Everyone is looking for that magic bullet that will effortlessly transform their bodies into a Greek God Or Goddess form.
The comparison is apropos as this magic bullet, were it to exist, would most likely kill you.
There are no magic bullets, no big red buttons you can push. However, there are some things that can help you tremendously.
You know how sinical and untrusting of diets we are, and for good reason, most of them stink.
So, this might come as a surprise to you. This diet, if used properly, can be both healthy and help you lose some of that weight you’d like to drop.
Is this the ultimate diet? No, but it is getting closer and a huge step in the right direction from all the other diets we have covered.
But first, let’s get this out of the way, shall we?
Disclaimer: The following is for educational purposes only. We are not advocating a change in dietary, health, or exercise protocols. Please seek the advice or council of your nutritionally educated health care practitioner before engaging in any dietary or exercise changes.
Is the Ultra-Low-Fat Diet good, bad, or ugly?
We think it’s pretty good. So, read on to see how good it is and what its weaknesses are.
The information below is truly valuable to anyone looking to lose weight, no matter what diet you might end up on.
What Is The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet?
If done correctly, it will focus on carbohydrates as the energy source and just enough protein to accomplish your goals, whether you want to maintain or increase muscle mass. It will limit the amount of fat in the diet to as little as possible, so basically abstaining from meat, eggs, and dairy.
To do this right, your volume of complex carbohydrates will make up the biggest portion of your total daily calories by a long shot. If you do eat any animal protein, it will need to be in the form of egg whites cooked with no oil or wild game that is super lean, like venison or bison. You might be able to get away with a single piece of salmon each week to get the essential fatty acids that it contains to help with your skin, hormone production, and other needs, but that’s about it.
This diet is based on the fact that very few sources of foods that are readily available in nature that you could consume in quantity have any real appreciable levels of fat in them that you would then combine with carbohydrates.
Yes, we know that your mind might immediately go to avocados, nuts, and seeds. However, here is what you need to know.
The Mesoamerican tribes of Mexico began cultivating the avocado plant about 5,000 years ago in a very small region of the world. The original plant was a bush, not a tree, and the fruit didn’t look anything like it does today. It was mostly seeded with very little fruit flesh to eat.
They opened them and scraped the thin layer of fruit flesh off the rough skin with their teeth. You would have had to eat dozens of them to get what you get from one avocado today.
It’s only been in the last 60 years or so that they have become the fat-rich, plump fruit that we know today through extensive manipulation and cross-breeding.
They were only grown in a small region in Mexico, so most of the world had never even heard of them before.
With nuts and seeds.
Unless you were the chieftain or an important member of society, you would have had to crack each nut open yourself with very crude tools such as one flat rock and one pounding rock.
It took quite a bit of labor to get at the tasty morsels and they were not the nuts and seeds of today. No, those have been bred over the years to become the massive oil-rich foods they are now.
Just 100 years ago, the average almond was about one-fifth to one-fourth the size it is today. Virtually the same path holds for the walnut and pecan as well. The sunflowers were wild, with tiny little seeds barely worth the trouble, and they didn’t have these massive seed heads either. Most, at best, were 3 inches across, not 2 feet like many you see today.
Many things were different. Modern cows didn’t exist, chickens were a small fraction of the size they are today, and their eggs were tiny too, not too much bigger than grouse eggs today.
You’d have to eat 5 or 6 chicken eggs on those days to get the same calories and fat that just one egg has today.
And that was only if you were lucky enough to have chickens, which most people did not.
So, our forefathers ate far less fat than we do today; far, far less. And we pay the price for it. All the animal fat we eat now is killing us with all the cardiovascular diseases and the like.
What do you think about cases of erectile dysfunction? It’s a vein too. So, as your arteries clog, it does as well, and boom, no more boom, boom.
You don’t even need a science paper to tell you that. Just look at what Viagra and Cialis are. They are vasodilators. They open up and soften arteries so that you can get proper blood flow, which that organ is dependent on.
As you’re going to see, there are numerous benefits to cutting out all the unnatural fats that you have in your diet now. They were never there before and should not be there now.
What Results Can You Get On The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet?
That depends on what kind of results you’re looking for.
If you’re looking for health results, that’s one thing. If it’s weight loss results you’re after, that’s a bit different too, and those goals don’t always align.
Health Results: Because the diet automatically necessitates eating more fruits and vegetables, you’re, of course, going to get in more fiber, antioxidants, and phytochemicals that all play key roles in health. We won’t go over them individually here as they are all quite well documented.
Weight Loss Results: Because you can stay on this diet long-term, for the rest of your life you can continually make adjustments to move your weight up or down.
