I thought I'd chime in to agree with Matmos; I had the same experience with a no sugar, low flour diet.
It also turned out I have a wheat gleuten allergy, and I've noticed that I've lost a lot of belly bloat since I've eliminated wheat from my diet, making my pants looser even though at that point I hadn't lost any fat.
I will have baked potatoes and rice with a lot of protein, meat or legumes, occasionally cottage cheese or protein powder.
I find it's simpler for me to simply eliminate things from my diet, rather than micromanage every meal.
There's a book called the "GI diet" that has lists of foods that really poke your pancreas. The lists may be useful if you decide to go that route. It's worth borrowing from the library anyway.
Suzanne Sommers (stop laughing) has written a couple of diet books that are also low in sugar, and she talks about the connection between refined sugar, flour and belly fat. I saw her on Larry King a number of years ago and despite my skepticism, I found what she was discussing to make a lot of sense. She does advocate her own specific brand of sugar replacement, but honestly, if you're going to eat sugar, just eat sugar. I think it's better to keep REAL sugar to a minimum, than to fill your sustem with stevia & aspartame and pretend you're doing yourself a favour.
As for the muscle building, I think that we're all doing ourselves a huge favour by building up muscle. I don't know how this would affect your belly specifically, but I'm confident that overall it'll be great for you.
Many women here noticed their pants getting tighter as they build up their muscles and have complained about "muffin tops" as their new muscles push their fat up over their pants. But it looks like that effect is just temporary - a growing pain of the process.
I hope some of this was helpful.
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