If your belly is not as trim as you'd like, there's a new plan that claims to fix that for you. The key: eating the right foods with each meal.
In the battle of the bulge it seems our stomachs are our biggest enemy.
"The roll that comes over your pants or your skirt," said Frances Matthews, flat belly dieter.
So what if you could get a flat stomach without a single crunch?
The Flat Belly Diet from the editors of Prevention Magazine may help get you started.
Matthews began with a four-day jump start plan to beat belly bloat. She enjoyed fruit smoothies and sassy water: a combination of mint, cucumber, lemon and fresh ginger.
For lunch she nibbled on carrots, antibiotic free turkey and string cheese. She had a similar meal for dinner.
"I was surprised I wasn't hungry but of course I wanted lots of things like when I would drive by Burger King, I wanted that," she said.
But she stuck to the plan and after just three days she saw a measurable difference: her belly was down by three inches.
Not only did she lose three inches in her waist, she dropped two pounds.
"I didn't think it would happen that fast," she said.
After the four-day jump start then you move to the flat belly diet plan. That's the one you try to do every day. The bonus is it includes chocolate, a quarter cup of dark or semi-sweet even for breakfast.
The diet also stresses eating a MUFA or mono-unsaturated fatty acid such as olive tapenade at every meal.
Other flat belly habits include aiming for 400 calories a meal and eating often - at least every four
hours.
We asked registered dietitian Lisa Richardson to review the diet.
"I think it's a good caloric level and I like the balance of nutrients. What concerns me is the claim that when you lose weight that it will be specific to the abdominal area. I'm a little nervous about making that
claim because I think a person's genetics, their hormone profile and sometimes their stress and sleep patterns can be determining their belly fat," she said.
Rihcardson says you're better off doing sit-ups to burn calories and improve posture so your stomach appears slimmer.
Frances Matthews, meantime, says she plans to continue eating MUFA foods and drinking "sassy" water. She admits because the four day plan is sot strict, it is hard to eat out when you're on the plan.
