ZoneRunner Tutorial Page 2

The ZoneRunner program:

When ZoneRunner first starts up you are presented with a 'splash screen' and then a medical disclaimer. No need for more info on that here.

BUT...what do you do next?

If you have are interested in the Zone diet and have five minutes to read this ZoneRunner tutorial page it will be worth your while. Let's start with a little background information:

ZoneRunner is a Zone diet recipe program. The main purpose for the program is to allow people doing the Zone diet to create ANY recipe and use it in a Zone compliant meal. Well, ALMOST any recipe - you can't really use Prime Rib Lard Pie in the Zone diet; you should go to the Dr. Atkins web site if you think that's healthy!

The creator of the Zone diet, Dr. Barry Sears, recommends certain rudimentary "ball park" (my words) estimations on how much one should eat in a given meal. For example, a piece of lean meat no bigger than the palm of your hand, or two thirds of you plate covered with vegetables. All this is accurate enough, and when used in a meal-based way it will work extremely well. But after a while, even though you might feel extremely well, the food gets boring! We can get beyond that...

Dr. Elizabeth Chud's book, The Gourmet Prescription, is proof that people can create sophisticated and delicious food that is Zone favorable. And extremely non-boring! The author of ZoneRunner, me, Peder Hultin, intends for the program to be used by people like Dr. Chud who love to cook and believe in a healthy nutrition plan - - the Zone diet's carbohydrate- and calorie-restricted plan.

Enough of background! How does the program work and what does it do for you?

YOU will create ingredients that can be used in Zone-favorable meals! The most powerful aspect of ZoneRunner is how it allows you to create meal components (ingredients) from recipes that retain their nutritional data. This allows you to, for example, create and use a mushroom sauce to be used over turkey burgers in a meal and know what you are eating. The resultant meal's Zone-favorability ratings from proper carbohydrate and fats choices will include data from the ingredients created from your recipes.

The trick in creating ingredients from recipes is to choose your ingredients well. ZoneRunner helps you do this by showing 'happy faces' for favorable carbohydrate and fat choices, as well as for the balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat.

So, if you are making a recipe that will be used as a meal COMPONENT...

...and it has most calories from fat according to the P/C/F ratio face (the top face and graph on the Adjust Recipe tab) then you will be more successful in using this recipe as an ingredient in a Zone favorable meal if the fats choices face (the bottom face) is smiling. You can make this happen by choosing fat ingredients for this component recipe from monounsaturated fat sources like olive oil. Example: mushroom sauce recipe in a book that calls for corn oil or bacon grease - use olive oil instead.

Or if you are making a recipe that will be used as a meal COMPONENT...

...and it has most calories from carbohydrates according to the P/C/F ratio face (the top face and graph on the Adjust Recipe tab) then you will be more successful in using this recipe as an ingredient in a Zone favorable meal if the carbohydrates choices face (the middle face) is smiling. You can make this happen by choosing carbohydrate ingredients for this component recipe from favorable vegetable and fruit sources (e.g. onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, summer squashes, broccoli, apples, oranges, etc.). Example: vegetable casserole dish that has wheat flour in it - omit the flour. (You may still use unfavorable carbohydrates in ingredient recipes but you won't be able to use much of that ingredient in a meal.)

Or if you are making a recipe that will be used as a meal COMPONENT...

...and it has most calories from protein according to the P/C/F ratio face (the top face and graph on the Adjust Recipe tab) then you will be more successful in using this in a Zone favorable meal if you choose protein from fish, lean poultry or other lean meat (trimmed of fat and skin according to the description). This is because using fatty meats will result in bad fat choices. Remember that red meats and organ meats contain arachidonic acid which will knock you out of the Zone. ZoneRunner does not warn you of this in the current release.

Make a meal ingredient:

To make an ingredient from your recipe if you don't know exactly how many servings it makes you will NEED TO COOK IT and measure how many servings, e.g. cups or whichever way you will serve it. If you know you will use exactly one third or half or all of it there's no need to measure it; just enter the measurement choice as 'batch' or 'recipe' and that the recipe makes one (1) batch or recipe. You choose the word you use to measure your recipe - even 'beaker' is OK! Then you can enter 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 'batch', 'recipe', or 'beaker' in your meal or other recipe. With the recipe open choose menu item Tools/Create Ingredient From Recipe and follow the instructions. You'll be able to use your ingredient right away.