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The Flat Belly Diet

The latest headline-making diet is The Flat Belly Diet. It certainly promises a lot, claiming that you can eat certain foods that will cause your belly fat to melt away. Written on the book's cover is the claim that you can lose up to 15 lbs. in 32 days, and all without a single stomach crunch.

The Flat Belly Diet sounds too good to be true, but is it? Unlike most popular diets, this one was created by people who seem credible. The diet was created by Liz Vaccariello, editor-in-chief of Prevention magazine; along with Cynthia Sass, a registered dietician with a Masters of Public Health. Sass is also nutrition director at Prevention magazine.

What Does the Flat Belly Diet Involve?

The Flat Belly Diet isn't all that different from any other diet. The creators emphasize the importance of eating lots of natural, unprocessed foods such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. They also recommend eating lean protein, like skinless chicken breasts, and little if any read meat.

So, if The Flat Belly Diet promotes eating your standard diet foods, what makes it special? The short answer is monounsaturated fat (good fats). The authors claim that eating monounsaturated fat at every meal helps to quickly burn belly fat. In the book, monounsaturated fat is referred to as MUFA or MUFAs.

You can get a generous helping of monounsaturated fats from foods such as nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, avocados, and olive, peanut, and canola oil.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, monounsaturated fats are called good fats because they improve cholesterol, stabilize heart rhythms, and ease inflammation. But can they help with weight loss, as The Flat Belly Diet claims?

The Harvard School of Public Health says that more research is needed concerning monounsaturated fats and weight loss. However, they also say that a moderate intake of fats, with an emphasis on monounsaturated fats, is beneficial for losing weight or maintaining your current weight.

So, the Flat Belly Diet may not be as magical as its creators claim, but there is some merit to the science behind it.

The Flat Belly Diet Way

When following The Flat Belly Diet, you have to limit your daily food intake to 1600 calories per day. Plus you have to eat a MUFA at every meal, and eat every four hours. According to the diet, this is enough to get rid of that stubborn belly fat.

One complaint about this diet, and one of its main selling points, is its lack of emphasis on exercise. For this diet plan, exercise is optional. But it's a fact that exercise is not only good for the body, but also plays a big role in weight loss. So it's odd that any good diet would say that exercise is optional.

It should be noted that the diet's creators do dedicate a chapter to exercise. The exercise chapter includes a 28-day exercise plan referred to as the flat belly workout. They stress that this exercise plan is optional and not necessary for losing weight, but at least they include it in the book.

The Flat Belly Diet Verdict

The Flat Belly Diet makes bold claims about losing weight without exercise. And that's not something most health specialists recommend. However, it's likely that you will lose weight with this diet, but not because monounsaturated fats cause magical weight loss. You will probably lose weight with this diet simply because it helps improve your eating habits.

The Flat Belly Diet espouses healthy eating, stress reduction, and weight control. If you can do this for an extended period of time, there's really no way to not lose weight. The diet basically serves as a guide to developing an overall healthy lifestyle. This is good for people who have a hard time adopting healthy eating habits all on their own.

People who have tried this diet either love it or hate it. There are those that swear it works well, but then there are those who say they tried it and didn't lose a pound. If you do decide to try The Flat Belly Diet, then at least you know it's a healthy diet that won't cause you any harm.