After three years of indulgent eating (the things I do for you!) and sitting behind a desk most of my days, the time has finally come for me to make some changes to my everyday eating habits. Dieting is hard when you're a foodie, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, and as the years creep by, it only seems to get harder. I've been trying to lose some weight since the beginning of this year, and I've been making an effort to eat lower on the food chain lately, both for my general health and the environment, but it just wasn't enough - I wanted (and needed) to step it up a notch further. But how? I knew that whatever plan I came up with needed to be something that would realistically fit into my lifestyle and give me some new menu ideas.
I'd been knocking this around for a while when I came across a little pamphlet of "Flat Belly Diet" recipes on the checkstand at Henry's this past weekend. It's kind of a silly name, but the plan actually makes a lot of sense. It doesn't specifically prohibit any foods - though this comes naturally as you'll see in a minute. It requires that you eat four four hundred calorie meals per day, each including a small portion of a "MUFA" - a mono-unsaturated fatty acid. MUFAs include nuts, dark chocolate, olive oil or safflower oil, avocado or olives.* No problem, right? Not so fast! As I soon discovered, the MUFAs constitute about 100 calories of each meal, which forces you to really get the most you can out of those remaining 300 calories. That's where the choices of whole grains, lean proteins, fruits and vegetables come in. You need foods that will fill you up, give you the nutrients you need and keep your blood sugar stable for the next four hours. The promise of "you can eat chocolate!" is a little less enticing when you realize one dessert is a meal in itself.
The diet's creators at Prevention Magazine claim the MUFAs specifically target belly fat loss. I'm not sure how much of that specific claim I believe, but all of the evidence does seem to indicate that they are good for your heart and they are certainly easy to work into each meal, so until someone tells me otherwise I will believe it's a good idea to include them.
I've been doing it since Sunday. The first day was easy, but withdrawals kicked in on Monday and Tuesday - I felt sluggish and had a headache, most likely due to the absence of white sugar and flour - though I continued to eat low glycemic carbs. Today I feel great. The recipes are very appealing - portion control is a big issue though when you are limited to 400 per meal. I'm pretty good with estimating - but I'm weighing and measuring foods just to be sure.
What really grabbed me about this plan though is the recipes. They're foodie recipes, with real ingredients, appealing and not spartan at all. Best of all, they're exactly what I've been looking for -- more ideas for meals that are nutrient dense with low glycemic carbs, little to no animal fat, and lots of whole grains for bulk and added protein.
I haven't actually been cooking all that much lately - I should confess. I had Lean Cuisines twice this week for lunch, augmented with my MUFA (quarter of an avocado on a panini sandwich, extra walnuts in the butternut squash ravioli - which is NOT BAD, I must say) and I had Trader Joes Channa Masala one night with an Ezekiel tortilla and some lowfat yogurt. I've discovered the joys of Fage yogurt with honey and walnuts, dried mango and raw almonds, and I'm savoring my afternoon coffee with two chocolate covered almonds (the 73% cacao ones from Trader Joes) now more than ever.
I've riffed on some of the ideas, but I haven't specifically used any of their recipes yet - so I don't have one to tell you about today, but I'm sure I will soon. Until then, you can explore them on your own at their website and there are a lot more here on the Men's Health website. I'll let you know how it goes!
*there are more elements to the diet than this - including a formula for ginger spiked "sassy water" that I haven't tried yet. I haven't paid for any of their subscriptions or books yet - other than the pamphlet. Coincidentally though (and in the interest of full disclosure) they just happened to email me on Monday offering me a copy of their new Flat Belly Diet Cookbook - so I will be receiving that shortly. I haven't seen it yet, and I had decided to do this before it was offered to me, so this post was neither motivated or prompted by it, in case you wondered!
photo credit: Prevention Magazine
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13 comments:
Good luck with it, the only thing that works for me is keeping a food diary(www.sparkpeople.com), being honest and keeping my calories down. I always eat a ton of veggies and some fruit, which helps to bulk things up.
The diet sounds a little odd in principle, but the actual things it recommends eating seem to be a good idea.
Whether it helps you lose weight or not, 60 minutes of exercise is great every day. I think that when I was training for bike rides and doing a lot more than that, it was actually harder to lose weight.
Very interesting. I might look into this one. Sounds like the authors of this diet like the same foods I do - a definite PLUS.
I wish the best of luck to you Alice. It will take some time for you to adjust but it’s all worthwhile. It’s very hard as you say for us food bloggers to keep sensible diets.
Personally I’m very regimented during the week and the weekend is my time to splurge. I think the only reason I get away with the weekend stuff is I burn allot of calories exercising.
It’s always good to hear about diets that actually have good tasting stuff thanks for sharing, and I hope to hear about some nice results.
Good luck. I agree with you, it is tough eating the right foods during the day, especially when you are so busy with 20 other things during the day. One tool you can try is basikbox. What's really neat about basikbox is there are five pre-measured compartments for storing your food (2 cups, 1 cup,1/2 cup, 3ounce and 2tbsp.) So, you can build a really healthy lunch and snack. Check it out at Basikbox.com
Good for you Alice! Good luck to you.
In the health section of the newspaper, there was a short blurb that calories is the best way to shed some pounds. As Jennywenny said, some sort of activity is good everyday as well!
Also, I try to keep in mind that we don't gain five pounds in indulging for one meal! So treat yourselves every now and then, right?
Blessings to you and what you do!
Good luck! I'd like to continue hearing how you like the diet. One thing that's helped me eat better is getting a CSA. It forces us to eat more veggies, so we eat a lot more vegetarian meals. Meal prep is also faster because I don't have to shop, and the ingredients are always picked out for me. I get a box every 2 weeks from J.R. Organics and love it.
Have you read "French Women Don't Get Fat," yet? Changed my life. Lost 17 lbs. whilst enjoying every minute of every meal. Great for foodies and lovers of "joie de vivre."
It's the curse of being a foodie/appreciating food/blogging about food.
Good luck Alice! I hope you update the blog with status reports and maybe we can all follow along in your footsteps.
I'm a lousy dieter but this sounds interesting. I tend to go by the "eat smaller quantities of the food I love and amp up the running/yoga diet plan (which I desperately need to implement STAT after my holiday to England/Italy!) But I especially like that this appears to be geared towards foodies. Please share any good recipes you find. And good luck!
......and swim before starting your food diary.
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Ted...
Good luck! It's all about moderation (says the woman who has gained over pounds this pregnancy!)
Good luck! Prevention Magazine also makes frequent references to the FBD. I like that it's natural and incorporates a lot of variety. You will pave the way for healthy foodie living!
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