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Diet comes from the Greek language and means “way of life”. A diet is a lifestyle–not a set of draconian rules that you blindly follow. The Zone Diet controls gene expression and hormonal balance to give you the longer and better life to which we all aspire.
The Zone diet is primarily concerned with controlling your hormones. Hormonal balance affects all important components of your wellness: body composition, energy utilization, blood chemistry, and much more. Food is a drug. This may seem shocking, but think about the definition of a drug. Loosely, ingesting drugs causes physiological changes in your body. Ingesting food has the same effect. It can bring about positive or negative changes in your body. Would you take 17 Tylenol capsules for a headache? Would you consume expired, low-quality medicine? Of course not. Then why should we expect different results when we feed our bodies 17 times our necessary food intake, and comprise our diet of low-quality processed garbage with no nutritional value? You see the results of this lifestyle in America today.
The Zone Diet isn’t about eating “low-carb” or “high-protein” or anything like that. It’s a diet balanced in
- Protein (lean, natural meats are preferred)
- Carbs (mostly low glycemic-load fruits and vegetables)
- Fat (one of the most important macronutrients!)
With the right balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats, you can control three major hormones generated by the human diet – insulin, glucagon and eicosanoids.
Insulin – A storage hormone. Excess insulin makes you fat and keeps you fat. It also accelerates silent inflammation.
Glucagon – A mobilization hormone that tells the body to release stored carbohydrates at a steady rate, leading to stabilized blood sugar levels. This is key for optimal mental and physical performance.
Eicosanoids – These are the hormones that ultimately control silent inflammation. They are also master hormones that indirectly orchestrate a vast array of other hormonal systems in your body.
How does the Zone Diet work?
The Zone diet typically caps daily calories for women at 1,200 and 1,500 for men. That’s two-thirds to three-quarters of the amount generally recommended for healthy people. You’ll eat five times a day: three meals and two snacks. Each meal should contain 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent healthy fat. The only measuring tools you need are your hand and your eye, Sears says. When making dinner, for example, divide your plate into three equal sections. Put a low-fat protein such as chicken or fish in one section—no more than can fit in the palm of your hand, which for most women equates to 3 ounces; 4 ounces for men. Then fill the other two sections with colorful carbs (think fresh fruit or steamed veggies). Top it off with a dash of a healthy fat—olive oil, fish oil, almonds, or avocado, for example—and you’re set.
Although no food is off limits, certain types are encouraged. Optimal protein choices include skinless chicken, turkey, fish, egg whites, low-fat dairy, tofu, and soy meat substitutes. Carbs are either “good” or “bad,” and dieters are instructed to choose those that are low on the glycemic index (GI), a ranking of how carbs affect blood sugar. Low-GI carbs are said to keep your blood sugar and metabolism steady—and you feeling fuller longer—while high-GI, “bad” carbs do the opposite. Your best bets are vegetables (except starchy corn and carrots), fruits (except bananas and raisins), and oatmeal and barley. Stay away from pasta, bread, bagels, cereals, and potatoes. And while small amounts of healthy fats are added to each meal, avoid fatty red meat, egg yolks, liver and other organ meats, and processed foods—all high in saturated fat.
Almost as important as what you eat is when. Meal and snack timing are crucial on Zone. If you don’t eat often enough, your blood sugar will dip, triggering hunger pangs. You should never go more than five hours without eating. Have breakfast within one hour of waking. If that’s at 7 a.m., for example, have lunch at noon, a snack at 5 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m., and another snack at 11 p.m.
What You Can Eat and What You Can’t
On the Zone diet, you get 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. Each is a mix of low-fat protein, like skinless chicken, turkey, or fish; carbs (mostly fruits and veggies); and a small amount of “good” fat, like olive oil, almonds, and avocado.
No food is completely banned, but if you’re a carb-lover, you may find getting used to the Zone plan challenging. It encourages you to think of bread, pasta, grains, and other starches as condiments rather than as main or even side dishes.
Veggies and fruits that are relatively high in sugar — like corn, carrots, bananas, and raisins — are on the “unfavorable” list. Fatty red meat and egg yolks fall into the Zone’s “bad fats” column.
Every meal on the Zone has the same proportions: 30% protein, 30% fat, and 40% carbs.
What that looks like on the plate is a palm-sized portion of protein, two-thirds of the plate filled with nonstarchy fruits and vegetables, and a dash of monounsaturated fat like olive oil or slivered almonds.
Calories do count on the Zone diet. Women get about 1,200 calories a day. For men, it’s 1,500.
