What is the best diet to lose belly fat? Nutritionist take. "There are a ton of nutrients and vitamins like A and C" Slayton says. "But when you do a regimen that's mostly liquid, you must have a post-cleanse plan. It won't be beneficial if you just go back to your old eating habits." Her tip: For lunches try going vegan--all plant-based foods and no dairy or animal products.
The Cooler Cleanse
The meal plan? Healthy beverages, delivered right to your door
Celebrity fan SALMA HAYEK PINAULT co-founded the company (Coolercleanse.com), which delivers across the country.
The skinny. Offering three - or five-day delivery belly fat diet plan with six daily juices, including coconut water; the Essential Red, made with beets, carrots, apple and lemon; and the Essential Green, made from seven different green veggies. Each day's juices have about 1,200 calories: "We're not about deprivation," says co-founder Eric Helms. Solid food isn't part of the program, in order to eliminate the demands that digestion puts on the body. "People do lose weight, but the main benefit is detoxifying your system," says Helms.
Easiest part Having your day's lineup of sustenance prepared and ready to go.
Wicked hard It is only liquid. Even cucumber slices are off-limits.
Yummy food Technically, the almond-nut milk isn't a food, but it's still tasty--almost like a milk shake.
Tester feedback "At first it was easy, but on Day 2, I felt cranky," says Gloria Bang, deputy art director at InStyle. "By Day 3 all was forgiven because I fit into pants that had been too tight. Now I'm a changed woman: I pack my lunch, eat tons of fruits and vegetables, and I'm still off caffeine."
Nutritionist take Slayton says a juice cleanse is a good short-term diet, but you may feel hungry: "Only a handful of people will feel full from just liquids." Still, the mixtures are loaded with vitamins. "If you've made juice, you know how much produce is concentrated in a cup," she says.
Detox Dont's
Not all cleanses are created equal. Despite the healthy advances in some juice- and food-based best belly fat diet programs, others aren't the most sensible way to lose weight. For instance, the weeks-long lemonade-based cleanses--which involve drinking a version of the beverage with cayenne pepper sweetened with maple syrup--can trigger weight loss, but the low-calorie plan is so severe, "you gain the pounds right back when you start eating food again," says Slayton. "It's essentially a starvation diet." And pill-based cleanse reduce belly fat diet programs--especially those that don't even require you to change the way you eat--"tend to be mostly caffeine, diuretics and laxatives," she says. "Just read the label--it's all uppers." If you want to de-bloat, Slayton says the healthiest way to do so is by eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and "drinking dandelion-root tea, a natural diuretic."
