The Flat Belly Diet

Could it be?  A diet that targets that spare tire around my middle?  The Flat Belly Diet promises that very thing, possibly the Holy Grail of dieting.  The new book Flat Belly Diet! describes a diet that attacks the midriff while it promotes healthy eating habits.  The book promises that you will lose as much as fifteen pounds in a month, much of it from your midsection.

Written by Prevention magazine’s editor-in-chief, Liz Vaccariello and the former director of nutrition at Prevention, Cynthia Sass, the Flat Belly Diet is a starvation-free approach to reducing the bulge around the belly and improving overall eating habits.  This diet focuses on including monounsaturated fat in every meal and avoiding processed foods, especially sugar.  Monounsaturated fats are found in nuts and seeds, olives and avocados, and (my favorite) dark chocolate.  Each of the four daily meals must have some of these foods present.  This is the key, they say, to losing your belly fat.

The 28 day diet has an introductory period that they call the Jump Start.  During the Jump Start you must drink two liters of a special water concoction, made up of citrus and cucumber with some herbs and spices.  This is to get your body prepared for the diet and reduce bloating and constipation.  During the Jump Start, you can eat up to 1,400 calories a day, while sharply reducing your intake of salt, sugar, fat, processed carbohydrates and carbonated beverages.

Once you have completed the Jump Start, your 28 day diet consists of four, 400 calorie meals each day.  The book contains meals plans and recipes and recommends swapping foods in and out of the plan to meet your individual tastes, allergies and preferences.   The menus are quite specific regarding portion size, so your caloric intake is easy to track and control.   The book also contains a chapter on exercise, including specific workouts that target your abdomen.

Does the diet work?  The web is littered with people who swear by the Flat Belly Diet.  Losing fifteen pounds in a month is pretty aggressive, though.  That pencils out to burning 1,500 more calories each day than you eat, unless you consider water weight to be true weight loss.  Most people will not be able to reach that level of calorie deficit, so your results may vary.  On the other hand, many of the concepts presented in the Flat belly Diet! book are positive, healthy changes to your lifestyle.  You can lose weight and improve your nutrition with this diet without starvation or malnutrition.  The fat will come from all over your body, not just your belly, but what’s wrong with that?

This could be the diet for you.  Most people agree that dieting alone is very hard.  Get a diet buddy and share encouragement and support.  If you don’t have a friend who wants to diet with you right now, go over to WannaBuddy.com and find a diet buddy near you.

Have you tried the Flat Belly Diet?  How did it work out?  Click on the Comment button and let us know.

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