The Zone diet was developed by Dr. Barry Sears as both a fat loss and hormonal balancing, anti-inflammatory nutrition plan. Many celebrities have taken part in the Zone diet, contributing greatly to its success. Jennifer Aniston and Demi Moore are both proponents of the Zone diet.
The Zone
The diet's central tenet is to balance the hormones of the body through proper nutrition. As such, the Zone diet advocates eating a 40:30:30 ratio of calories from carbohydrates, protein and fat. The carbohydrates promoted are low-glycaemic, complex carbohydrates such as whole meal breads, pasta, brown rice and oatmeal. Most of the protein sources should be high-quality animal proteins such as meat and eggs and the fat intake should consist mainly of healthful unsaturated fats such as fish oils and olive oil. The zone diet is considered "low carb" because the average carbohydrate intake is around 60 percent of all daily calories.
Meal Frequency
Zone diet participants must eat several meals throughout the day. Dr. Sears recommends not going more than four hours without a meal and eating your first meal within an hour of waking. The rationale behind eating so frequently is to keep a hormonal balance within the body all day long. Other benefits of eating several meals throughout the day are increasing your metabolism through constant digestion of food, keeping blood sugar levels steady and decreasing cravings for food.
Blocks
The Zone diet meals are broken up into "blocks." These blocks are a way of measuring your carbohydrate, protein and fat ratio. One block of protein is 7 g of protein, one block of carbohydrates is 9 g of carbohydrates and one block of fat is 1.5 g of fat. There are three types of meals, a one-block meal, two-block meal and three-block meal. One-block meals consist of one type of protein, one type of carbohydrate and one type of fat. Two-block meals consist of two choices of each food type, and a three-block meal consists of three choices. A medium-sized man should be consuming 17 blocks per day and a medium-sized woman should be consuming 11 per day. A typical day for a medium woman would therefore look something like this: a two-block breakfast, three-block lunch and dinner and one-block snacks in between meals.
Considerations
The American Heart Association warns against high-protein diets and pointed out that Dr. Sears' Zone diet exposes its participants to dangerously high amounts of saturated fats. The Zone diet has also been criticized for its complexity and difficulty to follow. The diet has, despite this, acquired a large following -- including celebrities.
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