Health tips: Avoid Unhealthy Fats

Not all fat is bad for you. Good fats found in foods such as fatty fish, nuts and flaxseeds are essential to your health and ability to lose weight. But when it comes to bad fats, such as saturated fat, it’s important to understand what types of food they hide in, so you can avoid them. High amounts of saturated fats are found in animal products such as beef, milk, cheese, lunch meat, butter and bacon. You can avoid these fats – and continue to eat animal products – with these adjustments to your diet: 1. Choose lower-fat options. These include white-meat chicken and turkey (without the skin) and reduced- fat dairy products. If you eat a lot of red meat, look for the lowest-fat options, such as ground round or sirloin, sirloin steaks, reduced-fat lunch meat, reduced- fat bacon and ham. I also recommend soy versions of traditional meat – they taste great and are much lower in fat. 2. Watch your portion sizes. An appropriate serving of meat is 3-5 ounces – not the 12-ounce prime rib found on restaurant menus. Choose a 3- ounce serving if you weigh less than 150 pounds or a 5-ounce serving if you weigh more than 150 pounds. This equates to roughly the size of one or two decks of cards.