The Zone diet is a diet popularized in books by Barry Sears, which advocates "hormonal thinking" in approach to weight loss, rather than caloric thinking.

The term, "the Zone," is Sears' term to describe proper hormone balance — insulin levels in the body being neither too high nor too low — as vital to using stored bodyfat for energy, causing one to lose excess weight. The diet centers around a "40:30:30" ratio of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, respectively. The formula is considered controversial, but studies over the past several years (including non-scientific study by Scientific American Frontiers) has shown to achieve weight loss quickly.

Contents

1 Hormonal paradoxes 2 The "low-carb craze" 3 See also 4 External links

Hormonal paradoxes

Research, Sears explains, points to an important hormonal paradox which "low-fat" advocates were unaware of, namely that low-fat carbohydrates increase the production of the hormone insulin, causing the body to store more fat. He points to a known fact about cattle ranching: that the best way to fatten cattle is to feed them lots of low-fat grain. Sears and others have pointed out the irony that human diets for the last twenty years have been full of low-fat carbohydrates—and people are more obese, they claim, as a result.

In addition to this, fat consumption is essential for burning fat. Healthy (monounsaturated) fats cause the production of important "command hormone" glucogen which direct other hormones in their use of stored fat in the body. Low-fat diets actually stimulate fat storage, according to Sears, because fat-storing insulin levels are allowed to run out of control.

The "low-carb craze"

The low-carbohydrate diet is fast becoming popular, with the Atkins diet and others, but Sears claims that these miss the point — that they ignore the importance of maintaining a hormonal balance, and how the balance between carbs, proteins, and fat influences the interconnected mechanisms hormones production and digestion.

See also

• List of diets
• Diet (nutrition)

External links

• The Zone Diet (http://www.zone-i.com/)
• Zone Diet Review (http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/diets/zone_diet/)
• The Low Carb User Site (http://icarbohydrate.com/)
• Zone Diet Guide (http://www.enterthezonediet.com/) - Provides information, articles and tips for people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight trough Zone Diet.