Before I introduce the Zone Diet, I would first like to highlight the importance of the quality of food that you should be putting into your body. Sticking to meats, seafood, veggies, fruits and good fats is the best way to fuel your system before, between and after workouts. After you clean up your diet, then you can put some thought into how to measure intake quantity and your macro nutrients proportions (i.e. fats, carbs, and protein). This is where the Zone Diet comes in. Balancing your portions and carb/fat/protein intake with the Zone is incredibly important for the serious CrossFit athlete or for those just looking to shed pounds.
Think of food as a drug. Like a drug, food affects the good and bad hormone levels in your body. Your body, and all its functions, is run by hormones. With the perfect balance of carbs, fats, and protein, you will be able to control the three major hormones associated with the human diet – insulin, glucagon, and eicosanoids. Insulin is used when the body has excess energy and needs to store it as fat if it is not being burned. If insulin levels are high, glucose, instead of fat, will be converted to energy. Insulin also elevates levels of inflammation in the body. Glucagon is sort of the opposite. Glucagon mobilizes glucose (stored carbs) in an effort to normalize blood sugar levels in an effort to optimize physical and mental performance. Eicosanoids are hormones that control for inflammation among many other things. The balance of these three is very important to how your body’s performance and how it stores and uses energy.
To optimize these three hormones, it has been proven that balancing the marco nutrients is the key. The Zone Diet splits the three macros up so that you get the right quantity of each at every meal. For example, if you where to eat a one block meal, you would need one block of fat, one of carbohydrate, and one of protein. This would look like 1 ounce of roast beef, 1 cup of broccoli, and three almonds. There will be different amounts in each block depending on the caloric density of the food. Therefore, there will be much more broccoli in a block of carbs than there would be sweet potato.
The best part is, you can optimize your total intake based on your body type. Whether you are trying to put on, maintain, or loose weight, there is a total block per day ratio just for you. Below is an example of different block totals.
Here is an example of an eating schedule for an 11 block female:
7:30 am 10am 1:00pm 3:30pm 6:30pm 9pm/9:30 (bedtime)
bkfst snack lunch snack dinner snack
2 Block 1 Block 3 Block 1 Block 3 Block 1 Block = 11 total
As you can see, there are five meals spaced out throughout the day. This is best in order to keep a healthy metabolism level and energy levels up throughout the day. This also helps your body avoid the fast and gorge cycles, as I like to call it, between meals. Eating at regular intervals also helps your hormone levels stay balanced throughout the day. Feel free to experiment with the number of blocks that is right for your body. Every athlete is different.
