins that are fat soluble it's very important to be able to consume fat so that your body is able to absorb those nutrients. Okay, it is going to help your hair, it's going to help your skin and you're gonna notice the benefits from consuming healthy fat.

Speaker 1: 6:40

So let's talk about some of the healthy fats that we should be consuming on the regular. Okay, so we wanna focus on unsaturated fats. Okay, so when we consume unsaturated fats, we're looking for things like avocados, olive oil, oily fish, nuts, seeds, full fat yoga eggs things like that that we can add into our diet that have got that healthy, unsaturated fat. What we wanna minimize is trans fat. So you will find trans fats in things like fried foods. So if you eat a lot of fried foods, you're consuming a lot of trans fat, which is not beneficial to your diet.

Speaker 1: 7:25

So this is where we're coming from when we talk about fat being good or bad and I'm not a massive fan of using good or bad but in this instance, we do need to really focus on this, and this is where we talk about that 80-20 rule that we talked about earlier on in this series, where it's okay to have fried foods every now and again. Okay, I enjoy some deep fried hot chips, like it's. It's something I really enjoy having with gravy and just like yum. Okay, it is nice to have, but it's not regular in my diet. It's a sometimes food and it's something that we should not be consuming all the time. So it's about adding in these healthier fats so that we push out these other unhealthy fats.

Speaker 1: 8:15

Now, when we talk about fats that we should not be consuming, I hate to be the bearer of bad news with this one, but we should not be eating the hydrogenated oils. We don't have any health benefits whatsoever from consuming hydrogenated oils, and these are the ones that cause heart attacks. These are the ones that are bad for us and Unfortunately, you will find that hydrogenated oils are in most baked goods because it's cheap, it keeps production costs down, which many manufacturers love, and you'll also find that it's in a lot of snack foods. So this is where I say that a gluten-free diet can be very unhealthy if you are eating a lot of snack foods, and this is why I'm always for adding in more healthy foods, adding in more less processed foods, adding in those foods that are in their natural state, because then it pushes out those packaged foods that are basically full of crap and no nutritional benefit whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 9:17

So if you are eating a lot of packaged gluten-free foods, have a look on the labels. Yes, I know you've been looking for gluten-free. I know you've been reading your labels and making sure that the food is gluten-free. But start to look what else is in that food or food like product, because you'll start to see that it has got these oils in there. That is basically making that product shelf stable. It's making that product last longer and it's of no benefit to you.

Speaker 1: 9:48

It is not healthy. It's not a good choice. You know it's okay to have them every now and again, but I mean if you can avoid them, that would be the best choice. I know that's hard for a lot of people, but if you can avoid them, that would be my recommendation. And it's not about going right. I'm not eating these anymore. I'm not going to have any of that.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Just start by adding in the goodness, adding in the healthy foods, because this is where we start to crowd things out. So I do teach this to my clients and it's the art of crowding out. So when you add something good in, it naturally pushes out the things that you don't necessarily need or you might not want them anymore because you are feeling fuller, you're not craving foods anymore, you're not reaching for those packaged snacky foods. Okay, your body will naturally feel fuller when you start to eat that balance of fats, carbs and proteins. So let's think about how we can add those into our diet.

Speaker 1: 10:53

And you know we talked about having that balanced plate of carbohydrates and proteins. So, for example, you might want to add in some healthy fat. Let's just say you have a beautiful salad and you've got a plate that's loaded with lots of delicious vegetables to get your healthy carbohydrates, and you maybe have some quinoa with that and maybe some salmon and that makes up your carbs and your protein. Well then you might want to add some avocado to that, or drizzle olive oil, sprinkle some nuts over it. That's where you're going to get your healthy fat into that meal. So that meal now becomes more filling and it will give you that sustained energy for later on in the day, when you know your blood sugar might start to drop from those carbohydrates. Then your body can tap into the fuel source that you've got from eating those healthy fats. So that makes a big difference.

Speaker 1: 11:44

So another reason that you want to be eating healthy fats is it supports your brain. Okay, it's, it's something your brain does need, and this is why children need to be consuming healthy fats as well, because it supports their brain development. So, as we get older, we need to have healthy fat because it does help our brain and it's important to keep our brain healthy now and into the future. So, like I said in the previous episode, it's so important to focus on the now. Yes, absolutely. There's so much to think about with gluten free, but it's so important to also be adding in all these beautiful macronutrients into our diet for the long term.

Speaker 1: 12:25

And we're not talking about just do this for a week and you know you'll be fine. I'm talking about making this a lifestyle and not focusing on dieting, not focusing on lack or, you know, missing out, because at the end of the day, that's not how we roll here at the Healthy Celiac. This is not what we focus on. We focus on adding in the goodness to push out the not so good. Okay, so it's not about deprivation, it's not about counting calories. It's about adding in the goodness so that your body naturally doesn't need the other stuff. They're, you know, the less cravings and the less hunger and the less low energy you start to feel better by eating this way. So it's incredible, it's so ridiculously simple when you really start to add these foods into your diet and you might say it's expensive, but I I challenge you to do a shop where you focus on all these foods that we've talked about in the last three episodes, rather than the package gluten free foods, and start to see a difference not only in the cost of your eating, but also in the way that you feel.

Speaker 1: 13:33

I think you'll notice a big, big difference and, like I said, if you want my support with this, that's what I am here for and you can reach out to me at any time. Just head to my website, balindawillancom, to figure out how you can work with me. There might be a program there that suits you and I would absolutely be honoured and love to support you on your journey, because it is my passion. It is what I love to do and I love helping my clients get results with their health, because it is not just about any gluten free Okay, it's not that simple. It's about adding in so much goodness into your lifestyle. So another thing I just thought of that I wanted to mention as well, when we talk about going into aging, is eating healthy. Fat can also decrease some issues that people start to notice as they get older, such as arthritis.

Speaker 1: 14:26

So don't just listen to this episode and think, yeah, that all sounds wonderful. Really start to take this on board and start to make these changes. And it doesn't have to be going home. You don't have to go all or nothing. You can just start gradually. You know you might want to just start with one meal and go right, I am going to make my nighttime meal all about how to bring all these macronutrients that the Linda spoke about and having a delicious, healthy meal and seeing how I feel.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Or you might want to do it for breakfast, or you might want to just change the way you are snacking and then gradually do a little bit more each week, just adding more, and you'll start to see that you push out those foods that you don't benefit from, because I'm all about nutrition.

Speaker 1: 15:10

I'm all about counting nutrients rather than counting calories, because life is too short to count calories, in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 15:17

I think it's um, I think it's old fashioned, to be honest, and I think that the more that we focus on our health by adding in nutrient dense food, the better you'll feel and the more you will love eating gluten free, because you're not loading yourself up on sugar laden, salt laden, bad fat laden food.

Speaker 1: 15:37

You're going to be, you know, loading yourself on delicious, healthy food and you know, like I said, if you want my support with this, this is what I do. This is what I help people transition to a healthy, gluten free diet, not a packaged gluten free diet, because there's plenty of people out there that push that and that's not the way to go. So, like I said, reach out to me at any point that you would like my support. You can also head to my Instagram. I haven't mentioned that in the series, which is the healthy Celiac spelt spelt, the same way as what it is on the podcast, and I look forward to sharing more with you next week on the show and also throughout this year, we're going to be focusing more on health and more on helping you really hone in on your goals to live a better lifestyle with Celiac disease. So thanks for tuning in and I'll talk to you soon. Take care Bye.