You don’t need fat

Let’s get really controversial with this email.

If you’ve ever spoken to someone who’s keto they’ll love to say one thing. Fat is an essential macronutrient, carbs aren’t.

Well, kinda?

In the past I’ve always recommended to you 1g of fat per kg of bodyweight.

This wasn’t a bad recommendation, but we can get better. Fat is certainly essential. There’s ofc an argument to be made that even carbs are essential 🙄

You’ll know how essential carbs are for your goals because of what I’ve been teaching you.

Here’s the skinny

• There are 2 types of essential fats, EFAs, and CEFAs. No matter how hard we try, we can’t make these.

• EFAS and CEFAs are needed for cell membranes, brain health, and a little bit of everything.

• Your EFAs are Alpha-Linolenic Acid (ALA), and Linolenic Acid (LA)

  • You need 1.6g/day of ALA

  • You need 17g/day of LA

• Your CEFAs are Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA), Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA), and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA)

  • You need 1000mg/day of EPA

  • You need 1000mg/day of DHA

  • You need 5g/day of CLA

• You need ~5-10g of fat for fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed.

At the end of all that we end up with ~20g of fat.

This is a miles off of my previous recommendation of 1g of fat per kg of bodyweight, but here’s the thing.

How much effort have you actually spent to get in the essential fats?

Saturated, unsaturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, these aren’t essential. They’re just energy stores. They’re no different than carbs other than being slower to use and more energy dense.

So, what this this mean?

• First, you need no where near the amount of fat you think you do.

• Secondly, I bet you’ve never actually taken a look at your diet and questioned whether or not you’re getting enough essential fats.

• Finally, if we bring this all together, you can be healthier by getting the right fats, and also get more carbs.

So now the task for you is research, find out how to get enough of these fats.

You can grab these from whole foods, or supplements, just get them.

I’ll have an email coming out soon about some of the problems with EFA supplements, but that’ll be for later, for now here’s some places you can look to get these fats.

ALA and LA

You’ll get these primarily from seeds/nuts. Yes seed oils are not just good, but essential. 🦆

EPA and DHA

You’ll get these mainly from fatty fish, fish oil, etc.

CLA

You’ll get this from dairy, lamb, and beef.

You might have noticed I’ve been on a bit of a nutrition writing spree recently.

I usually hate nutrition but I’ve had a sprint of motivation to cover some topics, and it is kinda important.

I won’t be getting down into the nitty gritty of nutrition, this does remain a muscle growth focused newsletter, but tips and tricks to get a double whammy (become healthier whilst being in a better place to build muscle) is worth it.

Oh and if you’ve ever heard you need sat fat/cholesterol to make hormones, that’s also untrue… the body has the building blocks for those in your fat store 😬

Your Hypertrophy Hero,
Fletcher

P.S. Usually how I handle this newsletter is by writing what I’m thinking about/planning for clients and myself at the moment. If you ever have any questions, or things you want me to write about just reply to this email and I’ll cover it for you.