Flat Belly Diet

Does targeting one area really help weight loss?

The principle behind the Flat Belly Diet program is the belief that adding monounsaturated fats to each meal will aid in flattening the belly. The jump start phase also includes two litres of “Sassy Water” a blend of spices, herbs, citrus, and cucumber as well as eating four meals of 400 calories each for the first four days. After that you can adjust into a range from 1,200 to 2,000 calories a day with exercise encouraged but not required.

Although most of the foods on the Flat Belly diet are healthy, the addition of so many fats may hinder rather than help weight loss. I thought about it before I started. They say you can lose 32 pounds in a month, and if that is possible, it is likely to be mostly water.

In addition, if you consume 3,500 in calories from fat, you will need to exercise enough to burn off 1,640 which is not likely to be a goal one can achieve. These are all things that came to my mind as I read the Flat Belly Diet book before starting the diet.

After reading it, I still had second thoughts about it, but since I only had about ten pounds to lose, I figured I’d try it for the first month.

During the jump start phase, I lost about five pounds, which didn’t surprise me since water helps you lose weight. I felt an increase in energy, probably from the Sassy water, but I still wasn’t convinced this diet was going to work.

After all, I didn’t consume more than about 1,200 on any diet I had ever tried. As I entered into the second phase of the Flat Belly diet, I became very frustrated. I didn’t regain the five pounds I lost, but I certainly didn’t lose anything more, either.

By the end of the second week, I had only lost seven pounds including the five I lost in the diet phase. Granted, most diets encourage no more than two pounds weekly, but when someone tells you that you can lose fifteen pounds in 32 days, and you’ve only lost seven after fourteen days, you begin to suffer signs of frustration.

I was doing everything I was supposed to do, but I wasn’t losing much weight. I increased the amount of exercise I was doing, and it helped a little but not as much as I expected.

By the end of the third week, I had actually gained a couple of pounds even with the exercise, so I decided to cut back on the fats the Flat Belly Diet recommended. It was at that point I began to lose weight again and continued with that modification.

It then took me another two and a half weeks to lose the rest of the weight I wanted to lose, and I have to say I did it more on my own than with this diet since I had to make modifications.

I talked to a friend of mine afterwards who was a weight loss and fitness trainer, and she told me with the amount of fats in the diet, I was lucky I didn’t gain ten pounds.

Review by Shelly Anderson