What Is The Zone Diet?

The Zone Diet is one of the five most discussed diets currently being endorsed. Developed by Barry Sears, a former researcher at MIT, it is based on maintaining insulin levels by striking a balance between carbohydrates and proteins at each meal.
 
Sears suggests that the major cause of obesity is an imbalance of insulin in the body. He maintains that the diet currently recommended by most medical institutions is high in carbohydrates and low in fats - a combination which he contends contributes to the production of too much insulin, and results in obesity.
 
The Zone Diet is based on the concept of achieving a physiological state in which insulin and eicosanoids, two hormones, are maintained in zones that are carefully balanced. By controlling the balance of insulin and eicosanoids, you increase the loss of fat, and decrease the likelihood of heart disease and diabetes, decrease inflammation and increase blood flow, and increase your physical and mental stamina.
 
The Zone Diet
 
The diet program of The Zone is designed to balance your intake of protein and carbohydrate at 1 part protein to 4 parts carbohydrate. It advises a moderate intake of carbohydrates, proteins and fat in order to control insulin. It prescribes a maximum amount of low-fat protein at one meal at 3-4 ounces, which is nearly exactly the recommendation of the USDA and the FDA. The majority of carbohydrates on the Zone diet come from vegetables and fruits, with limited amounts of bread, rice, potatoes and grains. Most fat intake should be from monounsaturated fats like olive oil, safflower oil and other 'heart healthy' oils.
 
While this sounds a good deal like the Atkins diet (restricting carbohydrates), the differences are very clear. Atkins recommends a diet high in protein without regard to fat, with the intent of provoking ketosis, a potentially unhealthy condition. High carbohydrate diets recommend increasing carbohydrate levels and inducing the production of insulin which, maintains Sears, increases weight gain. Instead, the Zone Diet recommends achieving an optimal balance of nutrients with moderate amounts of proteins, carbohydrates and fat all playing a part.
 
The other component of the Zone diet worthy of note is the supplementation of diet with fish oil. Fish oil, particularly pharmaceutical grade fish oil, provides omega 3 fatty acids which are an important component in healthy cells. Study after study in the past five years has confirmed the importance of fish and omega 3 fatty acids in the diet.
 
A sample meal on The Zone's eating plan might include:

1 3 oz portion of broiled salmon
Spinach salad with apples and walnuts dressed with walnut oil and lemon juice
1/2 cup of brown rice
1 glass fruit or vegetable juice
 
The eating plan recommended by The Zone diet combines small portions of low fat proteins, fats and fiber-rich vegetables and fruits. It also suggests eating some protein with each meal or snack, and at least 3 meals and 2 snacks daily.
 
Who should use the Zone Diet?

As always, if you're under the care of a physician for any chronic medical condition, you should consult them before embarking on any diet plan that substantially changes your eating habits. There are significant differences between the Zone Diet and that recommended for diabetics and heart patients, for instance. Overall, the recommended portions of foods and the balance between them is consistent with a healthy diet, and is maintainable for a lifetime.

What Is Your Healthy Body Weight?

Everywhere we look in the western world we are inundated with pictures, images, icons and inferences of the 'perfect' female shape! The truth is that many of these images are altered or enhanced in some way and do not depict the typical female form. The pressure to lose weight is immense when we are bombarded every day with media selling products based on slimness, sex appeal and fashion. The constant message is that slimness will make you desireable.

With the current demographic trends in western countries, and faced with a sea of high fat, high sugar combined with physical inactivity; it is time to pay attention to our weight but not for any reasons of desirability. The most important reason for wanting to be a healthy body weight is for health rather than for how your body looks.

Overweight and obesity are major public health problems in western countries. Since the 1980s both adult men and women have become heavier, with obesity rates more than doubling in the last 20 years! Children are also becoming heavier. There is a growing concern that we are inadvertently training our overweight children to become obese adults. It has been said, we are digging our graves with out teeth! So how can we determine what is a healthy body weight for each individual?

