In a follow up to the HardGainer’s Guide to Protein, and HardGainer’s Guide to Carbs, this final installment will cover the dietary fats a HardGainer should be concerned with.

Fats are used by the body to manufacture hormones, lubricate the joints, and help with essential brain functions. If you don’t externally add fat to your diet your hormonal production will decrease and a whole slew of chemical reactions will be interrupted. Your body will then start accumulating and holding on to more body fat than usual so it has enough to keep functioning. When testosterone production is halted due to the elimination of fats, so is muscle building. Therefore, in order to maximize muscle building, its essential that bodybuilders add fats into their diet.

Types of Fats: There are 3 main types of fats a bodybuilder should be concerned with, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounstaturated.

• Saturated Fats: These are the fats that are commonly associated with heart disease and high cholesterol levels. There are mainly from an animal origin, and should not be taken in excessive amounts. Bodybuilders trying to cut weight should avoid saturated fats at all costs, whereas HardGainer bodybuilders that are looking to bulk up should allow for a small portion of their daily fat intake to come from saturated fats.
• Polyunsaturated Fats: These fats do not have a negative effect on cholesterol levels. These types of fats are found in vegetable and sunflower oil, corn, soybeans, and other nuts.
• Monounsaturated Fats: These fats have a positive effect on good cholesterol levels. These fats are high in essential fatty acids and antioxidant properties, and are often referred to as “healthy fats”. These types of fat are found in Fish Oils, Eggs, Olive and Canola Oil, and Flaxseed Oil. 20% of your fat intake should come from these healthy fats to ensure proper hormone production.

Timing: Due to the negative health effects of saturated fats, they should be avoided late at night when your body will tend to store them as fat while you sleep.

Your main dinner meal, which would ideally contain a whole food protein source (chicken, beef, etc..), and therefore saturated fats, should be your last meal containing these types of fat. Your small snacks after this, such as nuts and peanut butter, should be of the healthier, polyunsaturated variety. An ideal source of monounsaturated (healthy) fats for bodybuilders are fish oil capsules, or flaxseed oil, that can either be taken at once in the morning, or split into smaller doses throughout the day.

Nutritional Value: The following table lists the nutritional value of the different fat sources. These numbers will provide useful in a later post when we create a specific nutritional program to meet your bodies needs.

Saturated Fats:

Source	Saturated fat
	(grams/100 grams food)
Pork	12
Pork Sausage	9
Ground Beef	6
Chicken	4

Polyunsaturated Fats:

Source	Polyunsaturated fat
	(grams/100 grams food)
Hazelnuts	45
Pecans	40
Peanuts	26
Cashews	27
Almonds	32
Macadamia Nuts	60
Vegetable Oil	76

Monounsaturated Fats:

Source	Monounsaturated fat
	(grams/100 grams food)
Walnuts	46
Olive Oil	11
Peanut Oil	32
Avocado	12
Canola Oil	30
Flaxseed Oil	30
Fish Oil 1 Whole Egg	30 2.5

Related Articles:

• Advanced Nutrition Guidelines for HardGainers
• Basic Nutrition Guidelines For HardGainers
• HardGainer’s Diet: A Complete Meal Plan
• HardGainer’s Guide to Carbohydrates: Sources, Timing, and Nutritional Value
• HardGainer’s Guide to Protein: Sources, Timing, and Nutritional Value