WHAT:
This habit is about eating enough healthy fats each day (and also trying to consume a variety of healthy fats from different sources).
WHY:
Healthy fats help you get stronger, fitter, and healthier.
They help you recover faster, nourish your fatty tissues (like your brain, eyes, and cell membranes), help you absorb vitamins (like Vitamin A, D, and K), keep you kicking ass (in the gym and in the bedroom), and even help you lose fat by helping to regulate appetite and satiety hormones.
If you would like to read more in-depth about healthy fats, you can do so here.
For now, just know that we encourage a fairly balanced intake of:
- Mono-unsaturated fats (like nuts, peanuts, avocado, olives, and olive oil).
- Poly-unsaturated fats (like flax seeds, chia seeds, nuts, cold-pressed seed oils, and more protein-dense sources such as fatty fish).
- Saturated fats (like coconut and coconut oil, butter, high-fat dairy, and other more protein-dense sources such as egg yolks and fatty cuts of meat).
Each of these different fats provides unique health benefits and it’s worth putting in additional effort to ensure that you get a little bit of everything.
HOW:
Because fatty foods are very calorie-dense, we don’t need to eat a huge amount in order to get a lot of benefits.
For reference, both protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram. This means that you could be eating half the amount of fat compared to protein or carbs in grams, but still consuming more in calories.
We recommend eating 1-2 thumb-sized servings of healthy fats per meal across 2-4 meals per day.
Alternatively, simply aim for 14-24g of healthy fats per meal across 3-4 meals per day.
See the Sleekgeek Food List for recommended sources of healthy fats, such as:
- 🥥 Cold-Pressed Oils: Coconut oil, avocado oil, fish oil, flax seed oil, hemp seed oil, olive oil, walnut oil, etc.
- 🥜 Nuts (raw): Almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, walnuts, etc.
- 🌻 Seeds (raw): Sunflower seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, etc.
- 🥑 Other: Avocado, butter and ghee, coconut, non-dairy milks (coconut, almond, soy, etc), nut butters (almond, macadamia, etc), olives, peanuts, peanut butter (natural), etc.
TIPS:
✅ Pre-commit by taking some time to plan your meals ahead of time with a focus around adding in a variety of healthy fats from different sources.
✅ Stock up on healthy fats that you actually like and are willing to eat.
✅ Try making some simple swaps by substituting out some of the more refined unhealthy fats in your typical meals for healthier sources of fats.