<b>How you tell if you are overweight</b>

As we are all different shapes and sizes, there is not one recommended weight for your height. Instead there is a range of weights that are healthy for your height. One way to check your weight is to calculate your Body Mass Index or BMI.

Your BMI is a ratio or comparison of your height and weight expressed in a number. To find out your BMI you need to divide your weight (measured in kg) by your height (measured in m) squared. If you do not know your measurements in the metric system you can find any number of BMI calculators online that will do the conversion for you into empirical measures. One such calculator is at the website listed below.

The accepted definitions of weight categories by BMI are:

Underweight - BMI less than 18.5
Healthy weight - BMI between 18.5 and 24.9
Overweight - BMI equal to or greater than 25 and up to 29.9
Obese - BMI equal to or greater than 30

These BMI values only apply to adults aged 18 years and over and are based on studies of Caucasian populations. Therefore, they are not applicable to children and adolescents and they may not be appropriate for people of other cultural backgrounds.

Another way to check your weight is to measure your waist circumference, using a tape measure. This gives you an idea of whether you have a lot of fat stored around your middle. Waist circumferences associated with increased health risk are:

For men Waist circumference greater than 94cm
For women Waist circumference greater than 80cm

Being a healthy weight can help:

- improve blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure and blood glucose levels
- reduce your risk of other health related problems
- improve self confidence and self esteem
- make it easier to be physically active.

If you are obese or overweight…try not to gain additional weight. This will help you in years to come as people tend to increase weight with age. Better still look after your body and follow a healthy lifestyle incorporating a nutritious, delicious, health enhancing weight loss program. Just by losing 10 pounds you can significantly improve your overall health.

What Is Your Weight Loss Motivation Level?

Have you ever wondered why there are so many diets out there on the marketplace these days? With new diets popping up on the Internet and in health and wellness journals all of the time, the phrase ‘yo-yo dieting’ says it all. If the South Beach Diet doesn’t work, there is always the Beverly Hills Diet, or the Cabbage Soup Diet…or…the list seems endless! If you are a serial dieter then you literally have no end to the options you can pick and choose from.

What you really need to know though, is that it is not the diet that controls the weight loss, it is the person behind the diet. If you have not yet come to understand what, if any, importance food weighs in your life, and you are bouncing from one diet plan to the next diet pill, to the next gym membership then you need to realize that it isn’t the diet that is failing you, but rather it is you failing the diet.

So what are some of the key things you can do to stay on track for a healthy lifestyle that involves a long term weight loss plan? Try these options:

1. Don’t follow a diet plan, but instead count your calories - You can buy a calorie chart at any bookstore and keep track for yourself how many calories you are consuming daily.

2. Stay away from fatty fast foods - Fast food restaurants may be fast and easy, but they serve up high calorie food that isn’t nutritious in the long run.

3. Make water your best friend - Water is an essential part of life. Everyone needs water because it helps to lubricate our joints. There are minerals in water that our body needs and our metabolism needs water in order to help us break down the protein in our body to supply energy. A person needs to drink at least 2 liters of water daily!

4. Stay away from alcohol - Alcohol dehydrates you. If you want some proof, remember your last hangover? After you came away with the sluggish, headachy feeling, were you craving a big glass of water?

5. Don’t skip meals - People mistakenly believe that if they skip meals they will lose weight? Skipping meals will just make your hungrier in the long-run and you will eat MORE food.

6. Stay active - Discipline yourself to be physically active. Don’t overdo it (and check with your doctor first). Create a program that you can work with. Set realistic goals and look around your environment for ways that will increase your physical activity without interrupting your day. Take advantage of any stairs you might have at home or in the office. Don’t take the elevator or escalator, take the stairs!

7. Gather support - Talk to your family members and loved ones. Involve them in your new healthy lifestyle. Plan family outings where there is a good amount of walking. Plan vacations with activities in mind that will involve the entire family. The commitment to lose weight is within yourself.

