When it comes to food, I am like a fat kid that loves cake. One thing about me is I am a bit of a foodie, a gluttonous one at that.

Foods to lose belly fat are the kinds that are high in protein, low in fat and low in carbs. Studies have shown that increasing the intake of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy resulted in fat loss. Eating these types of food will help you accomplish the almost impossible—six-pack abs.

Source: Dietary intakes associated with successful weight loss and maintenance during the Weight Loss Maintenance Trial

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List of foods to lose belly fat for good

If you don’t have these in your pantry, it’s time to go shopping. They are all basic food items that you can buy from your local groceries. Get to shopping and fill your fridge and cupboards with these super, fat-busting, nutrient-dense foods.

Olive oil

Olive oil is my go-to oil whenever I cook. It’s the healthiest type of cooking oil on the planet. Not only has it been proven for centuries to reduce heart-related diseases but also versatile in the kitchen.

I use olive oil for frying, dressing salads, for making toum (garlic sauce). Making garlic sauce with olive oil can be bitter. For this reason, many prefer to use vegetable or canola oil.

The taste may be bitter and the color, off-white when using olive oil; the health benefits it gives is worth it.

Some may argue olive oil will degrade in the heat, losing their health benefits, and potentially harming your health. Well, these people haven’t done their research enough.

People who write for one of the biggest health sites on the web, and I quote, “To ‘incorporate’ olive oil into your daily diet, drizzle a couple of tablespoons on your salad or add it to ‘cooked’ food.”

If you think that the only way to have extra virgin olive oil is dressing salads or drizzling it on cooked food, then I suggest you read the link below.

Source: Olive oil stability under deep-frying conditions.

Don’t want to read a lot of medical science jargon? Let me summarize the study. Olive oil and vegetable oil were fried past their smoking point. The test revealed the olive oil had retained its antioxidant properties compared to the vegetable oil, even when it was heated the longest.

This is important to note because most, if not all establishments who fry food, like potato chips, or fish, they do so using cheap oils for higher profit margin—oils such as canola oil and vegetable oils that degrades in deep-frying conditions.

Olive oil is more suitable for deep-frying, but it’s not cheap and businesses will do anything to cut costs. So, if you can, stay away from deep-fried food when eating out.

How about losing belly fat? 

Relax, I will explain how this will shred your belly fat.

Other than its resilient antioxidant properties, here’s why you should use olive oil to get shredded. 

A study of 41 obese women who ingested extra virgin olive oil to lose fat, found an 80% improvement in fat loss compared to the controlled group. 

They also found that extra virgin olive oil has improved the participants’ blood pressure after 9 weeks of research.

It was concluded that olive oil should be included in any calorie deficit program.

Source: Consumption of extra virgin olive oil improves body composition and blood pressure in women with excess body fat: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

Green tea

I used to hate tea, I really did, and I am Asian—it was just bitter. Things changed when I found out more about the health benefits of drinking tea. Hopefully, you will too.

Several studies have found there is a correlation between drinking green tea and heart health. This alone should give you the reason to start drinking green tea.

Source: Inhibitory effect of Chinese green tea on endothelial cell-induced LDL oxidation.

Do you know that green tea is acknowledged to prevent cancer in Japan? While our main beverage in the western world is water, cola, or orange juice.

Moreover, green tea has been shown to reduce some types of cancer cells. Studies revealed people with cancer had added more years by drinking 10 cups of green tea per day compared to people who consumed only 3 cups a day.

Source: Cancer inhibition by green tea.

However, you don’t care for those because all you want is to lose belly fat. Well, it turns out, green tea can help with flattening your belly.

Although not significant, fat loss was recorded among participants in a study about green tea and losing weight.

Source: Can green tea preparations help with weight loss?

Avocado

One avocado packs a punch when it comes to good fats, making avocado a staple food for keto dieters. 

Keto diet is eating foods high in fat and low to no carbs. It makes sense that avocado is their number 1 food in their pantry. 

I have been on a keto diet for 3 months, and I can attest to its effectiveness in maintaining satiety for long periods.

Avocado helps you stave off hunger, maintaining your weight or reducing it.

Source: Avocado Intake, and Longitudinal Weight and Body Mass Index Changes in an Adult Cohort

Dark chocolate

I’m not talking about the 50% dark chocolate with strawberry or coconut flavor. I’m talking about at least 70% dark chocolate that will help you shred some fat in your belly. 

Dark chocolate is a high source of polyphenols and flavonoids. To which, researchers discovered it helps with weight loss by decreasing fat absorption.

The higher the percentage of cocoa, the healthier it gets. However, can you take the bitterness?

Source: Dark chocolate: an obesity paradox or a culprit for weight gain?

Try to keep the servings minimal. Although you are giving yourself many good polys and flavos, you need to account for your sugar intake. 

Just one serving of a 70% dark chocolate contains 6 grams of sugar. Although minimal, it’s easy to have more than one serving when it comes to chocolates. 

Coffee

I love a good cuppa, and the photo below summarizes how I feel with a morning coffee.

If you are a coffee lover as well as a tea drinker, then the chance of you succeeding in losing your bloated gut is good.

The high caffeine intake has a direct correlation to losing body fat and waist size. Drinking tea can help you keep off the fat you lost.

Also, drinking coffee or tea can help with fat oxidation and increases thermogenesis. Fat oxidation is your body’s ability to break down fats. Thermogenesis is when your body burns calories to create heat.

Source: Body weight loss and weight maintenance about habitual caffeine intake and green tea supplementation.

Yogurt

After assessing more than 13,000 records of studies done on yogurt, NCBI concluded yogurt is linked with a lower body mass index.

Source: Is consuming yoghurt associated with weight management outcomes? Results from a systematic review.

