Zone Diet

The Zone Diet and the Four Hour Body

As a Zone Diet fan, I thought it'd be fun to compare it with the advice given in the new book The Four Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. (There're many things I could write about that book, and probably will in a review, but I'll confine this to his eating advice.)

First of all, he calls his primary recommendation the "Slow Carb" diet. It's quite obvious that he's familiar with the research showing that people who want to be healthy should not be eating high glycemic load foods, which basically cuts out sugar and starches. This is the basis for such diets as South Beach and the Zone.

Also, I give him credit for pointing out that glycemic index or load is not always the same as insulin response. For example, milk has a low glycemic index, but causes a high insulin response. I didn't know that. It's not in any of the Zone books by Dr. Barry Sears.

Anyway, the first Slow Carb rule is not to eat white carbohydrates, such as sugar and flour - even off-white such as whole wheat flour. This may shock some, but it's old-hat to anybody on a carb-controlled diet such as the Zone.

Second rule is to eat the same few meals over and over again. I follow that because I don't want to devote much time to cooking or preparing meals. If you enjoy that activity, you're welcome to break this rule as far as I'm concern. I follow it for convenience.

Don't drink calories. Another way of avoiding unhealthy carbohydrates.

The Zone Diet Does Allow Eating Reasonable Amounts of Fruit (Whole, Not Juice)

Don't eat fruit. This is in direct conflict with the general advice to eat vegetables and fruit.

Ferriss points out that our cave ancestors didn't eat fruit except in season. He's right about that, but he doesn't use advocate the Paleolithic or Primal Blueprint diets.

As long as we don't overindulge, why not eat some fruits? And what about the many antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols to be found in fruit? Well, later he suggests we eat a green superfood which has this stuff concentrated. That's good too, I agree, but still see no reason to cut whole fruit out entirely. He tells how drinking a glass of orange juice slowed down his weight loss. Yes, but orange juice -- like most juices -- has a high glycemic index so that does raise index. Why not eat whole oranges? He doesn't explain this very convincingly.

And he advises taking one day off a week. There is some logic behind that. If you reduce your caloric intake too much, your body starts to compensate and makes it harder to lose weight. That's why many experts advise scheduling cheat days.

But he loves to describe how much he indulges in horribly unhealthy foods, in huge quantity. He also describes various ways to limit the damage, which is a complicated regime. I truly don't know how he keeps track of all that stuff, especially while maintaining a Saturday night social life.

How about not eating such unhealthy food to begin with? We can increase calories by eating lots of fruit and/or healthy fats. Too many people allow cheat days to become cheat every other days and stop their healthy eating altogether.

I've Lost Weight on the Zone Diet Without Bingeing on Sugar-Filled Cheat Days

Yet others have lost lots of weight on a low carb plan without ever indulging in bear claws and Snickers.

And we shouldn't be concerned only with weight, but with long term health. I'd rather stay away from unhealthy junk.

Can you lose weight by following this Slow Carb diet? Yes, of course. It controls carbohydrates even more than the Zone Diet does, and people consider that extreme. But Sears does allow some grains (such as croutons in your salad), and low glycemic fruit so long as the percentage of carb calories doesn't go above 40%.

Ferriss doesn't let you eat any grains or any fruit or any carbs hidden in drinks (he must know his market drinks so-called energy drinks). If you're young, you can no doubt quickly recover from binging on the cheat day. I'm so sure if that works out well for those of us who aren't as young as we used to be. But you can choose to cheat with a lot more moderation than he does.

So if your only carbs are vegetables, you're bound to lose weight, assuming you don't eat three plates of spinach at every meal.

The Zone Diet allows you to eat more carbohydrates, so your caloric intake doesn't go down to starvation levels, so you shouldn't need a cheat day.

Next: Zone Diet Books