New Diet: Flat Belly Diet

So, if you’re a loyal reader (hi ma!), you know that I have been bored out of my skull, and I’ve been looking for something new to obsess over.

I decided that this was as good time as any to go on a diet. Now, it can’t be just any diet. The problem with most of them is that they are so “you create your own plan” that I can’t keep enough interest in making the effort to create my own meals. I needed a plan that would just freaking tell me WHAT to eat and WHEN.

And I have found it…

The diet is called the Flat Belly Diet. The SOLE reason I picked this diet out is because it has a solid Breakfast-Lunch-Snack-Dinner plan in a book that is just 150 pages long. It’s a neat guide to WHAT to eat. All the other books I checked out were way too big, and required way too much thinking on my part.

Diet Description

Name: Flat Belly Diet
Creator: Liz Vaccariello, Editor-in-Chief of Prevention Magazine
Promise: To flatten your belly (no workout required), and to improve your heart-disease risk markers (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc)
Science: Eat 1,600 calories per day (which is less than your average non-dieting person, hence, reducing your calorie intake). Include a food that contains mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) in every meal. This type of fat allegedly prevents the accumulation of belly fat.
The Diet: Eat every 4 hours: Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. The first four days are called the “Jumpstart” and must be followed to the letter. Its intention is to de-bloat you by concentrating on foods that don’t make you bloat (therefore, certain fruits and vegetables are excluded during these 4 days). The next 28 days are more flexible and varied in what you can have. The pocket guide to the diet has an entire list of substitutes in case you don’t like a particular thing.

So, here we are. Day -1 of the diet (I’m starting tomorrow).

Day -1

So, what do I have to do to prepare? First of all, if we are going to measure success, we might as well start with some actual measurements, otherwise known as a baseline.

Waist: 28 inches*
Hip: 37.5 inches*
Weight: 117.8lbs*

*save your eye-rolling. I know I don’t need to lose weight, and if you have these measurements, you don’t have to either!!! I’d like to refer you to the very first sentence of this post, which states the reason why I’m doing this in the first place: boredom!

In addition to flattening your belly, the diet also claims to improve cholesterol… so I went to get my blood drawn today and we’ll know my cholesterol baseline in a few days. We are doing this, bitches!!!

Next I had to make something called “Sassy Water.” You’re supposed to drink this with every meal during the first 4 days. I’m not sure of the nutritional value, but the book says it soothes your GI tract. I’ll take their word for it. Here’s what’s in it:

2 liters water (about 8 ½ cups)
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 medium cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
1 medium lemon, thinly sliced
12 small spearmint leaves.

You’re supposed to mix the ingredients and let them hang out overnight, then drink the whole thing by the end of each day. If you stick with 8 ounces per meal, you’ll accomplish this seemingly impossible task. Or so I keep telling myself.

I bought the ingredients today and made it at work. After all, 3 of 4 of those servings are going to be had while I’m in the office. It definitely made for interesting conversation in the breakroom… and got some stares, too.

Anyways, Sassy Water, DONE! I got stuff to do tonight, so I have no idea at what time I’ll be going out shopping for the rest of the groceries… don’t you love new self-imposed sources of stress?

I’ll chronicle my journey here, under the Category “Food and Diet.” As for the meals I prepare, I might review them in my Ina Kitchen blog.

Enjoy!

ina