Flat Belly Diet!

Overall, the book is easy to read but seems a little preachy. The basic idea is to eat 4 400 calorie meals every day and have a monunsaturated fat (MUFA) at every meal. You start with a 4 day anti bloat menu, which is only 1200 calories. I lost 4 pounds in the first week starting with the anti bloat diet. I didn’t feel any less bloated, but I also didn’t feel bloated to begin with, so there’s that. I also started this after eating Christmas cookies all day long for two weeks, so I’m sure the dra

Overall, the book is easy to read but seems a little preachy. The basic idea is to eat 4 400 calorie meals every day and have a monunsaturated fat (MUFA) at every meal. You start with a 4 day anti bloat menu, which is only 1200 calories. I lost 4 pounds in the first week starting with the anti bloat diet. I didn’t feel any less bloated, but I also didn’t feel bloated to begin with, so there’s that. I also started this after eating Christmas cookies all day long for two weeks, so I’m sure the dramatic loss has something to do with no more cookies. Anyway…

There are success stories throughout the book, which I found extremely lame and not inspiring at all. This is written by Prevention, which I consider a “mature” magazine. If you are 50 and overweight, maybe the success stories will be inspiring to you. But to me losing 6 pounds and still looking fat is not really success. To me, it looked like the women did not lose any weight at all but were put in belly-flattening corsets/tops and then all given heels and a happy face as their after photo.

The concept of having a MUFA at every meal is based on very little scientific fact. But in actuality, eating these things (nuts/seeds, olives, oils, avocado) are good for you and have proved for me to be very filling (although high in calories).

The book repeats itself a lot. The basic idea of the diet is repeated twice through, which I found annoying. It’s not like I already forgot what it said by the end of the book.

The recipes are broken into two parts, which I found confusing. There are quick and easy recipes listed first, which all have a ton of specific brands that I can never find (and makes me feel like they were endorsed). Then there are actual recipes listed afterward that actually take time to make, not just assemble. The “recipes” are interesting. Anything with pasta has 1/4 cup of pasta as a serving. That’s like 8 pieces of penne pasta. I stopped making anything pasta related because that’s just lame to have that little of pasta. Some of the recipes are really good though.

Something that bothered me is that they say exercise is optional. Of course, “abs are made in the kitchen.” But I don’t ever see exercise as optional. They offer two extremely basic workout routines and suggest walking for cardio. Nothing exciting to see there. Again, if you are 50 and have never worked out, that would be appropriate. As a 20-something who has done Insanity before, not going to work for me. Working out will get you results faster, but they didn’t seem to put any emphasis on that. I am surprised considering the age range of Prevention readers, who probably have slower metabolisms. But whatever.

Overall, there is basic calorie counting involved as well as trying to clean up your diet with limited processed foods (or at least better quality ones), lots of water, and MUFAs. Is this a recipe for having a flat belly? I honestly don’t think so; you can’t spot reduce fat. But I do think it’s a general step in the right direction for healthy eating period. This was better than I expected and had decent takeaways that I didn’t realize I would get. Worth a shot if you want to try it. I would not expect a flat belly from it but expect general weight loss.

…more