Goodbye Splenda, Hello Butter - A Book Review

made with real butter, so feel free to indulge

...in moderation of course

My best friend and I were constantly chasing off the last five pounds during college, and diet pop (sorry! that’s what we call it in Michigan!) was one of our staples.

We waited to see what was on sale bought it, in cans, by the twelve-pack; diet Pepsi, diet Coke, diet Sprite, diet Cherry 7-Up, diet Vernors, diet Cherry Coke, and more all saw themselves stacked and rotated in and out of our hall closet.

The amount we purchased wouldn’t fit in the refrigerator. Nestled next to the chilled cans of chemically enhanced beverages were other staples: fat free sour cream, fat free cheese, sugar free Jello, sugar free popsicles.

The amount of chemicals floating through our bodies was enough to keep us preserved until the ripe age of two hundred eleven, if my chemistry skills are correct. (They’re not; I don’t really think a steady diet of fake sugar will increase your life span.)

Over the years I’ve read and tried The Zone, flirted with the Atkins Diet, discussed South Beach, and had a brief dalliance with Weight Watchers, a certain number hovering in my mind as an ideal goal weight. Through much trial and error, I’ve found that the old-fashioned equation of burning more calories than you eat works best, and I have the most personal success when I’m carefully tracking calories.

Calorie counting meant I could ingest diet pop and sugar free treats, like popsicles, at will, logging few (or zero) calories for my snacks and beverages.

Reading Why Women Need Fat, by William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J.C. Gaulin Ph.D., brought to light some things I’ve heard but liked to pretend didn’t matter too much, as long as I was watching the numbers being totaled up at the end of each day. Lassek and Gaulin are talking about getting rid of processed foods (gasp! diet pop and fat free sour cream).

Reading nutrition books can be a little daunting; there’s often a lot of rhetoric, and obviously the numbers are presented in a way that makes the case the authors are promoting. (What can I say? Being married to an actuary has taught me that it’s healthy to be a little skeptical of statistics.)

Why Women Need Fat does present statistics and studies and credible evidence talking about why we’re getting fatter, despite our nation’s attempt to modify our diets into submission by vilifying different types of fat.

What I took away from the book, more than anything, is that we need to shed the chemicals and the processing from our diets. We need to eat cleaner foods and worry more about nutrients and the way they fuel our body’s needs (go omega-3 fatty acids!) Fat, in its naturally occurring forms, doesn’t necessarily lurk in corners, ready to cling onto our thighs and stomachs.

Cleaner eating (good bye fake sugar and low-fat-replaced-by-strange-filler foods) was a concept that already interested me, and Why Women Need Fat helped me better understand why it might benefit my waistline as well as my health.

What do you think? Do you use sugar substitutes or low-fat versions of food to help lose weight? Visit the BlogHer Book Club to read more about Why Women Need Fat or join the discussion about butter (mmmm, butter).

This is a sponsored post, courtesy of BlogHer and Penguin Books.  I received a copy of Why Women Need Fat to read and review and compensation for my time.  All opinions, as always, are my own.