We all love food but unfortunately, our bodies don’t always turn out for the best physically because of it. For those of you who are tired of going through diet after diet or are sick of downing the latest weight-loss miracle product, maybe it’s time to turn to the very thing most of us run away from: food! However, not just any food will lead you to a flatter stomach. It’s all about choosing the right items and incorporating them into your daily diet in a way that will benefit you.

The key to foods that can improve you on the inside and well as the outside is to eat items that contain monounsaturated fatty acids, also known as MUFAs. Despite the name, this type of fat is good for you and when consumed in healthy amounts, it can protect you from chronic disease. New medical findings have also shown that monounsaturated fatty acids also aids in reducing fat, more specifically belly fat. Who wouldn’t want that?

To get your stomach on the right track, you’ll want to include the following foods into your daily diet: chocolate (surprise, surprise!), olives, oils, nuts and seeds, and avocados. When eaten, these foods work hard to control your calorie intake, resulting in the loss of inches off of your waistline. While this great news has been recently brought to light, the actual concept of these MUFA-rich foods goes back to the ancient civilizations. Almonds were a favorite of Egyptian pharaohs. Olive oil was as good as gold for the Greeks, while chocolate was protected and considered sacred by the Aztecs. For centuries avocados have been worshipped as a symbol of fertility. These civilizations managed to flourish for a long time so it only makes sense that these powerhouse foods can greatly benefit you and your body.

Even though chocolate is on the list, there is a right and wrong way to consume them. To tackle your belly fat over time, you can eat chocolate any way you prefer but limit it to a ¼ cup serving per day. You can choose from semisweet or dark chocolate chips, chunks or shavings. Olives are great as a snack or as part of a delicious meal. Add a helping of 10 large olives to your meals either on top of a healthy pizza or tossed with pasta or in a salad. You can choose from green olives, black olives, black olive tapenade (a thick paste), or green olive tapenade. Oils may sound like they can be bad for you but you can’t go wrong with olive oil, flaxseed oil, canola oil, pesto sauce, peanut oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, walnut oil, sunflower oil, walnut oil, and sesame oil. Using oil in your meals is as simple as adding one tablespoon a day into just about everything from salad dressing and grilled dishes to stir-fried and pan-fried meals. For nuts and seeds, you can opt for almonds, pecans, macadamia, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, and spreads that contain nuts like cashew butter, natural, chunky peanut butter, sunflower seed butter and sesame seed paste. Love avocados? Then you’ll enjoy chowing down on ¼ cups a day of Florida and Hass avocados in your salads, salsa, with entrees, and even in a mashed up dip of salt, pepper, and lime juice for your chips.

A handful of these tasty treats each day will pay off in a flatter stomach and an overall healthier you!

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