The Zone Diet

The Zone Diet

The Zone Diet can best be explained as keeping a healthy balance of your hormones within a specific range. The idea is to control hunger pangs on less calories and still receiving the proper nutrients for long term health. Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone Diet, claims it will help you to achieve peak physical performance while losing weight permanently. Sears also claims that the Zone Diet will also delay the signs of aging and boost mental productivity.

This diet works on the idea that excess insulin makes us store excess fat in our bodies and keeps it there. By regulating our blood sugar levels, keeping the levels of insulin in a tight zone, we can burn off fat in our bodies more efficiently, thus losing weight.

In order to gain control over the insulin levels, blood sugar levels, a person needs to get a close balance of proteins, carbohydrates and fats in every meal. This means following a high protein, low carbohydrate diet that also includes an amount of fat for each meal. The Zone Diet calls for a 40:30:30 ratio. The goal of every meal should be 40% of the calories from carbohydrates, 30% of the calories from protein and another 30% from fat.

Zone Food Blocks are blocks that contain a standardized amount of protein, fat or carbohydrates. In order to lose weight, a set number of blocks for each meal are allocated. The number of Blocks a person should have each day is calculated by an individuals height, weight, hip and waist circumferences. Generally speaking, the larger you are, the more Zone Food Blocks you are allocated.

Calculating the daily amount of Zone Food Blocks a person will need is as easy as visiting the Zone's website or Zone Perfect's site. Either of these sites will also show someone how the blocks should be divided for the day. The downside of this exercise is trying to create meals that have the targeted number of Zone Food Blocks. There are pre-packaged meals and snacks that can be ordered over the Internet.  Zone dieters can also buy a Zone Diet book that will show them the correct way of putting block meals together with a variety of different foods so no one will get bored eating the same things over and over again.

Before you start throwing stones at the Zone Diet, many well known celebrities have followed the diet. Demi Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Sarah Jessica Parker and many more, swear that the Zone Diet has helped them lose weight and keep it off. It is estimated that the diet will help you lose about five pounds within the first couple of weeks, then about one to one and a half pounds every week after this.

Some of the nutritional experts point out that the Zone Diet does break away from the recommended guidelines of what is healthy. 50% of our calories should be coming from carbohydrates, 35% from fat and 15% from protein. Also, many experts question the Zone's theory, regulating insulin levels will cause weight loss.

In general, the Zone Diet has fewer dietary restrictions than other low carbohydrate diets. It also encourages you to eliminate a lot of junk food and eat more healthy foods. Unfortunately, this diet is complicated and time consuming to follow properly. Unless someone invests in either the Zone's pre-packaged meals or one of their books to follow along, much of this Zone Diet will turn into a never ending chore of trying to balance out everything that needs to be followed.

To learn more about the Zone Diet and how it could help you with your weight loss goal please click in the link.

All the best,

Carol J Pearson
(Personal Trainer)