Does the Flat Belly Diet or MUFA diet work for weight loss?

A Skim Review of the Flat Belly Diet.

Welcome MUFA & Flat Belly Diet Searchers.  We have noticed a large percentage of our visits have been from people like you searching for MUFA.  So, We decided to revisit the MUFA / Flat Belly Diet.

With three questions for you:

• Are you following the Flat Belly Diet?
• What do you think of MUFA is it a fad diet or is it the next best thing since Protein Diets?
• How do you Balance MUFA vs. Calories?  Since, that’s the biggest challenge I have had.

Here’s my quick review for those of you new to the Flat Belly Diet.
Disclaimer: I have yet to complete the entire book, (I’ve only skimmed it).

Let’s review the basics of the Flat Belly Diet:

1. Have a calorie goal, they recommend 1600 calories/day
2. Eat MUFA at every meal.
3. Eat Often.
4. Manage your emotional eating.

Now:  Does the MUFA | Flat Belly Diet Really Work?

As we’ve said before at simpleweight, it does not matter what diet you are on, if you eat you less calories than you burn, then of course you will lose weight. When I wrote, Do I really eat 3790 calories a day, I learned that the average US person eats 3790 calories a day. Now, if you are a normal average person, and you go from eating 3790 calories to 1600 calories, then of course you will lose weight. So, restricting calorie intake is a key of any weight loss plan.

Now, the key for the Flat Belly Diet, is science research states by eating MUFA at every meal you will feel fuller longer and help to curb your appetite. If you are interested in the science, you can check out the British Journal of Nutrition (2003), 90:717-727 Cambridge University Press, specifically the article titled: Substitution of saturated with monounsaturated fat in a 4-week diet affects body weight and composition of overweight and obese men

Substituting dietary saturated fat with unsaturated fat, predominantly MUFA, can induce a small but significant loss of body weight and fat mass without a significant change in total energy or fat intake.

More science states that:

In conclusion, diets in which saturated fat is partially replaced by MUFA can achieve significant reductions in total and LDL-cholesterol concentrations, even when total fat and energy intakes are maintained.
Cholesterol reduction using manufactured foods high in monounsaturated fatty acids: a randomized crossover study

Okay, so you want to add MUFA to your diet, How can you do so?

Check How to add MUFA to breakfast, lunch, or dinner for weight loss?

The question as I stated above, is the challenge of balancing the 1600 calories a day with high calorie MUFA foods.

The other challenge is weight loss is both an emotional task as well as a physical task.  Physically is really the easy part:  Eat Less Food,  Exercise More.   Emotionally, weight loss is the difficult part.  With any lifestyle change, we have to very strong motivations for making the change.  The motivation to change must outweigh the difficulty in overcoming our predeliction for eating and emotional and pscychological attachment to unhealthy habits.  I’ve explored the topic of motivation many times here at simpleweight, and it can not be stated often enough.

You must think positively, manage expectations, create strong motivations, and make weight loss socially fun in order to sustain long term habitual change such as weight loss and weight management. For more information, I suggest you read:  7 steps to a positive and healthy lifestyle.

What are your motivations and how has the MUFA diet worked for you?

Your Fitness Bicycle Follows Your Habitual Inner Eye.

As my last post implied about restaurants, I was on vacation for a bit.

Upon returning from vacation, my writing time, my family time, my work productivity, my exercise habits, and my simpleweight development time have been competing for attention as demonstrated by my recent drop off in simpleweight posts. It’s amazing when one’s commitments begin to compete how people react.

• Some people buckle down, pick one thing and get right to it.
• Other people multi-task, and do little things from every piece.
• Other people become overwhelmed by the forest of projects that the tasks that are trees get lost and ultimately procrastination sets in.
• Other people trim their obligations.
• We all follow our Inner Eye trained by our Habits.

Since humans are creatures of habits, regardless of your response, all of us tend to slip in to old habits.  I know I have.  My eating quantity is up, my exercise is down, and my emotional state is directly related to that.  While reading the web as I love to do, I noticed this:

When the schedule gets squeezed, exercise and diet are the last things to cut from my daily routine.  –some commenter on some blog somewhere.

That’s a great mind-set.  Health and Fitness should be one of your top priorities.  I know I can help improve it.  In fact, I believe when you improve your diet and exercise, the rest of the commitments tend to fall in place.  It’s a balance between your passions, your fitness, and your spiritualism/science.  When one is of out whack, the rest of them follow suit.

Here’s a good analogy:  While driving a car or riding a bicycle, if you look to the right, you will start to move towards the direction you are looking.  It’s a balance.  The same came be said for our fitness habits.

If you let one of your habits veer off course, the rest of your habits will follow.  The reverse can be said.

For example, I noticed if I start exercising, I feel good, and then without thinking I start to become conscious of my eating habits.

Another example, a friend of mine and I went to a baseball game.  I ate a hot dog, and he ate a salad.  — Huh? A salad at a ball game?  Well, the backstory is the friend is highly motivated to eat healthy and exercise.  In no uncertain terms, his doctor said exercise and eat healthy.  Wow, what motivation.

Now, my friend asks, instead of how am I going to fit that run in,  how am I going to fit in everything around my running time.  The exercise time is non-negotiable.  By changing your self-questions, one changes their habits and ultimately creates the healthy balance.

Where is your inner eye looking?  How has that impacted your fitness habits?