Get into the zone
What is the Zone Diet?
The Zone Diet is very popular and widely used by athletes and CrossFit trainers. It is also good for people who just want to lose weight. Sometimes they merge it with the Paleo Diet.
RELATED: RECOMMENDED PLANS FOR YOUThis diet is primarily concerned with controlling your hormones. Hormonal balance affects your body composition, energy utilization, blood chemistry, and much more. We can say that food is a drug. It can bring about positive or negative changes in your body.
Balanced diet
The Zone Diet is not about eating “low-carb” or “high-protein” or anything like that. It’s a diet balanced in protein, carbohydrate and fat.
Protein is preferred from lean, natural meat, carbs preferably with low glycemic index. Believe it or not fat is one of the most important macronutrients. It often gets ‘bad press’, but this is a fact.
Hormonal control
The Zone Diet helps to control three major hormones generated by the human diet – Glucagon, Insulin and Eicosanoids.
– 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.
– Insulin – A storage hormone. Excess insulin makes you fat and keeps you fat. It also accelerates silent inflammation.
– Eicosanoids – These hormones ultimately control silent inflammation.
Zone diet building blocks
Let’s see the actual diet formula.
We are going to use BLOCKs to define how much protein, carb or fat intake you need. A block is a unit of measure used to simplify the process of making balanced meals.
7 grams of protein = 1 block 14 grams = 2 blocks 21 grams = 3 blocks
9 grams of carbs = 1 block 18 grams = 2 blocks 27 grams = 3 blocks
1.5 grams of fat = 1 block 3 grams = 2 blocks 4.5 grams = 3 blocks
For example
A ONE BLOCK meal consists of 1 choice from each list, means 1 block protein, 1 block carbs and 1 block fat.
A TWO BLOCK meal consists of 2 choices which means 2 block protein, 2 block carbs and 2 block fat….and so on.
Choose your body type from the list below to see how many blocks you need a day and follow the regime. If you find the 5 meals a day are not enough you can put one more snack in between breakfast and lunch and reduce the breakfast by 1 block.
Sample menu
Here is a sample menu of a possible 14 block routine (times can be adjusted 30 minutes or so either way)
| 14 Block menu | |||||
| 5 meals a day | |||||
| 8 am | 12 pm | 3 pm | 6:30pm | 9pm/9:30 (bedtime) | |
| Breakfast | Lunch | Snack | Dinner | snack | |
| 4 Blocks | 4 Blocks | 1 Block | 4 Blocks | 1 Block | |
| 6 meals a day | |||||
| 7:30 am | 10am | 1:00pm | 3:30pm | 6:30pm | 9pm/9:30 (bedtime) |
| Breakfast | Snack | Lunch | Snack | Dinner | snack |
| 3 Blocks | 1 Block | 4 Blocks | 1 Block | 4 Blocks | 1 Block |
Every athlete is different. Feel free to experiment with your number of daily blocks and move them around as you see fit.
I say definitely give this Zone diet a try because it can improve your performance or help losing weight. The macronutrients are well balanced so you cannot find excuses not to eat enough vegetables or healthy fatty acids.
Give it a try and see how it goes.
I hope you understand the Zone Diet, and good luck!
Read more from Expert Richard Csosza.
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