What's the Zone diet?

The Zone diet, invented (or discovered) by Dr. Barry Sears, states that you should balance your calories from protein, carbohydrates and fats every time you eat, and that the ratios be kept within specific ranges (30% of your calories from protein, 40% from carbs and 30% from fats). The Zone specifies that you consume the correct amount of protein to maintain your lean body mass - balanced with the right amount of calories from carbs and fats - - no more and no less. Your lean body mass AND activity level determine the amount of balanced calories you need.

The fact that you will consume only the amount of protein (and calories) needed to maintain your lean body mass makes the Zone a calorie restriction diet. Calorie restriction means eating food that is high in nutrition and low in empty calories. Bread is an example of a food that is high in calories per unit of good nutrition. Green beans and cauliflower are example foods that are high in nutrition per unit calorie. The Zone diet recommends we get our carbohydrates from foods that are high in nutrition but low in calories - - like most vegetables and fruits.

Calorie restriction has been proven to greatly increase animal life spans (actually increasing animal life spans by 50% and more) and will almost certainly work in humans. Although no long term human tests have been done (to this author's knowledge) to prove the life span part of it, calorie restriction diets have been shown to greatly reduce symptoms associated with bad health and increase those associated with good health. Read the books The Zone and The Anti-Aging Zone by Dr. Barry Sears for more information. Those books have EXTENSIVE bibliographies pointing to scientific research backing up all of Dr. Sears' claims.

The types of fats we eat is also important in the Zone diet. Most fat should come from monounsaturated fat sources like olive oil, avocados, almonds, hazelnuts, etc. This is because monounsaturated fats are eichosanoid-neutral. Eichosanoids are short-lived hormone-like chemicals in our cells that control function. Hormones are our bodies signaling mechanism that, along with nerve impulses, control the way our bodies function. Eichosanoids are responsible for many things - from thinning or thickening of blood, artery constriction or expansion, to other things that determine our health.

Don't let this web site be your only source of information on eichosanoids or the Zone diet! Read the books, join the discussion groups at Zoneperfect and Karen's Kitchen;  use this web site to get your software that enables you to easily create recipes compliant with the Zone technology!