Are Zone Diet Meals for You?

The first step to figuring out your Zone Diet meals is to figure out how much to eat. Although the "what to eat" on the Zone plan gets the most attention and is what people talk and write about, there's also the "how much" which is what most diets concentrate on.

However, Dr. Barry Sears does not use calorie counting. It's not about how many calories you take in or burn off through exercise. It's about regulating your metabolism through keeping your hormones in healthy balance.

And his goal is to help you become as healthy as possible. Losing weight -- if you need to -- is almost a side effect of becoming healthier. If you're overweight, you do have to lose weight to become healthier, and the Zone helps you do that, but it's not the goal in and of itself.

I know that many women (maybe a few men, but let's face it, most of us guys don't care how we look -- but we do care about not dying of a heart attack) care only about their appearance, and will try any diet that promises to help them reach their weight loss goals, whether it's healthy or not.

The good news about Zone Diet meals is that they are good at weight loss and at keeping your healthy.

Zone Diet Meals Begin With Your Daily Protein Requirement

So the first step is to determine how much protein you need. Protein is what builds your body. It's your muscles and your biochemicals. If you eat too little, your muscles waste away, making you weaker, and your immune system deteriorates, making you susceptible to infectious diseases. If you are tired and catch a lot of colds and flu, you not be eating enough protein.

Protein is also what your body needs to repair the damage is suffers every day just from living. And if you're at all athletic, you need sufficient protein to rebuild the muscles you damage while working out, so they're stronger tomorrow than today. That's why people who are physically active need more protein than couch potatoes.

But eating too much protein raises your levels of insulin, which is very bad for your body in many ways.

So the trick is to eat all the protein you need for good health, without eating so much you raise your insulin level out of the Zone.

Basically, with Zone Diet meals you eat the protein you need to maintain your lean body mass, and so your excess fat goes away.

This means you need to start with your lean body mass. Your body consists of lean body mass (including bones) and fat, and so the total pounds you weigh on the scale consists of both.

There are many ways to calculate your Body Mass Indicator (BMI). The only 100% accurate way is to pay for it to be done medically. But many books (including Zone books) have tables for doing it based on your waist measurement and total weight.

zone meals

You Want Zone Diet Meals to Maintain Your Lean Body, and Lose (Most of) Your Fat

Once you figure out your body's percentage of fat, just multiply that with your total weight. That's the total pounds of fat you're carrying around. Scary, isn't it?

Subtract that from your total weight. What's your lean body mass.

Multiply that by these percentages depending on your level of physical activity:

.5 -- coach potato

.6 -- light activity - you walk around some

.7 -- moderate activity

.8 -- you exercise 1 hour per day, five days per week

.9 -- Very active, such as exercising 10 hours per week

1 -- highly active athlete in training

The figure you get is the total number of grams of protein you need to eat every day to maintain your current lean body weight.

Divide that by 7 (because there are 7 grams of protein in one Zone protein block), and you get the number of protein blocks you should consume every day.

You should also eat the same number of carbohydrate and fat blocks.

If you're a 200 pound guy with 25% body fat (which means you do need to lose weight, because that's too much for men), you have 150 pounds of lean body weight.

Let's say you're moderately active. You walk a little during the week and get out on weekends, but you're not as regular as you know you ought to be.

.7 X 150 = 105 grams

105 grams / 7 = 15 blocks per day

So you could eat four blocks per meal, a two block snack in the afternoon and a 1 block snack before bedtime.

If you're a typical overweight woman of 140 pounds and a 30% body fat,  your lean mass is 98 pounds, and you're activity level is light --

.6 X 98 = 59 (rounded) grams of protein per day

59 / 7 = 8.42

Round that up to 9, so you can eat 3 blocks for all three meals.

Want to eat more? Kick up your activity level, which will make you healthier and help you lose weight even faster.

You then construct Zone Diet meals using combinations of protein, vegetables and fruits and healthy fats. The combinations are infinite, and most taste good.

Next: Zone Diet San Francisco -- on the Zone Diet in San Francisco.