The Zone diet was developed by Barry Sears and depends on getting your nutrients in certain ratios. Sears, a biochemist, claims that keeping within ‘the zone’ balances the hormones and helps us achieve optimum health.

What Does It Involve?

You have to eat so that you have a balance of approximately 40% calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 30% from fat at each meal. Smaller, more frequent meals are advised. There is no particular limit on the calories that you eat.

Sears recommends this for a typical Zone diet meal: “Eat as much protein as the palm of your hand, as much non starchy raw vegetables as you can stand for the vitamins, enough carbohydrates to maintain mental clarity because the brain runs on glucose, and enough monounsaturated oils to keep feelings of hunger away.”

Plans are provided but even a small change from them can send your ratios off, so if you want to plan your own meals  you would use a nutrient tracker. These are provided at many free websites such as nutridiary.com.

Why Does It Work?

Sears says that this nutritional balance is best for the body and will help it achieve its ideal conditions including achieving and maintaining a normal weight.

Studies seem to bear this out. A TV show called Scientific American Frontiers ran a comparison of various popular diets. While this study was not managed under strict scientific research conditions, the Zone diet came out best, both in terms of weight loss and of building or maintaining muscle mass. It may be particularly good for men who tend to be more concerned than women about not losing muscle mass when they lose weight.

This diet will represent a small cut in fat intake for most people. The average American gets about 35% of calories from fat and that figure is probably higher for people who are overweight. Some people go as high as 65%. At 30%, the body will not store fat, but will use all that it takes in.

However, the Zone diet would not be described as a low fat diet. Sears criticizes low fat, high carbohydrate diets, claiming that high grain consumption is what causes people to gain weight.

The main the Zone diet would be difficult for vegetarians to follow, but Sears has published a more vegetarian friendly version called ‘The Soy Zone’.

Any Negatives?

Although calories are not counted or restricted, the diet has been criticized as being just another low calorie diet in practice. For example, Sears has apparently said that the Zone diet is not a high protein diet because a person would eat only a normal amount of protein a day, around 60g for the average woman. This would give her 240 calories. If this is 30% of her daily calories, she would consume only 800 calories per day. This is extreme calorie restriction: she would require more than twice that amount to maintain her weight.

Sears has also been criticized for apparently not following his own diet. According to Dr Joel Fuhrman in ‘The Eat To Live Diet’, Sears has said that he himself has around 100g of protein a day. If he were in the Zone this would give him 1330 calories per day. He is a tall man and on 1330 calories a day he should be losing around 2 pounds per week (300 pounds in 3 years), but he apparently says that he has lost only 35 pounds in 3 years. Fuhrman concludes that he must be taking in around 2300 calories a day and cannot therefore be in the Zone: he must be eating a higher percentage of either carbs or fat or both.

Nevertheless there are plenty of people who are happy with their results on the Zone diet including various Hollywood stars.

Click Image for great prices on The Zone Diet Dietary Road Map

Consult your doctor before starting on the zone diet.

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Here is our list of top diets. Click on the title of each of these popular diets to see more details including what the diet involves, if and why it works, and what are its bad points, if any.

Atkins Diet

The well known high protein diet developed by Dr Robert C Atkins. No high carbohydrate foods.

Blood Type Diet

A diet developed by Peter D’Adamo where you select from foods that are said to be right for your blood type (A, B, AB or O).

Cabbage Soup Diet

On this 7 day diet you can eat unlimited cabbage soup, plus specified other foods at different times. Generally this diet follows food combining principles and has some days of high protein and some of high carbs. Filling up on high fiber cabbage means that you should not go hungry. Claims you can lose 10 pounds in a week.

Grapefruit Diet

This diet has been around since the 1930s when it was taken up by Hollywood stars. It is a high protein, low carbs, low calorie diet that you follow for 12-18 days. Includes half a grapefruit at every meal, claimed to contain a fat burning enzyme.

Jenny Craig Diet

Available from franchised weight loss centers where you can see a counselor and purchase the recommended pre-prepared meals. Also available at a distance with counseling by phone and foods delivered.

Raw Food Diet

Mainly promoted for its overall health benefits, with weight loss as an extra plus. There are many variations of the raw food diet including raw vegan, raw vegetarian including raw dairy, and some versions that include raw meat and fish.

Scarsdale Diet

This is a high protein, low carbohydrate, low calorie diet with grapefruit. You follow the diet plan for 2 weeks at a time. Claims you can lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days.

South Beach Diet

Developed by a cardiologist, the South Beach diet identifies good carbohydrates and fats and avoids bad carbohydrates and fats. In three phases, this is a high protein diet for fast weight loss in the first 2 weeks, adding more foods back into the diet in subsequent weeks and finishing with a maintenance plan. Encourages frequent small meals.

Subway Diet

The most faddy diet on our list, this one consists of eating all meals from the healthy food options at the Subway chain of restaurants. Invented by college student Jared Fogle who lost 245 pounds in one year on this diet.

Zone Diet

This diet is based around a plan of consuming 40% of calories from carbs, 30% from protein and 30% from fats. There is no particular calorie restriction. A long term diet that claims to balance the hormones including insulin so that the body can make best use of food, and that a 30% limit on fats prevents the body storing fat.

Always consult with your doctor before starting any weight loss program, even those on our top diets list.

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