The Ab Diet Meal Plan

Created by David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of "Men's Health" magazine, The Abs Diet is a six-week plan to lose stomach fat and keep you lean for life. Zinczenko says the diet isn't low-carb or low-fat. Instead, it is a sensible eating plan that won't leave you hungry. It emphasizes eating protein, fiber, calcium and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, while limiting refined carbs, saturated fats, trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup. The diet allows one cheat meal a week at which you can eat whatever you want.

Eat Six Meals A Day

The Abs Diet helps you feel full and keeps your energy up by advocating eating six times a day. Research conducted at the University of Massachusetts found that people who ate more frequently during the day were less likely to be obese, whereas people who skipped breakfast were 4.5 times more likely to be obese. The Abs Diet suggests alternating your regular meals with three smaller snacks. Eat the snacks two hours before lunch and dinner and two hours after dinner.

12 Powerf Foods

The Abs Diet focuses on 12 power foods that are healthful and provide all your nutritional needs. These power foods include almonds and other nuts; beans and legumes; spinach and green vegetables; fat-free or low-fat dairy; instant unsweetened, unflavored oatmeal; eggs; turkey and lean meats; peanut butter; olive oil; whole grains; extra-protein whey powder and berries.

Smoothies

The Abs Diet recommends smoothies for a meal and/or snack because they are fast and easy to make, nutritious, they satisfy sweet cravings and their thickness fills you up. The Abs Diet suggests a smoothie base of using 1 percent milk, low-fat vanilla yogurt, whey powder and ice. Next, add flavorings such as berries or peanut butter. The Abs Diet book includes several recipes for smoothies.

Make Healthy Drink Choices

During the six-week Abs Diet plan, eliminate alcohol or at least limit it to two or three drinks a week. Alcohol contains calories without nutrition and may lead you to eat more, according to Zinczenko. He recommends drinking eight glasses of water a day. Other approved beverages are fat-free or low-fat milk, green tea or two glasses of diet soda each day.

Sample Daily Meal Plan

The Abs Diet design is for flexibility to mix and match the power foods so you don't feel limited. However, it includes a week-long meal plan along with recipes if you prefer more direction. For example, on Monday the plan suggests a smoothie for breakfast. Later comes a snack of 2 tsp. of peanut butter and all the raw vegetables you want. For lunch, it's turkey on whole-grain bread, 1 cup of 1percent or fat-free milk and an apple. The afternoon snack is 1 oz. of almonds and 1.5 cups of berries. Dinner is "Mas Macho Meatballs," and the evening snack is a smoothie.