If you are looking for a diet for weight loss, preventing weight gain or regulating your blood sugar levels, you may want to consider the Zone bar diet, or the ZonePerfect diet, from Abbott Nutrition. This diet combines regular foods with processed diet bars, and it emphasizes a specific ratio of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Consult your doctor before starting any diet for weight control or blood sugar management.
On the Zone bar diet, about 40 percent of your total calories come from carbohydrates, 30 percent come from protein and 30 percent of your calories are from fat. These ranges can vary slightly, and a meal or snack can include 35 to 50 percent of calories from carbohydrates, 25 to 35 percent from protein and 20 to 35 percent from fat. ZonePerfect claims that a moderate carbohydrate and high protein intake is most likely to satisfy your hunger and reduce fluctuations in your blood sugar levels.
Sample Meals
Instead of three larger meals, eat five to six smaller meals or snacks each day on the Zone bar diet. ZonePerfect provides recipes for meals, and breakfast suggestions include breakfast strudel and tomato relish, with turkey sausage and cheese, and pineapple pecan coffee cake, made with brown sugar and baking mix. For lunch or dinner, you could have portbella mushroom stuffed with zucchini and cheeses, oven-fried chicken or turkey chili. Snack and dessert recipes include angel food cake, crab dip and smoothies.
Zone Bars
Have a Zone bar as a substitute for a meal or snack. ZonePerfect bars have the proper ratio of carbohydrates, fat and protein. Flavor categories include classic flavors, such as chocolate peanut butter or chocolate mint, fruit, such as blueberry or banana, cookie dough flavors, such as oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip, and dark chocolate flavors and sweet and salty flavors, with nuts. Bars have about 200 calories each, and they are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals.
Considerations
The diet is an example of a glycemic index diet because it attempts to control your blood sugar levels, according to MayoClinic.com. A low-glycemic index diet may help you control your weight by decreasing your hunger because the most important factor in your weight loss is your calorie balance, or the total calories you eat compared to the calories you burn. Each meal or snack on the Zone bar diet includes some protein, which is a filling nutrient because it slows down the emptying of food from your stomach. ZonePerfect bars are high in saturated fat, which raises levels of bad LDL cholesterol in your blood.
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