Why people get fat from vegetable oil page

[billp]

So, I have been thinking about vegetable oil - really seed oil, as I don't see anyone making it from carrots. I am sure it is not a new theory, but I didn't see it expressed exactly like this before. It came to me in a flash.

In the Fat Head film the director of the Weston A Price Institute talks about veg oil being readily absorbed by fat cells in your body, and this leads to a misshapen and hard fat cell, basically cellulite. And I read on this forum the body can't then metabolise it, and you are stuck with a fat cell full of veg oil until the cell dies in one to two years.

So, for people who eat vegetable oil, it really does make them fat. They eat it, it goes into a fat cell, it never comes out. So when they need it, the run out of energy. That's why they are craving sugar all the time, because while they have plenty of fat, they can't use it. We eaters of natural fats don't get that problem, because when we need the energy in our fat cell, it came from a usable source so we just burn it. That's why we can do intermittent fasts, because we have a greater proportion of usable fat.

So, if every time you ate veg oil it goes straight to your waist fat and stays there, then conventional wisdom is not wrong in that respect. Those who carefully eat no fat at all and hence no veg oil to find it much easier to stay slim than those who eat veg oil, who get fatter without getting full. It is why everyone went low fat as soon as veg oils came in, because they had to. I know, in my case, when I used to eat high fat food made from veg oil, I definitely used to put on weight. Today I don't, when I eat much more fat but all of it from animals or coconuts.

Any once you stop eating veg oil and sugar/wheat, like most people here, to begin with you will lose a lot of weight as the usable fat you made from all that sugar gets burnt off. But then weight loss stalls because you have run out of usable unneeded fat. What you will get instead is, as the useless veg-oil-fed fat cells die off, over a one to two year period you will gradually lose that useless fat, but very slowly and without getting any energy from it and without it seemingly having much to do with what you are eating or doing.

If this theory is true, no one should ever eat any veg oil, not even as a treat/cheat. Nor eat animal fat from an animal that has been fed on veg oil - I'm thinking cheap pork fat here - because that's probably just as bad for you. Every bit of veg oil is making you fatter and slowing the time period it takes to shed unusable fat as old fat cells gradually die off.

For example, in my case, before I adopted this diet I didn't eat much veg oil at all, because I didn't like it. So when I cut out the sugar and pasta I lost a lot of weight very quickly. But I ate some veg oil for years, as ingredient in processed food. Now without really doing anything I am seeing excess tummy fat gradually shrink away, having eaten this way now for seven months. I've probably shed about half of what I wanted to lose, which fits with 1/3 of my unusable fat cells have died off and been broken down and thrown away.

Interesting theory, eh?

[paleo-bunny]

Yes, it is interesting.

So, is the theory that the body treats the omega 6 fatty acids from vegetable oil essentially as a toxin, by dumping them in fat cells? I presume that only a small amount can be burned for fuel or used for other purposes, so it is any excess that winds up in fat cells?

I used to eat a fair bit of omega 6 PUFA in sunflower oil, olive oil and potato chips

[billp]

Yes, it is interesting.

So, is the theory that the body treats the omega 6 fatty acids from vegetable oil essentially as a toxin, by dumping them in fat cells? I presume that only a small amount can be burned for fuel or used for other purposes, so it is any excess that winds up in fat cells?

I used to eat a fair bit of omega 6 PUFA in sunflower oil, olive oil and potato chips

I don't really know about omega 3s and 6es. The theory is just that whatever ever is in a seed oil, being unnatural and not something our bodies know how to digest, gets put into a fat cell but can't subsequently come out again to be used for energy. Rancidity maybe? I am not speculating about how because I don't know enough about fat metabolism. For me it explains why normally eating fat does indeed make fat, but for everyone following this type of traditional diet it just doesn't, especially leading to a certain pattern of fat loss.

[Grumpycakes]

This might very well explain what is happening with me. But then I don't understand people like Jon Gabriel who lose over 200 pounds in 2 years and go right to leanness. Can you balloon up to 400 pounds without consuming excess PUFA?

And what about people who do cook with vegetable oil regularly but are lean?

[paleo-bunny]

I don't really know about omega 3s and 6es. The theory is just that whatever ever is in a seed oil, being unnatural and not something our bodies know how to digest, gets put into a fat cell but can't subsequently come out again to be used for energy. Rancidity maybe? I am not speculating about how because I don't know enough about fat metabolism. For me it explains why normally eating fat does indeed make fat, but for everyone following this type of traditional diet it just doesn't, especially leading to a certain pattern of fat loss.

OK - yes rancidity sounds plausible to me.

I've been two years on a fat loss program, and have only been eating primally for the last year, and I wasn't eating much vegetable oil in my first year of fat loss (mostly olive oil and a bit of sunflower). I don't have much, if any, cellulite now (don't like to look too closely) - I think most of it had left me about 6 months ago. Although I am still about 27 lbs heavier than I was during my twenties, my fat doesn't look nearly so dimply now. Perhaps having more muscle now improves the appearance of the fat a little too. So I seem to fit the theory rather well too.

[sbhikes]

Your theory gives me hope that maybe if I just wait a long time maybe one day I won't have a linebacker body shape and instead be lithe and lean (for the first time in my entire life, childhood included). Somehow the fact that there has never been a lean and lithe person within me blasts all that hope to shreds.

[Sabine]

Interesting indeed. I have never heard this two-year life span for fat cells. Where can I go to read more about it? This would definitely give hope for that 'stubborn' fat. I look forward to August 2013 being an exciting time for me.

[primalswan]

Your theory gives me hope that maybe if I just wait a long time maybe one day I won't have a linebacker body shape and instead be lithe and lean (for the first time in my entire life, childhood included). Somehow the fact that there has never been a lean and lithe person within me blasts all that hope to shreds.

I have a linebacker build too. At least we are short (I am 5'2") so as to not be mammoth, but still I hate it.

I have noticed a HUGE difference in my cellulite in the 7 weeks I have been primal. I am personally hoping your theory is false because I don't want to hang on to the remainder of it for a year or 2. I have served it an eviction notice and is to be out by July when I go on our anniversary trip. Want my husband to look at me on the beach and see the hot chick he married 10 years ago!

[ciep]

This doesn't make sense to me. I don't see why vegetable oils couldn't be metabolized for fuel. I've never read anything indicating that any specific fatty-acids couldn't be broken down, used, converted to something else, etc, via the usual mechanisms.

You're saying that Weston Price claims that vegetable oils can't be metabolized and therefor have to be stored? I'm skeptical. Does he back up his claim in some way?

Interested to learn more, if there's something to learn here.

[Linny]

I think I'm too new to eating PB (8 months so far) to say if I'm following the cell death theory or not. I hope it's the case because my weight loss has stalled and I've still got 20 lbs to lose to get to the high end of a healthy BMI.

I do like the sound of it and in my mind it does make sense. I've read here and there that it's specifically transfats that cause this, not necessarily veg oils, but given their ability to go rancid quickly it makes sense.