Getting in 'the zone'

So this week I have decided to try 'the zone diet'. Don't ask me how I came across this because I cannot remember, but what I did read intrigued me and I set about finding out as much as I could in order to start this Monday. I found some information online and ordered the zone book (2nd hand from amazon - £2) to get a better understanding and get organised.

I'll explain the concept of the zone as simply as possible, firstly though, I must clarify that the information I am posting is very specific to my body. The quantities I'm eating are specific to my size and my dietary needs. If this is something you think you would like to try then order yourself a copy of the book.

I also want to mention (which I'm sure anyone whose ever read this blog before already knows) I do NOT condone fad diets. I love clean eating, I've been doing it consistently for 2 months know which I've found to be easy and effective and something I am definitely doing for the long term. I'm really proud of my accomplishments so far. What I'm hoping to gain from 'the zone' is to learn more about portion control and quantities of macronutrients (protein, carbs and fat). It might be that I do not like this, it might be that I love it and can see myself doing it long term, we'll just have to see! But I am following this diet with clean eating too.

Ok so here goes. The concept of the zone is to give your body exactly what it needs. No more, no less. The perfect quantity to allow your body to function at its most optimal, which the author defines as 'the zone'.

To stay in 'the zone' we should regularly top ourselves up. So for example, if you require 100g of protein a day, you should split this up throughout the day as opposed to eating a little at lunch and having steak for dinner. This would overload your body and not let it process & make full use of the nutrients ingested. Instead, it is recommended that you spread it equally throughout the day.

So first things first, i had to work out what my body requires. the calculation looks a little something like this: my lean body mass (81.3%) x by my activity factor (grams per pound of lean body mass - 0.7) - this equates to moderate, 30 minutes per day, 3 x a week) which gives me 56.91. That is my daily protein requirement.

The author has then worked out some kind of formula (I haven't read the whole book yet - no idea how he came to this outcome just yet!) that sees 1 block contain 7g or protein.

That's probably quite confusing, so I'll try that again. It's recommended that each day we eat breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. At each meal we eat the required amount of 'blocks'. 1 block is equal to 7g protein, 9g carb, 1.5g of fat. So because I know that my daily protein requirement is 56g, I can divide this by 7 (g of protein) and get 8. This means that I am required to eat 8 blocks a day. Split up over the day it looks a little something like this:

Breakfast - 2 blocks
Lunch - 2 blocks
Snack - 1 block
Dinner - 2 blocks
Snack - 1 block

Now if you really wanted to, you could work out the nutritional value for all your favourite foods by looking at the quantity of protein, carb and fat - but I have been using this website

and the book which contain lists of the most common foods all worked out into blocks. So all I have to do is pick 2 things from the protein list, 2 things from the carb list and 2 things from the fats lists - or one thing from each if its just a snack. It's actually all rather simple isn't it?

I spent a couple of hours getting my head around this and planning my meals for the next 5 days to make sure I buy the right amount of food and keep things a little interesting. It is recommended that for the first week you do this and weigh out everything and plan plan plan. After that, judging quantities and making the right decisions should be a lot easier. Lets hope so.

So today I did my food shop which in case anyone is interested, came to £44. I have enough food to do this for 7 days as opposed to 5 so have frozen any extra meat. You should notice too that there are things on my list that I will not have to buy again for months (omega 3's, peanut butter, oats, 2 x food storer, cashews). But, I stopped for petrol on my way home from Dans today and the garage had an M&S. I'm really fussy about wafer thin hams and chickens so I bought my roast chicken and turkey from there. Chicken was 3 for £6 (2 packs have gone into the freezer for next week) and turkey was £2 each - I only needed one pack. So I think on a weekly basis £40-45 is probably about right.

Then I spent two solid hours prepping. This was awesome! I caught up on some supersize vs super skinny whilst I prepped my food for the next 5 days. I separated all my fruit into the right quantities, weighed out all my chicken and turkey, grated and weighed my cheese, chopped up all my veggies, cooked my steak and weighed it out and finally cooked my lean mince with chilli for my tacos. Literally all I have to do every day is grab a scoop of protein powder and cook some eggs.












This side of things I find very appealing. I love the easy organisation that goes into this! This is all food to go. Natures fast food ;) I have all these nutritionally balanced meals just ready to be picked out of the fridge and eaten.

Even if I don't think that the zone is something I can maintain long term, I will definitely be prepping like this from now on.

I should mention the only reason I have decided to do this for 5 days only is because I'm usually at my boyfriends over the weekend - but if this all sinks in I'm sure I'll be able to make wise zone decisions there too!

So stay tuned, I plan on blogging a daily food diary so you can see what kind of stuff I'm eating, how often and how it's left me feeling. Hopefully not hangry (a state of hunger induced anger) trust me, I suffer from that.

Hope you've all had a great weekend and I hope you enjoy my blogs in the week to come!

Minnie
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