You’ll find it super easy to get full and feel satisfied on this diet because you can eat 5-pound salads every night with homemade dressings that are super low fat and contain very little sugar, mostly complex carbohydrates.
The reason this is such an advantage is that you get to eat such fibrous food volume that you’re able to get all your vitamins and minerals just from your diet without having to supplement, except for Vitamin B12, which is difficult to get no matter what diet you’re on.
As for your protein, just eating the monstrous amount of food you have to eat to get enough calories will get you all the protein you need according to the RDI.
If you’re an athlete or a bodybuilder, the best way for you to get your extra protein in is with a hemp seed protein powder. It is quite likely the best protein around for building muscles while not causing inflammation. One thing is for sure, you want to limit inflammation as much as possible no matter what diet you’re on.
What Kind Of Foods Can You Eat On The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet?
There are so many foods to eat that you’re going to be spoiled for choices.
One of the reasons this diet works so well is that you have so many different foods to eat that it can be a bit overwhelming. There is no deprivation on this diet. Diets that deprive people of really tasty foods don’t last that long, they just can’t.
Here are just a few examples.
Because you can eat such a wide variety of plant foods, you can have a green smoothie with extra protein in it for breakfast, a huge fruit plate for lunch along with some sprouted lentils, or a protein shake for extra protein. Choose lentils or other whole food protein sources whenever you can.
Then, you can have an enormous salad at night with homemade citrus tangerine and lime dressing. Or if you prefer, green goddess dressing made with chia seeds as the thickener. There are tons of recipes on YouTube on channels like Kristina Fully Raw and others where she shows you how to make incredible raw food vegan dressings that taste incredible.
One of the things I’d like to caution you about with this type of diet is eating white potatoes.
You may be tempted to eat plates full of them, but this is not a good idea. White potatoes raise blood glucose levels too dramatically and this causes huge insulin releases that then cause blood sugar crashes as the insulin removes the sugars from the blood too rapidly, storing the excess calories as fat.
This is also not the best thing to do because you can easily trigger diabetic reactions, which if repeated over and over can then cause the onset of diabetes itself. It’s not something you want to have to happen.
Plus, because they are so calorically dense, you then don’t get in the needed amounts of other more nutritious foods and could end up with nutrient deficiencies.
You should be able to eat baked yams (sweet potatoes) on occasion, but not as a staple because you won’t get those other nutrients. However, they have not been shown to raise blood glucose levels the way white potatoes do.
One thing When we say “white potatoes,” we mean the color of the potato flesh, not the skin. The skin can be red, purple, or brown, it makes no difference. What we are referring to is, if you remove the skin, what color is the body of the potato?
What’s The Difference Between The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet & Keto?
The two are polar opposites. One is low carb – keto, and the other is high carb by design.
Is The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet A Good Diet For Bodybuilding?
Yes. It can be quite good. The reason being that you can always supplement with fish oil concentrates of omega 3 fatty acids to ensure your hormone production is as spot on as possible. Which allows you to remain as fat free over and above the supplements as possible.
This gives you more caloric room to consume complex carbs which are the preferred fuel for your grueling weight training sessions.
Is The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet Healthy?
Yes. In fact, it’s one of the healthiest diets around. A diet that allows for copious amounts of greens, fruits and vegetables is going to be far preferred over on that limits them. This diet is quite anti-inflammatory in nature as you can construct it to contain virtually no pro-inflammatory foods at all.
The same cannot be said for most other diets as most are inflammatory by their very design.
Without all these fruits and vegetables, you’re simply not going to meet your nutritional needs. You’ll be deficient in one or possibly many vitamins, minerals or other co-factors.
Is The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet Sustainable Long Term?
Yes, like the vegan diet we spoke of in another article on our site about the vegan diet and this diet are the only two that could be sustained long term.
That’s one of the judging criteria we use around here. If you can’t stay on your diet long term, then you are sure to rebound and put that weight back on plus a few more pounds for good measure.
Any diet that you can only tolerate for a few weeks to a couple months is not something you should even consider, they are rubbish.
Can You Drink Diet Soda On The Ultra-Low-Fat Diet?
No, you should not. They stimulate the taste buds which in turn signal other receptors that trigger the body’s fat storage capacity because the bulbus sensory glands in your mouth, your taste buds) have detected the sugar. That’s all they know how to do and when you give them instructions, they go all the way.
Sources
1.https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/act.1996.2.298?journalCode=act
2.https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003640/abstract
3. https://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2115/75488
4. https://cdn.mdedge.com/files/s3fs-public/issues/articles/71127_main_2.pdf
7. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08901171211016191c