The Flat Belly Diet Book
In case you haven’t noticed I am a diet book junkie. If you were to peak on my shelf you would see a few dozen diet books that I have purchased over the last few years. This doesn’t count the ones that I find at the library (I always look there first to save money) or the ones that are either packed away or given away. So yesterday I found myself in the diet section of Barnes and Noble and ended up buying the Flat Belly Diet by Liz Vaccariello.
This is not the first time I have heard of the Flat Belly Diet. I did give it a half hearted try when I read about it in Prevention magazine a few years ago (2008 I think). The cover on the book promises that not one single crunch is required but that isn’t why I bought the book. I do remember that I liked the foods being offered, I like that you can have up to 1600 calories a day and the diet does focus on eating healthy. This is where I also heard the term Mufas (monounsaturated fatty acids) which are supposed to help target belly fat. Mufas can be found in foods such as olives and olive oil, avocados, nuts and my favorite, dark chocolate!
There are a few things that I recall not really liking about the program. One is, you eat 4 times a day which, for someone who likes to snack is kind of difficult. Another thing is each meal is 400 calories. Now that sounds very doable except I remember struggling to eat just 400 calories at dinner. Still, if I give it a chance maybe I will be use to eating and being satisfied on less for dinner. Also, I will probably break that rule on occasion by eating a little less during the day to allow myself a bigger dinner.
Now of course I probably shouldn’t start breaking rules before I even get started. However, with any diet I think it is sometimes necessary to modify it if that is what it takes to stay on it. Back when I first joined Weight Watchers I remember that I didn’t always follow the rules exactly but I did lose. After all, I would rather break a rule once in a while then just give up.
In case anyone wonders about my candy bar diet, I think it could have worked but I was feeling a bit guilty eating all that sugar. I know that for me, I need to watch my sugar and carbohydrate intake a little better than that, meaning a 300 calorie candy bar should be an occasional treat, not something that I indulge in every day.
I will be officially starting the Flat Belly Diet on Monday, which should give me plenty of time to read the book and stock my fridge. And I haven’t weighed in lately either so I am a bit nervous to see what the scale brings. In the meantime I will try to get a few more smoothie recipes posted over the next few days.
