Zone Diet
Zone diet creator, Dr Barry Sears, referred to this diet as the 40-30-30 eating plan (40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent each fat and protein). With the Zone Diet you have to carefully balance the nutritional content of each meal. Dr Sears created the Zone Diet based on his experience gained through research into the effects of foods on hormone production and metabolic activity. His diet aims to ensure optimal health by using foods to manage metabolic activity and hormone production, which will lead to the zone and, not incidentally, weight control.
The Zone Diet plan consists of balancing your diet and ensuring 40% of your daily caloric intake is in the form of carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat. The reasoning is that when you eat food, it is broken down into it's basic components, glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids, and enters you bloodstream. The Zone Diet argues that food should be though of as a drug that has a powerful effect on the body.
As with all drugs, to have a positive effect, you have to maintain the right level, too much and they become toxic, too little and it would be inefficient. Therefore every meal and snack needs to have the right levels of nutrients (protein, carbohydrate and fat) to produce an appropriate hormonal response.
A key point of the diet plan is not to focus on calories but the ratio of protein to carbohydrate. You need to aim for a ratio of 0.75 proteins to carbohydrate.
However, the amount of protein required by each of us is different. It is based on your physical activity, weight and body fat. For example if you're sedentary you would only need 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass, this, multiplied by your lean body mass would give you your daily protein requirement. The zone diet plan book has tables to help this calculation.
The Zone is not a low calorie diet. It is possible that it is fewer calories than you are eating now, but you won't be hungry. In fact, many people complain they can't eat it all.
Most people start because they want to lose weight. Plus, people who follow a Zone nutrition plan report these fabulous benefits: more energy, less irritability, weight Loss, not feeling hungry, less moodiness, mentally clear, lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure.
Sears advises you to follow the Zone diet calculation exactly, which can be a little complicated, although since the Zone diet program came out, some people have simplified the Zone calculation. You should eat a small amount of protein at every meal and at every snack. Carbohydrates include most vegetables and lentils, beans, whole grains, and most fruits. Eat a smaller amount of carbs if you have chosen carbs like brown rice, pasta, papaya, mango, banana, dry breakfast cereal, bread, bagel, tortilla, carrots, and all fruit juices.
It is very easy to get caught up in all the hype these days with wonder diets and drugs that claim to make you lose weight fast and many times the claims are untrue. Stick with this balanced diet and exercise to lose weight.
Zone Diet
South Beach Diet
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