The Monounsaturated Diet: Add High-Fat Foods to Your Diet and Lose Belly Fat

The February 2008 issue of Prevention magazine features a success story of four middle-aged women who lost 14 inches of belly fat using a diet that included a high, monounsaturated-fat food at every meal. A diet that asks you to actually eat more fat? Yes. Here is how the monounsaturated fat diet works.

Recent research shows that diets rich in monounsaturated fat actually reduce the fat stored in the belly, the riskiest place to carry extra fat. The study which was published in the July 2007 issue of Diabetes Care, showed that dieters lost belly fat when placed on this high, monounsaturated-fat diet without any additional exercise and without cutting any additional calories.

Monounsaturated fats are found in what have long been known to be the "healthy fat" foods. These high, monounsaturated-fat foods include nuts, oils such as olive and canola, and avocados. Monounsaturated fats have been shown to control type 2 diabetes, reduce the risk of heart disease, lower "bad" cholesterol levels, and now may even help you to lose inches around your midsection.

In order to reap the benefits of the monounsaturated-fat diet, you must eat a monounsaturated-rich food with each meal. You must also still count calories. This diet certainly isn't a free for all when it comes to eating. You are adding monounsaturated fats into a regular calorie counting plan and just hoping to reap the added benefit of losing extra fat around the belly. Most women should eat three meals a day of about 400 calories each, and consume two snacks of 200 calories each for a total of 1600 calories.