The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean

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This - once I reach my maintenance!!! Can't wait

Fat keeping us feeling full longer has been repeated enough times that it's accepted as truth. In reality fat is very low in satiety.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53550/

Hmmmm. It's all over the place. Lol. But, point taken. Confused about it though.

So then is fat a low quality macronutrient?

Not by any stretch of the imagination. Fat is an essential nutrient, and is required for both hormone balance and nutrient absorption. Certain fats have also been shown to aid in things like lipid numbers even independently of weight loss (because, remember, not all fats are created equal).

I have a hypothesis regarding the perceived satiety of fat (based on my non-scientific observation of people and various diets) -- fat itself may or may not be more satiating (though my personal experience says that, at least for me, it is far more satiating than carbs; I've been known to polish off entire sleeves of Ritz crackers in a sitting, and I'm more likely to get sick before feeling "full" if I attempt to eat a salad that doesn't have a significant source of protein or fat), but the fact that it aids in the absorption of nutrients, it indirectly helps reduce nutrient-induced cravings.

I think the conversation here is conflating a few different things -- including fat in an otherwise moderate-to-high carb diet, vs reducing carb intake overall and increasing fat intake.

Go into any keto (or not-quite-keto low-carb) group and you'll pretty much universally see reports that they no longer feel the need to snack so much and that they eat less food overall, by nature. Why is that? If you just look at the macro spread, you would conclude that it's because of the fat. After all, these groups usually intake <10% carbs, a modest amount of protein (usually about 125g for the larger people), and the rest fat. For some people, that's as much as 75-80% of the calories from fat.

The reason, I think, for the reduced hunger is twofold (disregarding the "fat is satiating" idea for the moment):

1. Reducing carbs reduces the amount of movement in the level of blood sugar and insulin in the body (yes, such movement happens even in healthy individuals). Keeping this stable reduces the spike-drop cycle that often causes what most people perceive to be "hunger" (because, like many other things, the absolute value matters less than the change in value), and why the "eat every two hours" idea is so prevalent. If you don't increase your blood sugar that much to begin with, then you don't get the subsequent drop two hours later.

2. As I mentioned before, fat is essential to absorbing nutrients and regulating hormones. You need adequate fat in your diet to be able to properly absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K (cholesterol is also required in synthesizing Vitamin D, and Vitamin D is required for proper absorption and use of Calcium, and that's just the tip of the iceberg). When you can properly absorb (or create) and use the micronutrients you take in, you need less food to do it, and when your hormones are properly balanced, you don't experience the effects of a disordered system (metabolic disorder, PCOS, inflammatory disorders, etc). Quality over quantity, basically. (Note - this doesn't necessarily require getting 80% of your calories from fat, but the USDA recommendations for fat intake are arguably too low, too.)

The idea behind point 2 is that cravings (that aren't from habit or commercial influence) are signals from our body that we need something -- we get thirsty when we need water, for example. As waldo56 mentioned, you run into problems on ultra-low fat diets, because your body needs fat to function properly. When we only feed our bodies food that isn't all that great, nutritionally, we might get a little bit of the nutrients that we need, but probably not much compared to the calories we take in, so we crave more to try to fill that gap. Of course, if the food you're eating is crap with regards to micronutrients (even if it's "healthy" or "natural"), you're more likely to be driven to eat more calories than you need in an effort to get adequate micronutrients. Additionally, the people most successful on low-carb, high-fat diets tend to lean more toward whole, nutrient dense foods pretty much by default, largely because the less nutrient-dense foods will blow their carb goal out of the water more often than not.

So, back to the "high fat diet vs adding a few fats into a relatively high carb diet" thing -- waldo56 also pointed out that fat+carbs is pretty much the formula for most junk food, and it's a testament to the fact that that combination, at least, isn't satiating (though I surmise that the lack of micronutrients in most junk food also has something to do with that; I, for one, find even a high-quality ice cream made of simply cream, eggs, sugar, and cocoa (I prefer chocolate) to have a certain amount of satiety, despite it being largely just fat+carbs when it comes to macros). If you're following a low-fat diet, simply adding a little fat here and there, isn't going to amount to a whole heck of a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially if your fat intake is still to low for the body to properly do the things it needs to do with that fat, or if you're lacking certain micronutrients.

I think where you start to see a difference is when you actually replace a fair chunk of your carbs with quality fats, and don't just tack on fats to your diet like an afterthought. And this doesn't have to be keto levels of low carb, either. Studies in women with PCOS saw significant improvements in their symptoms (including testosterone levels, insulin levels, and lipids) just from going from 55% carbs to 45% carbs and increasing fat accordingly (so...about 35g or so of fewer carbs, which isn't much when you're consuming something like 250g of carbs). That's not a lot, really, but it illustrates the profound effect even small tweaks like that can have on our bodies.

I love dipping oreos in whole milk. 2% or less? The cookie doesn't even soak up the milk. Such BS.