We’ve all heard about the dangers of high fat diets over the years. Countless doctors, dietitians, and various public figures have made it their goal to help people learn to take care of themselves. Different diets get suggested every year though as new fads rise and fall. It can make figuring out the right steps to take more than a little bewildering. The general rules for a healthy diet are typically rather simple though. Eat lots of colorful fruits and vegetables alongside plenty of dark, leafy greens while only eating meat every now and then. That’s really all it takes beyond making sure you’re eating a healthy portion of your food instead of an unhealthy one. It may be hard to figure out where you can enjoy yourself in that spectrum of diet, but one thing is for sure: we all need to ditch high fat diets. The various health risks of such diets are too great to ignore at any point in our lives.

The Expected
Heart disease is one issue that will never stop being brought up when discussions of high fat diets start. These diets rank as one of the leading causes of heart disease and tend to happen through little fault of our own. Yes, it rests entirely on our decisions, but they tend to be the ones we made for the sake of expediency rather than a conscious effort. It is easy to fall into a high fat diet when life seems to leave us few other options. After all, we have to be at that one place for a meeting and then we need to pick someone up and then we have a gathering to attend. Lists like this are so common that you were likely able to recognize the pattern in your own life. We grab what food is convenient rather than what is good for us and we pay for it later. Avoiding heart disease means swapping to a healthy diet rather than one high in fat and remembering to regularly exercise.

The Unexpected
Fewer people than doctors would like are aware of the fact that a high fat diet also has links to disrupted sleep. Various studies appear to indicate that high fat diets appear to do something that disrupts our body’s internal clock. This leads to odd patterns of waking, difficulty sleeping, and issues with staying asleep. It compounds the direct negative effects of a high fat diet in a number of ways. Insufficient sleep generally means your body will experience greater overall inflammation that will wear down its ability to care for itself. Additionally, stress levels begin to rise the longer you have difficulty sleeping. This in turn adds even more strain upon your body. Collectively they contribute to further increasing the likelihood of heart disease as well as causing you to feel worse on average than you would otherwise. You end up with less energy, less motivation, and more stress. That in turn motivates you to eat more high fat foods that tend to stimulate the reward centers of your brain and keep the cycle going.

The Visible
High fat diets, understandably, cause weight gain as well. This is one of the most obvious aspects of the diet and one of the few most of us actually notice when it is happening to us. All the fats we’re eating have to go somewhere and our body stores them away for the lean times it expects but never truly come thanks to the modern age. Your body isn’t betraying you by putting on weight. It is literally doing what it believes is the best things to keep all of you healthy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well these days and actually runs counter to our needs. This visible aspect is paired with an invisible partner though. As your apparent weight goes up, your metabolism typically begins to slow down as well. A lower metabolic rate means you’ll put on even more weight over time as your body burns less calories at rest. The only way to reverse this is with a good diet and regular exercise to build lean muscle that will return to burning calories when you’re at rest.

A high fat diet tends to be convenient and gratifying, but that’s the problem. It makes it hard to get away from a high fat diet even once you know the health risks. Many of the ill effects actually make you even more inclined towards such an unhealthy diet just to help cope with the other effects. In the end, you want to sit down with your doctor and discuss your options when it comes to working to create a healthy meal plan. Cooperating this way will help you work towards a better and healthier future.