We all know we have to follow a healthy diet to lose weight…but oh boy, do we hate diet food! Enter the world of the Flat Belly Diet where you can lose up to 15 pounds in 32 days, while eating chocolate, and wait for it….without exercise. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? We decided to investigate.
The Flat Belly Diet, a top selling diet book, was written by Liz Vaccariello, editor in chief of Prevention, along with Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, nutrition director at Prevention. We all want flat stomachs don’t we? The main focus area and title of this book is a marketer’s dream, which no doubt helped to push the sales.
When you look carefully at The Flat Belly Diet, it really boils down to nothing more than a calorie controlled Mediterranean style diet made easy. The Mediterranean diet has been proven in a number of scientific studies to promote good health and weight loss. The Flat Belly Diet may still become one the most well known diet of its sort yet, as it provides a relatively easy how-to for the Mediterranean Diet.
Another appealing feature of the diet is the energy it appears to bring with it. Calling a monounsaturated fat a MUFA almost makes it sound like a fashion accessory, rather than a food type in a diet. Add in the fact that dark chocolate counts as a MUFA and you have a thoroughly fashionable and exciting diet!
As far as scientific backing for MUFAs goes, a number of scientific studies to date demonstrated the benefits of including MUFAs into your diet, not only to protect or improve your waistline, but also to improve your general health and mental ability.
On The Flat Belly Diet program you are limited to four 400 calorie meals per day. Again, as far as diets go, this is a pretty good limit to set. Most people will lose weight safely and effectively on 1600 calories per day. Every meal must be accompanied by a MUFA. The MUFA will also help keep you satisfied for longer, and it will most definitely make the food taste less like diet food and more like real food.
You will start off by following an initial 4 day jump-start program designed to reduce bloating and prepare you mentally before you start the Flat Belly Diet. During the jump-start program you will be limited to between 1,200- to 1400-calories, and you will have to drink 2 litres of “sassy water”, a blend of water, herbs, spices, citrus and cucumber, every day. After the jump start phase you will feel less lethargic, less bloated and less constipated.
In keeping with the Mediterranean style diet the second phase (duration 28 days) focus on (aside from MUFAs) plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, seeds and lean protein. As mentioned earlier each meal is accompanied by a MUFA belonging to one of 5 groups: nuts, oils and seeds, olives, avocados and dark chocolate. Red meat is allowed on rare occasions, maybe once a month.
Aside from the book, the Flat Belly Diet also offers a dieters web-site that provides tools assistance and support. The online program allows for the customization of members’ calorie needs based on age, sex, height, weight and activity level. While the program does not require participants to exercise, it does encourage it in the interest of better weight loss and health results.
In our experience, if you lose 15 pounds in 32 days, a large percentage of this will be water weight. You may find that despite claims of huge losses, you still only lose at a rate of approximately 1-2 pounds per week, the rate generally recommended by health experts anyway. To reiterate the view expressed earlier; this is a calorie-controlled, Mediterranean-style diet plan meaning you will lose weight (all over and not necessarily just around the midsection) safely and effectively.
Still, if this diet allows you to have your chocolate and lose weight – why not just go for it?
No matter which diet or weight management plan you follow, measuring and monitoring your progress is crucial to your success. At OptimalBodyWeight.com you’ll find a free tool to help you do just that. It is jam-packed with lots of cool features and all the functionality you will ever need to help you on your diet journey.
Jo Campbell is an expert in the field of weight loss and management. She writes for OptimalBodyWeight.com. For free weight loss tools; including online weight tracking, online food diary, weight loss journal, nutritional analysis, and many more check out MyOBW.
December 31st, 2009 
stay fit guy 
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As an active mother of twins, I just don’t have the mornings to spend working out but my body and health are paramount to me. Since taking acai berry supplements and juices I’ve been able to consistently slim while exercising far less, I’m not as hungry and my skin glows. 
