MUFA (MOO-fah) stands for monounsaturated fatty acid, a type of heart-healthy, disease-fighting, "good fat" found in foods like almonds, peanut butter, olive oil, avocados-even chocolate. MUFAs are an unsaturated fat, and create the exact opposite effect of the unhealthy saturated and trans fats you've heard about in the news. Numerous studies have shown that a diet rich in MUFAs is linked to a reduction in LDL cholesterol, the kind that clogs up arteries, and a boost in HDL, the kind that sweeps cholesterol out of the arteries and clears it from the body.

Following is the list of MUFAs and the calories for each (alphabetically by category).

Your Meal Plan can be customized to your own personal tastes and preferences by setting your Diet Preferences. To do this:

1. Click the EAT tab, then click "My Diet Preferences".
2. Check all of the preferences that apply.
3. Click "Update My Preferences" to save your preferences.

Any Diet Preferences you set will apply to the 4-Day Jumpstart period as well as the basic program. Please note that if you change your preferences, your meal plans and shopping lists will probably change as a result.

Yes, you absolutely can substitute fresh fruit, vegetables and fish when you see frozen or canned. Many of our testers needed quicker, more convenient ingredients but if you can use fresh that's terrific.

Yes. We've suggested specific brands with zero trans fat, not over 3g of saturated fat and we like to recommend products with ingredients you can easily recognize and pronounce. We look for frozen meals made with whole grains, produce, lean protein and low fat dairy and try to avoid artificial anything (colors, flavors, preservatives) as well as high fructose corn syrup. If you have favorites you really love that you'd rather eat you can give them a try - just be sure your entire meal is no more than 400 calories including the MUFA. Please pair your MUFA with the frozen meal.

Smoothies are part of each day of the 4-Day Jumpstart and they're also a snack pack option on the regular Flat Belly Diet.

You can divide the meals differently as long as you do it in a certain way. You should see a snack pack in your meal plan unless your customized daily calorie range is between 1,100-1,300 calories per day. This is designed to be your 4th meal that you should eat when you might have  along stretch in between other meals.

For example, if you eat dinner at 5:00 and go to bed at midnight, having your full snack pack at 9:00 or 10:00 pm would be a great way to keep you blood sugar steady and prevent you from going to bed too hungry.

If you'd like you can also divide your snack pack in half and have half between lunch and dinner and half between dinner and bed. But if you do that, be sure to divide all of the ingredients in half (i.e. don't eat the nuts at 4 and yogurt at 10, have half of each both times).

The brands recommended in this plan are ONLY suggestions, NOT requirements in any way. They were selected based on their excellent quality and taste, and when we tested this plan, our testers told us they liked knowing about highly recommended products. You can substitute ANY brands you like for any of the ingredients in this plan as long as the calories are about the same.

Sassy Water is recommended during the 4-Day Jumpstart phase of the program. After that, water or unsweetened tea
(hot, cold, green, red, white, black, or herbal). If you need a little flavor in your water, you can use a splash of 100% juice. Water, tea and small amounts of 100% juice (sometimes flavored with natural mint, ginger, or other spices) are the healthiest, most nutrient rich beverages on the planet.

If your meal plan includes a food or meal that you don't want, you can swap it for something that you prefer, or that better fits into your schedule that day. To swap foods or meals:

1. Click on the "swap" icon in front of the food or meal that you want to replace. A "Swap Food" or "Swap Meal" pop up window appears, displaying a list of foods or meals that you can substitute. 
2. Click "Choose Food" or "Choose Meal" and the meal plan will be updated to include your new choice.

Though the Flat Belly Diet book provides a 1,600 calorie plan, the online site customizes the plan for your specific needs. When you started this program, you provided information about your height, weight, gender, and activity level. All of this information is used to calculate the best calorie level to maximize your success while on the program.

In some cases, this results in a daily calorie range of 1,100-1,300 calories, which means that no snack is prescribed in your meal plans. If you feel too hungry on the plan you've been given in your meal plans, you can always add a snack or half snack each day to your meal plans.

Your daily calorie level is calculated based on your age, height, gender, current weight, and current activity level. Unlike the book, which prescribes a single 1,600 calories-per-day program, the site is able to take these personal factors into consideration to calculate a calorie level that will maximize your results on the program.

As you progress through the diet and record your weight loss, your calorie level adjusts so that you continue to see results by following the diet.

If you are in a calorie range that's far below the 1,600 calories the book recommends, or if you've completed the 4-Day Jumpstart and your meal plans no longer include a snack and you feel that you need or want one, selecting a current activity level will help to correct this.

(Note: Selecting or changing your Activity Level will most likely alter your current daily calorie level, which will change your meal plans and shopping lists accordingly.)

When we launched the site, we had many of the Flat Belly recipes integrated into the site's meal plans and shopping lists. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that because the recipes are designed in most cases to feed more than one person, they were throwing off the daily calorie and nutrition counts. We left the recipes on the site, but pulled them out of the meal plans until we can develop a way to integrate just single servings of a recipe into the meal plans and nutritional counts.

When you use the Flat Belly recipes, you can log a serving of the recipe into your food log because all of the recipes on the site are included in the Flat Belly food list. To do this, just follow the steps below:

1. From the Food Log, click "Search for Foods to Add."
2. Type the recipe name into the Search box.
3. Select the correct entry from the list.
4. Select your serving size (generally this will be 1 serving).
5. Click "Add to Food Log." When your food log reappears, the recipe will show up as a food in your meal.

If this is a recipe that you want to use again, you can create a name for the meal that now contains the serving of the recipe, and save that meal as a "Favorite Meal" to make it easy to log the next time you eat it.

The snacks are designed to prevent you from going over 4 hrs without eating. The dessert recipes on the Flat Belly plan are healthful but you should be using them in place of a Snack Pack, not as a dessert after dinner.

The Snack Pack is your 4th meal so you should eat it when you might have a long stretch in between meal. For example, if you eat lunch at noon and dinner at 6:00 pm having the snack pack at 4:00 pm would be a great way to keep your blood sugar steady and prevent you from getting too hungry, reducing the chances that you might overeat at dinner.

If you add the Snack Pack to your dinner you may not see results because you may not be active enough in the evening to burn the calories from both your dinner and the snack pack. Now if you eat dinner at 5:00 pm but don't go to bed until midnight, having your snack pack around 10:00 pm would be fine (your dinner should be burned off by that time).