So a couple of summers ago I was working with a weight loss client (we'll call her Jennifer) who wanted to lose about 20 lbs. She had a death in the family right at before the pandemic started. California was basically shut down a couple of months later and everyone was fairly isolated. The timing was horrible.

After about a year and a half Jennifer decided she needed to make a change.

We cleaned up Jennifer's diet (she was really committed) and she started losing weight almost immediately. It was really exciting for her, but then all of a sudden everything stopped. Since fat loss isn't linear, it's pretty normal for this to happen, so I wasn’t worried.

After about three weeks Jennifer said her scale hadn't really budged at all. I asked her to give me a detailed breakdown of her eating - nothing out of the ordinary. Hmmmm.

"What are your snacks like?" I asked.

"I've been having maybe like one to two tablespoons of almond butter everyday," she said.

Bingo.

I told Jennifer she should to a little experiment - take the nut butter out for a couple weeks and slightly increase her portion sizes with everything else, to account for the loss in fat from the almond butter.

Jennifer was reluctant because nut butters are incredibly delicious. I’ll admit that I had a pretty bad nut butter “problem” a couple of years ago too.

Jennifer’s experiment began and within a month she had lost about nine pounds! What? Why? How did this happen?

Today were going to learn about nuts and nut butters and why they shouldn't be apart of anyone's fat loss nutrition plan.

This is important because just like Jennifer, nuts and nut butters can prevent fat loss or lead to a fat loss plateau.

Nuts and nut butters won't just inhibit fat loss. They can actually make you fatter.

Today we're going to learn:

• How Nuts and Nut Butters Make People Fat

How Nuts and Nut Butters Make People Fat

To get an understanding of why nuts make humans fat (and actually most animals), we need to take a look at squirrels.

Squirrels love nuts, particularly acorns, right? And squirrels collect a boat load of acorns during the autumn months. They also happen to experience seasonal hyperphagia - they get wildly hungry in the fall. During this time, before the harshness of the winter comes, squirrels start to gain weight.

Acorns are actually very high in monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), particularly oleic acid. They also contain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), like linoleic acid.

The interesting thing about oleic acid is that it helps convert linoleic acid into arachadonic acid. This is particularly bad since arachadonic acid and it’s breakdown products are inflammatory and turn on other enzymes and signaling molecules that promote fat accumulation. Here’s a detailed breakdown if you’re interested:

Oleic acid ➡️ Activates PPAR alpha ➡️  ↑ Delta-6-desaturase ➡️ (Linoleic acid → Arachadonic acid) ➡️  Activation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor ➡️ ↑ PPAR alpha and ↑ Cytochrome P450 ➡️ Prostaglandins/eicosanoids ➡️ ↑ SCD-1 ➡️ ↑ Endocannabinoids which promote obesity.

On top of this, PUFAs are also a big contributor to slowing down the metabolic rate.

So this all means that the acorn’s perfect blend of monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats cause the squirrel to slow down it’s metabolic rate and fatten up for the winter months. This is critical for their survival when food becomes scarce.

Now when humans eat nuts and nut butters though, we're essentially doing the same exact thing. We're slowing our metabolic rates and increasing fat accumulation. The only difference is we have access to nuts year round and our nut supply is endless. 

And if we’re eating polyunsaturated fats on top of nuts, this is going to make fat loss even more frustrating. 

So the lesson here is that by removing 1-2 daily tablespoons of almond butter, Jennifer was able to break through a plateau. In the grand scheme of things, a three week plateau isn’t that bad, but it could have been really frustrating for her if she didn’t drop her nut butter.

Actionable Tip for the Week:

⭐️ Stop eating nuts and nut butters ⭐️

Hope you have a great Saturday! Talk to you next week.

Cheers,

Tim

PS: I take requests and suggestions. Let me know if there's anything you want me to write about or make a video about. Would love to hear from you!