Thirteen Delicious Foods To Eat For A Flatter Stomach

Does your lower back start to ache after just a few minutes of walking around?

Do you find yourself needing to take more naps?

Are your clothes starting to tighten, particularly around your stomach?

There’s no shame in admitting it: You’ve got stomach fat. Gaining stomach fat is a perfectly normal phenomenon caused by eating too many calories than your body can burn as fuel. 

While being a bit chubby or having a bit of a gut only affects the way you look, problems arise once you become obese. Many studies actually link obesity to health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, gout, and acid reflux.

Eat These Foods To Reduce Your Waistline

If you want to lose belly fat to be healthier — or so that you can fit into that cute dress again — you may have to change what you eat. The following foods have been backed by science to not only help you lose weight but also gain other health benefits.

1. Sprinkle In Some Ceylon Cinnamon

Cinnamon comes from the bark of the Cinnamomum tree and is used as a spice and flavoring agent. It’s been known to have anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer properties. 

Studies also show that Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylnicum) can actually help you lose weight. This particular type of cinnamon aids weight loss by suppressing your appetite, inducing the browning of fat, improving your insulin sensitivity, lowering your fasting blood sugar, and reducing bad cholesterol and triglycerides.  

2. Sip More Chai Tea

It’s been thought that the word “Chai” comes from Arabian, Hindustani, or Chinese origins. Chai tea (A.K.A Masala Chai) is made by brewing black tea with an assortment of aromatic Indian herbs and spices like black pepper, fennel, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and cinnamon. 

Black tea, black pepper, and fennel increases your metabolism and prevents fat accumulation. Black tea is also high in antioxidants and reduces cholesterol levels. 

Cardamom and cloves aid in your digestion while ginger helps control your blood sugar. 

3. Grill Your Chicken

There are two reasons why grilled skinless chicken breast is perfect for your diet (unless you’re a vegetarian). 

The first is that it has less calories than fried chicken with breading or skin, so you can fill up without feeling too guilty. A 3-ounce portion of grilled chicken breast (without the skin and bones) has only 102 calories. 

The second reason is that chicken breast provides a good amount of lean protein despite having less calories. Protein not only helps build muscles but it also takes longer to digest, thereby, making you feel full longer. A 3-ounce portion of chicken breast comes with 19 grams dietary protein.

4. Consume More Cucumber

Whether you consider it a fruit or a vegetable, cucumber is a perfect addition to your weight-loss diet. 

Cucumber has surprisingly low calories despite its size. One cup of sliced cucumbers only has 14 calories. That’s less than 1% of the recommended total daily caloric intake of 2000 calories. 

You can pretty much fill yourself full with cucumber and still be way below the 2000 calorie mark.

Apart from being extremely low in calories, eating cucumber comes with other health benefits in the form of vitamin K and C. 

5. Enjoy Some Dark Chocolate

Since going on a diet means you have to stay away from added sugar, it actually makes your food cravings worse — especially for sweets. Thankfully, you won’t have to suffer too much because studies show that dark chocolate actually helps weight loss.

Dark chocolate helps control your appetite and reduces your cravings when enjoyed in small quantities.

It improves your metabolism and changes how your body synthesizes fatty acids, which reduces the fats and carbohydrates that your body absorbs. Additionally, it lowers your blood pressure, improves circulation, and prevents arteriosclerosis. It also reduces insulin resistance and helps stabilize your blood sugar levels, which makes you want to eat less.

6. Try Some Green Tea

Green tea comes from unfermented tea leaves and is one of the few drinks that actually follows up on its weight-loss promises. 

Green tea has more polyphenols and antioxidants than oolong tea or black tea. These antioxidants improve your metabolism and help you control your appetite while also burning more fat. Studies found that drinking green tea twice a day helps reduce waist size. 

Just make sure your green tea is unsweetened, as the extra sugar will instead nullify whatever weight-loss benefits green tea offers. 

7. Go For The Greens

Vegetables are touted as one of the best foods for weight-loss for several reasons. 

The first and most obvious reason is that they have very few calories. You can eat a whole plate of them and feel full despite only really consuming very few calories. 

Add to that the fact that vegetables come with lots of other dietary benefits like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, catechins, and anthocyanins that help you burn fat and you’ve got a definite mainstay in your weight-loss plan. 

8. Detox With Lemon Water

Instead of reaching for some soda, go for some lemon water instead. Not only is it refreshing but can help you lose weight as well 

As with most citrus fruits, lemons are rich in vitamin C. Scientists have found that vitamin C actually improves your metabolism and fat usage while also detoxifying your body.

This means that not only will you get slimmer but you’ll also get glowing clear skin because of the detox. 

9. Eat More Legumes

It turns out legumes like beans, chickpeas, lentils, and peas can actually help you lose weight. 

After nearly two dozen trials, researchers found that eating three quarters (¾) of a cup of legumes every day can help you lose about three quarters (¾) of a pound even if in non-weight-loss diets.

Legumes (A.K.A pulses) are rich in both fiber and protein. They’re also low on the glycemic scale which means they don’t spike your blood sugars as much as processed carbohydrate sources.

As you know, fiber and protein helps you feel fuller for longer, thereby, curbing your appetite. Fiber also helps detoxify your digestive system by absorbing toxins on its way out. 

10. Drizzle In Some Olive Oil

Olive oil helps flatten your belly by making you eat less. The monounsaturated fat in olive oil also helps you break down the fat you’ve stored.

While olive oil is fat, it’s actually healthy fat. It’s packed with monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) which lowers bad cholesterol (LDL) without affecting good cholesterol (HDL). Olive oil has been touted to prevent cancer, alleviate inflammation, and helps in diabetes cases.

11. Go For Salmon

If you prefer fish more than chicken, salmon is the way to go. 

Salmon comes packed with nutrients, especially protein, that keeps you satiated for longer. It’s also rich in omega-3 fatty acids which is a good fat that helps you lose weight and protects your heart. 

A 3-ounce serving of salmon (coho or sockeye) has just 118 or 144 calories, respectively. The same 3-ounce serving also contains 40% of a person’s RDA of lean protein. Add to that the vitamin B-6, vitamin B-12, vitamin D and selenium you’re getting from either types of salmon and you’ve got another must-have for your flat-belly menu.

12. Fiber Up With Whole Grain

Whole grain simply means the grain hasn’t been refined to the point where most of its nutritional value has been stripped. Whole grain not only contains more vital nutrients but also fiber. 

Through this, whole grain helps you change your body composition. One study found that while participants taking whole grain retained their weight, they did lose fat. 

13. Satiate Your Appetite With Some Yogurt

Instead of reaching for ice cream, get yourself some full-fat yogurt instead. 

Sounds counterintuitive, right? Well, a study actually found that full-fat yogurt helps you lose weight by keeping your appetite in check. This is due to the fat, protein, and calcium that it contains. 

While gaining stomach fat is quite normal, you may want to shred some if you want to keep healthy and fit. This list of foods will help you on your first steps to a flatter stomach.

Just remember that at the end of the day the rule is “calories in vs calories out” so get these foods while keeping track of the total calories you’re consuming. 

Health by choice, not by chance.