What is the Zone diet?
The Zone diet was created by Barry Sears, Ph.D. who realized that eicosanoids regulated many, if not most of the body’s functions. Sears claims that the eicosanoid balancing effect of the Zone Diet will help prevent chronic disease, and can also help current patients of chronic diseases, especially heart disease and cancer. A side effect of balancing eicosanoid hormones is loss of excessive weight. His “Zone Diet” recommends balancing one’s intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fat so that, along with every 7 grams of protein, 9 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fat are eaten. Carbs contribute about 40% of total calories on the diet, while fats and proteins each contribute about 30% of the calories. The Zone diet first sets consumption of protein to the amount required for the individual (which depends on the individual’s lean body mass and activity level) which is identical to the amount recommended by the Eades in Protein Power (see section 2c above). The amount of carbs is then
The Zone diet is described by Barry Sears, Ph.D., in his book The Zone: A Dietary Road Map. It recommends balancing one’s intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fat so that, along with every 7 grams of protein, 9 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fat are eaten. Carbs contribute about 40% of total calories on the diet, while fats and proteins each contribute about 30% of the calories. (This varies from current dietary recommendations from the American Heart Association and similar groups, which recommend 30% of calories from fat, 55-65% calories from carbohydrates, and 10-15% of calories from protein.) Serious athletes are advised to ingest 4.5 grams of fat for each 7 grams of protein, resulting in a diet in which approximately 40% of calories are supplied by fat. Sears believes that the diet, which restricts calories, carbohydrates, and saturated fats, and limits protein to the amount required for the individual (which depends on the individual’s lean body mass and activity level) p
The zone diet, by Barry Sears, is an extremely Calorie restrictive diet that involves maintaining a protein to carbohydrate ratio of 0.75 and encourages the consumption of low glycemic index carbohydrates. In theory, this type of diet should reduce the insulin response after meals containing high-glycemic foods. Subsequently, Sears believes that this lower insulin response should help reduce body fat. A recent study found that after long-term (30 day) consumption of low-glycemic foods, the body can alter insulin secretion to reflect values similar to those observed following the consumption of high glycemic foods. In addition, another study found that, despite decreased insulin secretion, there was no significant fat loss above that observed in a high insulin secretion group. There are problems with both of these studies, but they do raise serious questions that have yet to be answered with respect to the zone diet. First, almost all studies examining the glycemic index of food have fo
