The Zone Diet uncovered

Famous for its rapid results the Zone has been around since the days of Jane Fonda and has many celebrity followers including Jennifer Aniston, Renée Zellweger, Cindy Crawford and Tom Cruise.

By Becky Taylor

The Zone was devised and popularised by biochemist Barry Sears and claims to make dieters feel full and energised while still helping with weight loss, unlike many other quick fix fad diets, which can be more restrictive. It works by balancing hormones so that they are in ‘the Zone'. When hormones are in the Zone, insulin levels are neither too high nor too low, they are perfectly balanced. Seers believes that when hormones are in this state more fat is burned without making the dieter feel tired or hungry.

So how do you get your hormones in ‘the Zone?' By ditching sugar and refined carbs such as white bread, pasta and cakes in favour of low GI foods like meat, vegetables and pulses, your insulin levels will remain stable rather than dipping and rising too quickly which results in lethargy and sugar cravings.

As well as giving your diet a radical overhaul, you will also need to adhere to a strict fixed ratio of 40:30:30 of carbohydrates, proteins and fats at every mealtime. This will involve a lot of weighing and measuring but stick with it and you can expect to lose around five pounds for the first week and about one to two pounds every week after that.

To make things a little simpler Sears has developed Zone blocks which helps followers work out how much food they are allowed a day according to their size. Everyone is allowed three blocks per mealtime but the larger you are, the more blocks you will be allowed over the course of a day.

For every ardent follower of the Zone there is a sceptic lurking and, like all low carbohydrate diets there are also some health concerns. Current healthy eating guidelines recommend 50 per cent of our calories should come from carbohydrate and only 15 per cent from protein whereas a diet on the Zone would be mostly made up of protein and fats. Sceptics also don't believe that regulating insulin will help with weight loss unlike Sears who thinks that excess insulin makes us fat and keeps us fat.

A typical day on the Zone would include and an egg white omelette with turkey and grated cheddar cheese fro breakfast, a chicken three-bean salad for lunch and roast lamb with barley salad and sweet potatoes for dinner.

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