Recently, upon the recommendation of my own intuition, I began eating more fat. I have always eschewed margarine for butter and eat full-fat yogurt and sour cream; now I don't worry about the fat in meat or cheese.
I take cream in my coffee. No cream, no coffee. I remember a friend telling me about having to break up with a man because he used skim milk in his coffee. I totally understood.
I am aging, and see my skin losing the subcutaneous fat that gives it that youthful glow. I love to practice taekwondo and am happy to be in pretty good shape, but a negative side-effect of weight-loss that I am developing a gauntness in my face. My mother-in-law has few if any wrinkles. She puts it down to healthy plumpness.
So I started thinking, what if I eat more fat? I eat well, and most of the fats I take in are from dairy, avocados, and meat. Chicken without the skin is bland; in fact I'd rather have tofu.
Fat-free and low-fat foods tend to have much higher sodium. Because fat carries the flavor, with no or less fat, they have to pump up the salt for taste. So those low-fat foods are rarely more healthy; it's really just substituting one "problem" for another.
Why did I put the word problem in quotation marks? It's because I don't think fat is a problem. And apparently the scientists now agree with me too.
Although I have linked to a good website above, I don't actually steer by what the experts say - we all know that you can drum up an expert to agree with any point of view. I trust, more than anything else, my intuition and my body. No one else has a body and life just like mine; when I listen to my heart and listen to my belly, I eat well and live richly, and I thrive.
I invite you to not eat by numbers - calories, percentages of fat, or serving size, for example. Eat from your heart, eat from your belly. Stop eating before you're full, ask if your body wants more. Drink lots of herbal tea, enjoy that bowl of ice cream, but make sure it is ice cream and not frozen dessert product.