It may seem just a bit counter-intuitive that fat could actually help weight loss. But it’s true, coconut oil enhances weight loss and I’d like to, if you’ll give me a moment, walk you through it. Let’s start by going over some of the basics that you most likely been taught in University-level biochemistry, if you took it, but may have otherwise forgotten. Fats and oils are composed of hydrophobic groups known as fatty acids. There are really two different ways to classify fatty acids. The first method is based on saturation, and is probably the one, if any, you are most familiar with. Most of you would likely be familiar with saturated or unsaturated fats and oils. The second method to classify a fat is based on size (length) of the fatty acid chain. There are SCFA (short chain fatty acids), medium chain fatty acids (MCFA), and long chain fatty acids (LCFA). Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) contain less than six carbon atoms, medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) have between six to twelve, and long chain fatty acids (LCFA) have fourteen or more carbon atoms. The reason lipids are characterized based on the length of their carbon tail is because the size of the carbon chain affects the physical and chemical properties of the lipid.