The Zone Diet Meal Plans
Sample Breakfasts
The exact amount you eat at each meal depends on your gender and size, since larger individuals need more calories than smaller individuals. A sample Zone breakfast for a medium-sized woman would be 2 eggs or 4 egg whites mixed with an ounce of cheddar cheese and 1 1/4 cups of broccoli cooked in a teaspoon of olive oil, 2/3 cup of raspberries and 1/4 of a cantaloupe. A medium-sized man would need a larger amount of food, so he might add 2 ounces of Canadian bacon and 1/2 an English muffin topped with a teaspoon of peanut butter to the meal.
Sample Lunches
Lunch for a medium-sized woman could be a salad made with 4 cups of spinach, 1/4 cup of kidney beans, a cup of tomatoes, 2 ounces of chicken breast, 1 1/2 ounces of feta cheese and a tablespoon of salad dressing. A medium-sized man could add a cup of milk, about 12 peanuts and an apple to bring the meal’s calories up to the right level while still maintaining the right proportion of carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
Sample Dinners
Dinner on the Zone diet plan for a medium-sized woman might comprise 3 ounces of salmon, a cup of green beans topped with 1 teaspoon of melted butter, 1 cup of strawberries and 1 cup of milk. A man could add an additional 1 1/2 ounces of salmon, 1/3 cup of boiled or mashed potato and a teaspoon of sour cream while still staying within the Zone diet guidelines.
Snack Ideas
Your two snacks should be relatively small compared to meals, and are about the same for a medium-sized man or woman. A snack could be a 1/4 cup of cottage cheese mixed with 1/2 cup of pineapple and topped with 1/4-teaspoon sunflower seeds, or 3 cashews, a peach and a 1-ounce piece of string cheese.
Benefits
Barry Sears, developer of the Zone diet says that the makes the following claims for the Zone diet:
- weight loss of 1-1.5 lb (.6-.7 kg) per week
- permanent weight loss
- improved physical and mental performance
- prevention of chronic cardiovascular diseases
- improved immune system functioning
- decreased signs of aging and increased longevity
- no need to count calories (count Zone Food Blocks instead)
Many of these benefits are disputed by the dietitians and nutritional research scientists (see below). In addition, staying on the Zone diet while eating in restaurants can be quite difficult. Home delivery of perfectly balanced Zone diet meals and snacks is available at a price of about $37 per day in 2007.
Precautions
People with reduced kidney function should discuss this diet with their doctor because of the high level of protein. Severely reducing the amount of grains eaten, especially whole grains, may lead to not getting enough dietary fiber. Dietary fiber plays an important role in maintaining bowel function. Too little fiber can result in constipation.
Risks
Research and general acceptance
The core of the Zone diet is that everything a person eats should have a balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fats. The 30% fats fits in well with what many dietitians and nutritionists recommend, and Sears emphasizes the use of olive oil and canola oil, both high in monounsaturated fats which are considered good for the body. However, 30% protein is considered high by many nutritionists and 40% carbohydrates is considered low. The federal health guidelines, Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, recommend consuming food in the proportions of 55% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and no more than 30% fats. These guidelines also recommend substantial consumption of whole grain products that are severely limited on the Zone diet.
In a review of the Zone diet published in Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2003, the author questions the emphasis placed on the hormonal control of weight. He argues that although it is well documented that carbohydrates stimulate the production of insulin and proteins stimulate the production of glucagon, this occurs only when single nutrients are consumed. In a mixed meal consisting of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, such as those required by the Zone diet, the situation is much more complex and Sear’s conclusions about hormonal response are simplistic. In the same article, the author questions the emphasis put on the role of controlling the production of eicosanoids through diet.
The claim that the Zone diet allows individuals to perform at peak physical performance is refuted by several studies by sports nutritionists who feel that limiting carbohydrates can harm athletic performance, especially among endurance athletes.
In an effort to determine which of several popular diets helped people keep weight off, researchers at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston assigned a group of volunteers to one of four diets: Atkins, Dean Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diet. The found that regardless of the initial amount of weight lost, after one year, losses were only about 5% in all programs, meaning that these diets were all equally ineffective in helping most people keep weight off. These results were published in 2005 in the prestigiousJournal of the American Medical Association.
In general, dietitians and nutritionists believe that any benefit from the Zone diet comes from the
reduction of calories and subsequent weight loss. They tend to feel that the same result can be achieved with a less complicated diet low in fats and high in fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain carbohydrates. They also question whether individuals on the Zone Diet get enough B-complex vitamins (found in large quantities in whole grains) without supplementation.