Belly fat is the most dangerous fat you can have on your body, and it is often the most difficult to lose, says Liz Vaccariello, editor-in-chief of Prevention magazine. Gayle talks with Liz about her book Flat Belly Diet!, which uses new research to help people shed inches from their waistlines and decrease the risks of heart disease, diabetes, certain kinds of cancers and even Alzheimer's disease. Plus, Liz talks about how people following the diet can lose up to 15 pounds in 32 days.

Before starting the diet, Liz says you should do a four-day anti-bloat jump-start. This jump-start helps you shed up to 7 pounds of water weight and 6 inches around your waist in just four days. "This is not the diet—this is the water weight, targeting bloat specifically, " Liz says. "This is wonderfully motivating. Before you even start the diet—which is full of wonderful, filling foods—all of a sudden, in four days, your pants are looser."

While on the four-day anti-bloat jump-start, Liz says to avoid these foods:

• Excess simple carbohydrates
• Carbonated beverages
• Spicy foods
• Fried foods
• Gassy foods
• Chewing gum
  

Once you are on the Flat Belly Diet, you start to target belly fat through four, 400-calorie meals a day, each meal containing monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs, such as healthy oils, olives, nuts, seeds, avocado and dark chocolate, Liz says. "Studies found that eating monounsaturated fatty acids, these MUFAs, targets belly fat specifically," Liz says. "These studies are in published medical journals [and show] that it works, and we tested it ourselves and [it works]."

Liz says you can lose about 2 pounds a week on the diet, and if you stay on it permanently, you will reach a healthy weight and maintain it for life. "This is a way of eating," she says."The only reason the word 'diet' is there [is because] diet is a way of eating."

Get the Flat Belly Diet's 3 rules to eat by

• Flat Belly Diet! by Liz Vaccariello with Cynthia Sass, MHP, RD