What to Eat in the Zone: The Quick & Easy, Mix & Match Counter for Staying in the Zone – The Essential Food Blocks System for Hormonal Balance and Energy Updated Edition

Excerpt

Part One

Getting Started

What Is the Zone?

What is the Zone? You have probably heard manythings about it. Let me first say what the Zone is not.It is not a high-protein diet, and it is not a high-fatdiet, and it is not a high-carbohydrate diet. It is, however, about moderation and balance. Specifically,it’s about hormonal balance – keeping hormonal responses(and in particular, the hormone insulin) generatedby the food you eat within a zone: not toohigh, not too low. If insulin levels are too high, youwill accumulate excess stored body fat. If insulin levelsare too low, your cells will starve to death. Inessence, when you follow the Zone Diet you aretreating food as if it were a drug, giving food thesame respect that you would give any prescriptiondrug. This is a revolutionary concept, and this is whythe Zone is controversial. When viewed through thishormonal prism, food can be your greatest ally oryour worst enemy; you just have to know how to play by the rules that haven’t changed in 40 millionyears and are unlikely to change tomorrow.

Why Is the Zone Important to You?

You need to be in the Zone, because your life dependson it. The Zone is about hormonal thinkingand how the food you eat controls very powerfulhormones that are often hundreds of times morepowerful than prescription drugs. Hormones are thechemical messengers of your body. They direct everyone of your body’s vital systems as they can eitherdrive your body toward illness and disease or redirectyour body toward health. When they are functioningat their best, they can help your body achieve a stateof wellness and optimal performance. This is whatthe Zone Diet is all about. Once you begin to thinkabout food hormonally, you soon realize just howpowerful a drug food actually is. This doesn’t meanthat food has to taste like a drug, but it does meanthat it’s important to realize that food can have adversehormonal side effects, such as the overproductionof insulin.

Hormonal thinking is very different than caloricthinking. Caloric thinking can be summarized bythis philosophy: “if no fat touches my lips, then nofat reaches my hips.” This type of thinking has beenthe nutritional mantra in America for the past 15years. During this time, fat has been made to be thevillain of our society. Yet in that same 15-year period we have actually been eating less fat than everbefore and, in the process, have become the fattestpeople on the face of the earth (1). What wentwrong? Maybe fat is not the demon we have beentold. This is why more and more scientists are voicingtheir doubts in prestigious journals like the NewEngland Journal of Medicine in 1997:

“Replacement of fat by carbohydrate has notbeen shown to reduce the risk of coronary disease….” (2)

“Beneficial effects of high-carbohydrate dietson the risk of cancer or body weight have alsonot been substantiated … ” (2)

Or other medical researchers who have stated:

“The more insulin-resistant the individual, thegreater the likelihood that low-fat, high-carbohydratediets will increase the risk factorsfor ischemic heart disease.” (3)

How could this be if we have been told that eatinga low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is the key to betterhealth? In essence, these respected scientists are sayingthe emperor (i.e., the low-fat diet, high-carbohydratediet) has no clothes. Americans have been sold a pigin a poke for the last 15 years with the expectationthat low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets would be thepanacea for our health and wellness. The hormonal thinking behind the Zone explains why this hasn’thappened. In fact, the general state of health inAmerica is worse now than it was 15 years ago. Fortunately,there is a solution to this health crisis becauseit can be reversed with the Zone Diet.

Zone Benefits

If dietary fat alone doesn’t make you fat (besidesnot causing heart disease and cancer), then whatdoes? One answer is excess levels of the hormone insulin.The power of the Zone is that this hormonecan be controlled by the diet. The Zone is about keepinginsulin in a range or zone – not too high, not toolow. Not only can keeping insulin in a tight zone preventyou from gaining weight and help you to lose it,but also maintaining insulin in this same zone producesthe following benefits:

• Thinking better
• Performing better
• Looking better
• Living better (and longer)

  Who doesn’t want to experience these benefits?Let’s take them one by one.

  Thinking Better

  Maintaining peak mental acuity is simply a consequenceof maintaining stable blood sugar levels.Blood sugar is the metabolic fuel your brain uses tomaintain your mental activity. If blood sugar levelsdrop, then brain function (and your thinking ability)becomes compromised since your brain is running onempty. This is known as low blood sugar or hypoglycemia.As an example, think about how you feelthree hours after eating a big pasta meal. You canbarely keep your eyes open, and you find yourself in adense mental fog. That’s an example of low bloodsugar. Should your blood sugar levels drop even lower,the brain will actually shut down and go into a coma.This commonly occurs with diabetics who inject toomuch insulin. Before that drastic step happens, mostpeople will reach for some high-carbohydrate snackthat will temporarily increase blood sugar levels, butthis simply starts this vicious cycle over again …

  (Continues…)

  
  Excerpted from What to Eat in the Zoneby Sears, Barry Excerpted by permission.
  All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
  Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.Copyright © 2003 Jodi A. Mindell
  All right reserved.