If you want to shape up your abdomen, nutrition is of great importance. Actually, the right flat stomach diet is what makes the difference between great results and pointless efforts. The key here is knowing what, when and how to eat in order to lose belly fat, but give your body enough energy to function properly and stay healthy.
The very first thing you need to know about your diet when you plan on losing fat is you must not starve yourself. Eating less, or less often is not a solution. Even if you miraculously lose a few pounds in record time, the price you’ll pay once you start eating normally is incredibly high.
The basic idea here is that when you starve yourself your body interprets the lack of food as an emergency situations and learns to become more efficient in storing and keeping the fat (its energy supply) the first chance it gets. So you’ll notice you’ll gain quicker and lose harder than before.
So what should you eat when you want to trim your waistline? The best kinds of foods are the so called “fat burning foods”, they are high and protein and fiber and because your body uses more energy to digest protein and fiber than it does to digest fat, the more proteins and fibers you eat, the more calories your body burns. They key here is to create a calorie deficit: get your body to burn fat for energy.
Here is a list of foods you should include in your diet:
Green vegetables – spinach, peppers, broccoli, etc.
These are rich in fibers and low in calories. they contain vitamins, dietary minerals and can be eaten in variety of ways, either cooked or raw, as part of main meals and snacks.
Beans and legumes – peas, soya, lentils, etc.
These are a good source of fiber, protein and iron. Often associated with gastrointestinal disturbances, this problem can be eliminated if the beans are cooked thoroughly. Stay away from refried beans since they contain a lot of saturated fat and canned baked beans which are usually high in sugar.
Eggs
The proteins and the B12 vitamin from eggs are important for burning unwanted belly fat. You may have head that you should not eat more than a couple of eggs per day because this would put you over the recommended daily cholesterol intake. Recent studies have proven eggs are not the reason for high cholesterol (the real culprit would be dietary fat), but to stay on the safe side, you can remove the yolk and just eat the egg-whiles.
Lean meats – skinless chicken, turkey, beef, tuna, salmon, etc.
These foods are high in protein and contain good fats, making them very helpful in a weight loss program. They help deliver vitamins to your body and help produce a hormone that encourages muscle growth. Building muscles when you plan on burning fat offers the advantage that in order to support the growth of the muscles your body needs to burn more calories, so if you regulate the number of calories you take in, it’s quite simple to create a deficit and lose fat.
Low-fat dairy products – yogurt, cheese, low-fat milk, etc.
Dairy products are rich in calcium and research has shows that people who include dairy products in their diet lose up to three times more weight than people who don’t. Since calcium also plays an important part in controlling what the body does with the calories taken in, you can lose weight just by including dairy products in your regular diet. Just make sure you read the label, and chose the low-fat products!
Whole grains – wheat, oat, corn, wild and brown rice, whole grain pasta, etc.
Made from both the inside of the grain and the outer covering, whole grains are rich in fibers, vitamins and minerals. They also include micronutrients such as magnesium, vitamin E and folic acids, that are otherwise lost during processing.
Olive oil
contains oleic acid, monounsaturated fat, antioxidants such as vitamin E which offer a lot of health benefits. These “good fats” in the olive oil help you burn the fat and keep your cholesterol down. Go for the less processed olive oils, such as extra virgin and virgin.
As you can see, a flat stomach diet includes a variety of foods you can choose from and combine for your own personalized diet plan. No excesses and no starving!
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