The fat inside you: if you think fat makes you ugly on the outside, find out what it does to your insides—then follow our simple advice on how to banish it from your diet

Men's Fitness, March, 2002 by Matt Fitzgerald

What the Joker, the Penguin and the Riddler were to Gotham City, saturated fats are to your body. There s seemingly no end to their destructive schemes. Indeed, they and their wicked cousins, the trans fats, are linked to so many diseases and conditions, it's hard not to attribute an evil intelligence to them. So peruse the full extent of the havoc bad fats can wreak on your body. After you've had a frightening eyeful, turn the page and discover where saturated and trans fats hide, and how to escape their deadly reach.

PANCREAS

Another indirect effect of eating too much bad fat is adult-onset diabetes. Carrying large amounts of body fat has been linked to insulin resistance, a forerunner of diabetes in those who have a genetic predisposition toward the disease. Research conducted at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health showed that substituting unsaturated vegetable fats for saturated fats significantly decreased the risk for diabetes.

GENITALS

Any bodily function that depends on normal blood flow can be disrupted by the abnormal blood flow that results from buildup in the arteries. One such function is penile erection. Ever try to play hoops with an underinflated ball? Women can't do it either. The arteries supplying blood to the penis are some of the smallest in the body. These may be the first vessels that clog up, and are harbingers of more severe problems.

BRAIN

Research conducted at the University of Toronto has shown that eating too much saturated fat slows you mentally. It inhibits the supply of glucose--needed for cognitive function land memory--to the brain, causing the brain to age prematurely. People whose diets are high in saturated fats are also at higher risk for stroke and Alzheimer's disease.

EYES

A study published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine irrefutably links saturated fats to hypertension, a.k.a, high blood pressure. Over time, this condition can result in a host of secondary problems, such as retina damage, vision loss, even TIAs, short for transient ischemic attacks, mini-strokes that prefigure a big one.

HEART

More than a million Americans a year suffer heart attacks, the vast majority occurring in people with coronary artery disease, in which fat and cholesterol deposits block arteries that supply blood to the heart.

BELLY

Eating too many calories of any kind will lead to weight gain in the form of stored fat, but nothing turns into blubber as swiftly as saturated and trans fats. Due largely to an overabundance of these pernicious fats in the average American's diet, more than half of U.S. adults are overweight.

ARTERY

Atherosclerosis, a major risk factor for heart attack, is characterized by hardening and thickening of the arteries. It develops when saturated fats accumulate on the arteries' inner walls. This leads not only to heart disease, but also to peripheral vascular disease, most notably in the lower extremities.

DON'T WAIT--DESATURATE!

For some of us, hell is a place with no Pringles. Over the years, thousands of scientific studies have exposed the dangers of saturated fats, but expunging them from your diet can be difficult. Just recently, information published in the International Journal of Epidemiology showed that cutting saturated fat intake from 15 percent of total calories to 10 percent could contribute to a 25 percent decrease in mortality rates. Nutrition consultants, such as Susan Dopart, R.D., of Santa Monica, Calif., specialize in making dodging fat easier by teaching their clients tips that make a big difference. Following are 12 of Dopart's standbys.

Don't get too hungry. The hungrier we allow ourselves to become, the Tattler and junkier our food choices tend to be. Dopart uses a 0-to-10 "fullness" scale--10 being post-Thanksgiving dinner stuffed. She advises clients to eat when they drop down to about a 2, then to stop eating when they're back up to 6 or 7. Also, eating smaller meals more often, up to six meals a day, helps control hunger and appetite.

Master the menu, You know where the bad fats are, so if you don't want them, don't order them. And don't be afraid to ask your server about ingredients or to request special modifications.

Replace bad fats with good fats. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are "good" fats. Their virtues include sending testosterone into your blood and taking cholesterol out of it. They're found in such foods as fish, nuts, avocado and certain oils (especially olive). If you replace two weekly helpings of red meat with servings of fish, and a daily bag of chips with a daily handful of peanuts, you've already made a great stride toward desaturation.

Cheat once a week. Instead of warring with yourself at every meal--should I eat the deep-flied bacon-wrapped sirloin?--plan a weekly cheat meal at which you're free to eat whatever you want, sans guilt. With this to look forward to, it'll be easier to put off temptation at other meals.

Read labels wisely. Many guys still look at the "total fat" figure on ingredients labels. Ignore this and look instead at the "saturated fat" number--the lower the better. Note that companies are not yet required to list grams of trans fats, so look for, and avoid, "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" among the ingredients.