I am the same height as Sarah Jessica Parker and almost 3st heavier, which I find quite shocking. I have no desire to be 7st - I'd look like a soup spoon with arms - but I'd be lying if I said I was happy with my weight. I'd love to be 9st again, so I volunteered to go on the Zone Diet for a month.
The Zone is a low-calorie, high-protein, low-fat, moderate-carbohydrate diet. It is based on the theory that the body requires a balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat to keep insulin levels within a certain zone. When that happens blood-sugar levels remain stable, mental and physical performance improve and the body starts burning excess fat.
Advocating a balanced diet with the emphasis on fruit and vegetables, lean meat and fish makes perfect sense, and nothing is banned. In fact, the meal templates in Mastering The Zone by Barry Sears, the inventor of the diet, factor in alcohol, and the relative amounts of foods like ice cream and chips are also listed.
It is designed to be simple and there are lots of handy hints - literally. One of the rules is never eat more low-fat protein than the size of your palm. You put together an equal number of blocks of protein, carbs and fat to make a meal and eat three meals a day, plus two snacks based on the same principle. So far, so good.
However, calculating how much protein I was supposed to have per day made my head hurt. First you have to work out your lean body mass by multiplying your weight by your body-fat percentage and subtracting the answer from your weight, then you multiply it by your activity factor and divide it by seven. Er...I got as far as working out my body-fat percentage (30.29%) and logged on to the website to get a rough calculation instead.
My other big problem was working out how much of which carbs I could have, because almost all the blocks are calculated in American 'cups'. What on earth does four cups of raw broccoli look like? As a cup is a unit of volume rather than weight, you can't say one cup equals x ounces. Apparently it equates to 247ml and the closest thing I could get to a measuring cup was a 250ml food container, so I'm going to let myself off the extra 3ml.
The thought of eating protein five times a day does not appeal - particularly at breakfast - and I found the suggested recipes generally revolting. Cottage cheese mixed with fruit and black olives? I don't think so.
The book recommends that you have no grains or starches for the first two weeks and make up your carb allowance from fruit and veg instead. Given that half a slice of bread equals three red peppers, finding house space for a week's worth of food, let alone the time to eat it, will be a bit of a challenge. Here goes...