Strengthen your resolve and keep your goals small and attainable.

What Kind Of Dieter Are You?

Everyday it seems, we hear stories about people who joined a weight loss program, lost weight and look great! Before and after photographs provide dramatic proof that yes, these programs do work. But how do you decide which weight loss program is best for you, and make it work?

First, you have to remember that the aim of a weight loss program is to take weight off and KEEP IT OFF. Yo-yo dieting puts stress on your body that can make losing weight harder and harder and packing it back on far too easy. It's important to choose a diet plan that will help you make changes to your eating habits that will last a lifetime.

If you're a yo-yo dieter, you probably have a history of swinging between very restrictive diets and then returning to 'normal' eating once you've lost the weight that you need to lose. You've proved that you have willpower now what you need is re-education. Instead of choosing a strict regimen that you'll abandon when the diet is done, commit to following the recommendations for healthy eating from the USDA, and add half an hour of exercise to your daily routing five times a week. You'll establish healthy habits that will take off the pounds - and help you keep them off forever.

Secondly, decide just how much help you need. What motivates you? Are you a private person by nature, or do you do best with a lot of social support? Are you a strong-willed person who can decide to do something and 'just do it', or will you need help overcoming temptation?

If you thrive on social motivation, joining a weight loss program like Weight Watchers or TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) might be the best option for you. You'll have social support, motivational rewards and weekly check-ins to help you stay on track and give you goals to aim for.

Next, do you do best with regimented, strict instructions that tell you exactly what you should do step by step, or are you happiest and more comfortable with a little flexibility?

If you do best when you have strict guidelines to follow and like routines, then look for a diet that gives you daily menus with precise measurements and foods to eat. While that may feel restrictive to many people, the trick is to do what works for you. In fact, once you reach your target weight, you can subscribe to a healthy eating or living magazine that has daily menus.

If restrictive diets and inflexible menus aren't for you, then try a diet that gives you the option of mixing and matching your meals within certain parameters. Whether you count carbs, calories or exchanges, a diet like the Atkins, Weight Watchers or the Zone diet gives you some flexibility within the prescribed 'allowed foods'.

Finally, how much weight do you have to lose? How long have you been trying to lose it? Will quick results keep you motivated, or is slow-and-steady progress all you really need?

Try a Quick-start with the Atkins diet to strip off the early weight - a lot of it water weight - quickly so that you will see results immediately. When your results from such restrictive eating are slow, pick up the activity by adding a little more exercise and vary your diet a little - but count your calories and carbs. Aim for a steady 1-2 pounds per week, but if you need an extra boost, drop back to a more restrictive pattern to give your metabolism a little kick. The trick is to never stay with an extremely low calorie diet long enough to slow your metabolism. Just drop down and pick up the activity level long enough to wake yourself up again.

What’s 100 Calories A Day?

According to the American Dietetic Association, the difference between weight loss and weight gain can be as little as 100 calories a day. Most Americans suffer from 'weight creep' - those nagging pounds that creep on over the years - at an average of about 2 pounds per year. That's 20 pounds in ten years. 40 pounds in 20. Can you afford to weigh 40 pounds more than you do now in twenty years?
 
The difference could be as simple as cutting out 100 calories a day from your daily diet - or adding 100 calories a day to your daily routine - or a combination of both. How hard is it to cut 100 calories a day out of your diet? Take a look.
 
Are you a coffee lover? If you drink your coffee with whole milk, you can save 100 calories a day by drinking two cups with skim milk instead.
 
Do you drink non-diet soft drinks? One 16 ounce Pepsi is 250 calories. Skip one Pepsi a day and you'll be cutting out two and a half times the suggested calorie reduction.
 
Substitute a plain donut for a jelly donut. You'll cut out 120 calories. Think you're doing better by choosing the lighter croissant? Think again. A croissant has as many calories as a jelly donut - 289.
 
