Everyone talks about fat as the enemy but it is an essential part of your body. Trying to totally get rid of it is like trying to get rid of your muscles or bones! 

There are two types of fat in the body, essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat is needed for your brain, nerves and protecting your organs (all pretty important!). Women also have extra essential fat compared to men (stored in the breasts and around the hips) which is needed for oestrogen production! So if women lose too much fat this may disrupt the menstrual cycle and hormonal balance (something that people on extreme crash diets may complain of ).

It is important that we eat some fat (and that it is the right type) but also make sure it doesn’t exceed about 30% of our daily caloric needs and that we aren’t eating more calories (whether it is from fat, carbs or protein) than we need. Otherwise our body will start storing it as fat. Storage fat is used as an energy store and will be collected on different people in different places. Where it is stored on the body is down to peoples’ genes and can not be changed. So some people may collect more fat around their stomach, while other collect it on their hips and bum. It is this storage fat that increases if we eat more calories than we need every day.

Just remember, fat is not the enemy, like anything too much is harmful but too little can be just as bad for you! I will tell you more about good and bad fats in my next post about fat