This season’s diet craze is here and it’s called the Flat Belly Diet. The diet is written by Prevention magazine’s Editor in Chief Liz Vaccariello (along with Nutrition Editor Cynthia Sass). The basic idea is based around Monounsaturated Fatty Acids – MUFA for short. The Flat Belly Diet calls for a MUFA food at every meal because according to “exciting new research, MUFAs can actually help you lose weight, specifically around your middle.”

Now, I admit that I don’t like diets in general, I think the idea of dieting has become synonymous with deprivation and short term. After exploring this diet a little further, it’s the same approach as most diets except that it highlights the “scientific” discovery of MUFA’s.

Basically, you reduce calories, exercise, and keep a good attitude. Wow! Ever heard of that before? I can tell you first hand after interviewing over 100 people who have lost weight permanently (over 2 years) that they didn’t do it by dieting. They did it by changing the way they thought (you can learn how by clicking here now).

Dieting is fine to mix things up and to see how your body responds to different foods and exercises, but the first question that needs to be asked when you’re ready to lose weight is “Can I see myself eating like this long term?” If the answer is no, then keep looking for a better approach because starting and stopping diets is one of the worst things you can do to yourself physically and emotionally.

When you reduce your calories your metabolism slows down, if you follow a diet for 2-4 weeks and then go back to eating the way you did before, your body can’t burn the calories off as easily as it did. This is why some people who lose weight on diets end up gaining all the weight back, plus more. And this creates the limiting belief of “no matter what I do, I can’t keep the weight off” But in reality it should be “dieting doesn’t work long term for me, so I’m going to find a better approach.”

I’m sure this diet would work great if you followed it to the letter, but thats true for almost any diet. What really makes real permanent changes in your body is when you change from the inside out. When you begin to crave healthy food and movement. Learn how to think and feel like a thin person and the weight loss begins to happen naturally. Create a new self image for yourself, imagine what it would feel like to have that body. Attach that feeling to fruit and salads.

Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result. Expecting to permanently lose weight with diets may fall into that category. I know because I went through this myself until I discovered a better and permanent way to lose weight, which you can read about here