BlogHer Book Club: Why Women Need Fat

This is my first BlogHer Book Club review.  While pregnant, I generally try to avoid books about weight and dieting, but something about this book got the best of my curiosity.

“Why Women Need Fat” is not your typical diet book.  In fact it’s completely anti-dieting.  Basically, this book asserts that every woman is born with a pre-set “natural” weight that’s based mostly on genes and our body does everything it can to keep us at that weight.  But, the problem is, the American diet has changed a lot over the past fifty years.  Enough so that the weights most American woman would have been 40 years ago are much lower than what they are today (and are still lower in most other countries).  The kicker?  These changes in our diet were promoted as healthy changes that would prevent heart attacks at a time when an increasing number of men were suffering from coronary problems.  Unfortunately, no one looked the increasing number of smokers or that women were not having the same issues.

Turns out men and women are much different.  Though, excess weight in men can be quite harmful, it’s usually not quite as harmful in women because women need fat!  We need the fat (to a point) to have healthy strong babies.  Who would’ve thought?!

I thought this book was amazing.  It covered so much information and, yet, was easy to follow.  With every point they made, they made sure to tie it together with everything else they had already said.  If anything they went a little overboard with the repetition, but that helped prevent this pregnant mamma from getting lost.

This book also confirmed so many things I already believed.  For instance – it’s better to use real butter, sugar isn’t evil in moderation, artificial sweeteners don’t do much to help with anyone’s weight, fried foods from fast food restaurants aren’t the best choice, and low calorie diets result in a higher weight every time because our bodies go into starvation mode.  Food manufacturers have saved a lot of money by basically eliminating Omega-3 from our diet because it spoils more easily, and by increasing our intake of Omega-3 (found in “good” fats) and decreasing our intake of Omega-6 (found in hydrogenated corn oil), the battle with weight won’t be so hard.

Though I agreed with much of what this book said, I’m not sure I agree with it all.  I don’t believe it has to take a year to lose five pounds healthily and keep it off.  I believe they aren’t allowing for differences from person to person.  For instance, I lost nearly 25 lbs (15 lbs below what had been my “comfortable” weight in the past) and kept it off for a year with no problem, until I got pregnant.  In fact, I even tried to gain five pounds as an experiment and had trouble because, I believe, my body had reset it’s comfortable weight.  But then again, everyone knows yoga breaks all the rules 😉

I highly recommend this book.  You’ll not only finish it with a better understanding of how you body works, but you’ll find lots of helpful tips on how to achieve and maintain a healthy weight naturally.

Click over to the official BlogHer Book Club page to find out more about this book.  Check out the first discussion topic here: This means I get to use real butter, right?

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This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

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