Also, stay away from low-fat varieties. These are mostly laden with sugar. Just have a look at the nutritional information before buying one. 

Eating sugar is not bad, eating lots of it can be: and it’s easy to go over your recommended daily intake.

Lean meats

It’s great to have abs but don’t you want to have some guns, trunks, and pecs too? 

Lean meats are high in protein that can help build your muscles. 

Having more muscle mass can help burn those fats off your belly. Lean meat is important in your diet.

Source: A high-protein diet for reducing body fat: mechanisms and possible caveats

The following are meats I consider lean:

• Chicken breast
• Fish 
• Pork loin
• Pork leg
• Top sirloin steak
• Lean ground beef

However, don’t be too strict in your fat restriction. Fat is good in moderation, but they are considerably high in calories. It’s good to count calories from the start.

After a long while, you will know how many calories a piece of pork belly contains. Provided you can remember what you had for breakfast you’ll be sweet not keeping a calorie diary. I know how tiresome they can be.

Eggs

For a long time, eggs have received a bad rap, from clogger of hearts to stinky egg farts. New studies found eggs are not the heart attack inducers they were supposed to be.

In a study to see whether eggs are effective in weight loss. NCBI put a group of people on a calorie deficit diet. One group had 2 eggs for breakfast while the other group only had bagels, 5 days a week for 8 weeks.

They found the egg group reduced body mass index by 61% greater than the bagel group.

The egg group also resulted in a 34% greater waist reduction, 65% greater weight loss, and a 16% reduction in body fat. There was no change in numbers for all types of cholesterol.

It was concluded, eggs are a great inclusion when on a low-calorie diet. It improves satiety.

I have introduced eggs into my diet when trying to lose weight. I found I feel fuller longer from eating 2 eggs with a small serving of rice (low carb diet) compared to a big bowl of oats. 

Source: Egg breakfast enhances weight loss.

Oats

Although you won’t feel full longer compared to eggs, oats are great for reducing visceral fats, the most dangerous fats of them all. 

In a study to find the effects of oats in weight loss, they found that eating oats can reduce visceral fats as much as 30%.

Source: Oat consumption reduced intestinal fat deposition and improved health span in Caenorhabditis elegans model

Oats are also a great way to reduce cholesterol as several studies have shown its LDL lowering prowess. 

Do note, discontinuing oats may regress your progress.

Diet plan for breakfast to destroy belly fat

There are many ways you can devise a diet plan. I can tell you what mine looks like so you can get an idea of the type of food I eat to reduce my stomach fat.

I will write down the type of food I eat for breakfast because I think it is the most important meal of the day.

The most important meal of the day comes down to your lifestyle and work. 

If you work in the day, then you’ll need some energy to start you on a great high in the morning and power through until your next meal.

Now, if you do shift work, then the most important meal for you is before you start work. That could be dinner or lunch.

If you are like me who juggles 3 jobs and a baby, you’ll want something to prepare quick.

I love simple and easy to make recipes that you can make within 30, 15, 10 or even 5  minutes. So that is what you’ll get in this diet plan. Simple, quick and delish.

Breakfast

• Onion omelet
• Tomato omelet
• Avocado and egg

Onion omelet

Quite easy to do. All you need is 15 minutes tops. Before you start, it’s important to use a non-stick pan for this. 

Unless your cast iron pan is really old and well seasoned that eggs slide off easily after cooking, then, by all means, use your cast iron pan.

I have a cast-iron pan but it’s not well seasoned, hence a non-stick pan makes a better omelet for me.

Ingredients:

1. Half an onion
2. 2 eggs
3. Salt
4. Extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

1. Heat up a frying pan and add extra virgin olive oil. 
2. While your frying pan and oil are heating up, you can start beating 2 eggs in a bowl.
3. Add 2 pinches of salt in the bowl of eggs.
4. Cut up 1 onion in squares.

Cooking:

1. Your pan should be hot and ready by now so add your onions to the pan.
2. Stir it around to open and break up the onions.
3. Once you see the onions get translucent, clear and shiny take it off the pan and transfer it into a bowl. Depending on your taste buds, you can cook the onions longer to be sweeter. I like mine a little bit pungent, so I take it off the pan earlier.
4. Put some more oil into the pan.
5.  Add the eggs you beat up with love into the pan.
6. Swirl the eggs around. Every time the bottoms cooks, use your spatula to break through the eggs so the top part gets cooked too. Keep doing this until you see a creamy texture of the egg, not runny. 
7. Add the cooked onions in the middle of the omelet.
8. Raise the pan so the eggs slide to one side. 
9. Using your spatula, take the side closest to you and flip it so it covers the onions.
10. Do the same for the other side of the omelet.

The only way to make an omelet is the French style of omelet, which is creamy in the middle. It will take practice to do and every time, it will not be perfect.

Tomato omelet

Basically the same as the onion omelet, but tomatoes.

Avocado on toast

Simple and delicious, you can have a great brekky in 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

1. Avocado (duh)
2. 1 slice of wholemeal bread

Preparation:

1. Cut the avocado in half and take out the buttery insides.
2. Put one slice of bread in the toaster.

Make:

1. Mash the avocado.
2. Once the slice of bread is toasty, put it onto a plate.
3. Smear the avocado you’ve mashed earlier on.
4. Take a bite and smile.

Conclusion

These foods are readily available in your local groceries so there shouldn’t be any reasons not to have them.

Get in your car, better yet, put on your shoes and walk to the shops with your grocery trolley and do some shopping.

Make these simple changes in your lifestyle, and you will significantly receive the benefits of these power foods.

Before you know it, you’ll be wanting to take off your shirt, all the time!

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