1. Understand the Zone Diet
The Zone Diet was created by Dr. Barry Sears, MD, as a nutrition plan aimed to regulate natural hormones in the body, and treat food "as a drug" in order to eliminate silent inflammation in the body. Dr. Sears believes that treating silent inflammation will not only help followers lose weight, but can treat a wide variety of chronic illnesses and health conditions, such as arthritis. Before cooking recipes for the Zone diet, it's important to understand the most basic concepts of the eating plan by reading books and publications by Dr. Sears, or visiting reliable online sources such as www.zoneperfect.com or www.drsears.com. It is important to time your Zone Diet cooking just right, because the plan calls for eating within an hour of waking up, within two hours of having a snack, and no more than five hours between meals (regardless of personal hunger levels.) Understanding the plan before embarking on a cooking adventure is crucial, because the Zone thrives on extensively calculated, portioned, and knowledgeable food choices and assembly with every meal.
2. Conquer and Divide
In order to create a proper Zone Diet plate of food, you have to begin by mentally dividing your plate into three parts: 1/3 of the plate is to be filled with low-fat lean protein sources, while the remaining 2/3 are to be filled with healthy carbohydrate sources of fruits and vegetables. The carbohydrate sources are meant to be low in the glycemic index, which includes almost all vegetables and fruits, with the exception of corn, carrots, bananas, and raisins. Grains, starches, and flour-based sources of carbohydrates are not part of the plan, although it encourages small sources of healthy fats like nuts, olive oil, and avocados.
3. Pick the Right Foods
If choosing a low-fat source of protein, try turning to natural lean sources such as skinless chicken or turkey, fish, tuna in water, cottage cheese, or egg whites. Remember that portion sizes of all proteins should never be larger than the size of your fist. Filling your plate with 2/3 low-glycemic vegetable and fruit sources can call for a lot of creativity, so aim to choose a wide variety of colors and flavors, dressed up with small portions of fat such as olive oil, slivers of almonds or a tablespoon of peanut butter. Although you may understand how to combine the appropriate proteins and carbohydrates to create a "Zone Perfect" meal, cooking the ingredients to create tasty recipes can be far more difficult. Try starting simple at first, creating a salad with dark green vegetables, olive oil and vinegar, with an appropriate protein source such as lean chicken on top. Or try adding colorful vegetables to an egg white omelet, with vibrant berries on the side.
4. Get Creative
Instead of repeating the same proper proteins and low-glycemic index carbohydrates on a daily basis, check recipe building sites such as www.formulazone.com (the website even takes food allergies into account) or picking up a book such as "Zone Perfect Meals in Minutes." If all else fails and you still can't get the hang of Zone cooking, try signing up for the delivery service, which will drop meals right at your door.
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