Rick, and other low-fat thinkers,

Your metabolism has to have an intake of fat in order to begin to burn fat. If you are not taking in lots of fat the metabolism will burn lean muscle. It burns carbs first and then fat or lean muscle, whichever is available. Eating fat forces the metabolism to burn fat. When your ingested fat is burned, it will burn body fat instead of muscle. And, heaven knows, most of us don't have muscle to spare!!

That's my understanding, anyway.

Barb