Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, is the director of nutrition for Calorie Count, providing domain expertise on issues related to nutrition, weight loss and health. She creates original content for weekly blogs and newsletters, for the Calorie Count library, and for her popular daily Question-and-Answer section, Ask Mary. Ms. Hartley also furnishes direction for the site features and for product development.

Saturated fat was recently in the news at the Institute of Food Technologists expo when experts revealed, again, that the link between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease is inconclusive. Both the public and professionals are now confused, since diets low in fat, particularly saturated fat, have been the mainstay of scientific consensus for more than 30 years. Saturated fat, a solid fat mainly found in animal foods, includes cheese, whole milk, butter, and fatty cuts of meat. It, together with liquid poly- and mono-unsaturated fats from nuts, seeds, grains and fish, make up all naturally-occurring dietary fat.

Back in the 1970s, the American Heart Association and other authorities said to reduce all fat to 30 percent of total calories and saturated fat to 10 percent or less. The recommendation was drawn from epidemiologic studies that compared the diets among different countries, in particular, the Seven Countries Study. Those studies showed a correlation between total fat intake and rates of heart disease. That, along with the National Diet-Heart Study of the 1960s, form the basis of the message that reduction in saturated fat lowers blood cholesterol and risk of heart disease.

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She’s being called “The Fat Whisperer.” Hollywood starlets are flocking to her to shed unwanted pounds. Celebrities are claiming she can get them red-carpet ready as she uses the power of persuasion to encourage fat cells to leave the body. Who is this woman and what is she doing?

Mary Ascension Saulnier is the woman behind the “Fat Whisperer” nickname. Saulnier studied at the Santa Fe Academy of Natural Healing. She is also a Pilates instructor, a raw food chef, and now Hollywood’s new diet guru.

Saulnier runs a weight loss clinic where she has a plethora of treatments for her clients. Her services may include detox masks, teas, wraps, heated suits, or ultrasound treatments. While these are high tech and non-traditional tools in the weight loss arena, it’s the “whispering” that is really gaining notoriety.

Saulnier has a technique where she orders fat to leave a client’s body. She claims to be able to get to the emotional root of a client’s over-eating issue, listen to what emotions are in the fat cells, and then tell it how to move out of the body.

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File this one in the “goes against everything we’ve been told” file.

A recent study published in American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology suggests that a high-fat diet is OK and even beneficial for the heart. The study, which looked at cardiac function in patients suffering from heart failure, found that that a high-fat diet improved the heart’s ability to pump, along with boosting cardiac insulin resistance (which reduces the risk of diabetes). Sounds pretty different than what we’ve been told all along right? That eating too much fat is bad for the heart?

Not so fast. According to the study which was  funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Case Center for Imaging Research, all fats are not created equal. In fact, a balanced diet that includes mono- and polyunsaturated fats, and which replaces simple sugars and highly processed foods with complex carbs, are most beneficial for damaged hearts. Notice what wasn’t on that list of a healthy diet? Trans fats or saturated fats.

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Far too often people have the propensity to look for an easy way out when losing weight. While most of us lead busy lives and find it difficult to include exercise, ultimately it’s up to all of us to prioritize our health.

One example of how some people do not address the real issues associated with being heavy is through weight loss surgery. Liposuction has become the most popular plastic surgery, with more than 450,000 operations every year. While the vast majority of liposuction surgeries are done safely by highly trained physicians, there seems to be almost eerie side effect of having the procedure done.
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Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, is the director of nutrition for Calorie Count, providing domain expertise on issues related to nutrition, weight loss and health. She creates original content for weekly blogs and newsletters, for the Calorie Count library, and for her popular daily Question-and-Answer section, Ask Mary. Ms. Hartley also furnishes direction for the site features and for product development.

Calorie Count members want to know, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Here are a few of our readers’ favorite “Ask Mary” questions about the differences in dieting and weight between the sexes.

Ask Mary: Why do men lose weight more easily than women?

Compared to women, men just have higher calorie requirements. It’s easier for them to create the calorie deficit needed to lose weight. Men have high testosterone levels and testosterone makes them build muscle. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns calories. If you compare a man to a woman of the same height, weight, age, and activity level, the man will need 15 percent more calories than the woman. Coupled with a man’s tendency to be taller and bigger, it’s easy to see why men need more calories. And so when men eat less, there is a huge gap between the amount they need and they eat, which promotes quick weight loss. Women, on the other hand, have a completely different fat-to-muscle ratio with more fat to support the demands of pregnancy and lactation. Their day-to-day calorie requirements are lower and so their calorie deficit is less.

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