If you eat out at Mickey D's, skip the dressing on your salad, or you might as well have a burger. One packet of French dressing has 160 calories.
 
If you go out with the guys, drink one less beer. Each 12 oz beer, even a light brand, averages 100 calories.
 
Want to burn it up instead of avoiding it? Here's how much time you need to spend at various activities to burn 100 calories.
 
Swimming energetically for just 15 minutes will burn 100 calories.
 
You can burn 100 calories for every hour that you do housework.
 
Only have ten minutes? Jump rope. At 700 calories per hour, you can burn up 100 calories in just 10 minutes!
 
Knit for an hour and fifteen minutes. At 85 calories an hour, it's not a major calorie burner, but if you combine that with the potato chips you can't munch while you're knitting you could be saving some substantial calories.
 
Stay late at the office for an extra forty - unless of course, you're missing your workout at the gym. An hour of office work burns about 140 calories.
 
Hop on the trampoline for fifteen minutes. Moderate aerobics exercise burns 400 calories an hour. Put on some music and dance on the tramp through four songs and you'll be doing great.
 
Go for a 10 minute walk - but aim for a brisk pace. Power walking burns 600 calories an hour. You can burn 100 in ten minutes.
 
Play a round of golf at the club. Half an hour of golfing - without a golf cart - burns 120 calories.
 
The beauty of it all is that you can build any of the suggestions above into your daily routine, and create a healthy habit that will keep off extra pounds and take off those that you want to lose now.

What To Do When You Just Can't Lose Weight

I know what it's like to be stuck. I lost a little weight and then I stopped. I had about 25-30 lbs. to go and nothing was happening. I was exercising, eating healthy and no more weight loss. Here is how I was able to lose the rest of the weight I wanted to. You can do it too!

1. Rethink your diet.
It is time to stop dieting and cutting calories. Avoid quick fix fad diets. You usually end up gaining more weight when it is over than you weighed when you started. Your goal should be to get healthy. Work towards a lifetime goal of a healthy diet and lifestyle change.

And be careful, some foods, such as soy and skim milk, which are marketed as health and diet foods are unhealthy and/or actually help make you fatter. (For more information see our free ebook at http://enzyme-health.com.)

2. Eat healthy life-giving foods.
Choose healthier organic produce, meats, eggs and milk products. Get plenty of proteins, to help you build muscle and burn fat.

3. Cut out the bad carbs and processed foods.
Avoid the bad carbs-- white sugar and white flour. Stay away from the processed foods as much as possible. It is the bad fats and oils, carbs, preservatives, MSG, and food dyes that keep many people overweight.

4. Try cooking with coconut oil.
Coconut oil is the best oil you can use in your diet. It actually promotes weight loss by burning as fuel for the body instead of storing as fat. It is a harmless saturated fat that has been proven not to cause heart disease, and actually helps fight cardiovascular disease. And you can use it for higher temperature cooking, unlike olive oil.

5. Exercise moderately-- but don't over do it.
People talk a lot about the need to add more exercise, but too much exercise can be almost as bad as too little. Listen to your body. Start slowly and increase your exercising gradually. Vary your exercise routines. Alternate weight training and aerobics exercises on different days.

6. When you still can't lose weight, get some help.
Sometime you just need a little extra help. There are proven herbs and supplements that can that can give you that extra edge you might need to cut your appetite, give your metabolism and energy levels a boost, and help you burn fat and build muscle.

There are also a lot of diet scams out there, so be careful. I did a lot of research, and tried a lot of supplements with empty promises-- but you can learn from me. I found the best fat burning and weight loss supplements, and they are all in one simple patch that you apply daily. I am really excited about this product. It gave me the added push, when I needed it. Maybe it can help you too.

What to Expect After Gastric Bypass Surgery

Most patients recover after gastric bypass surgery without complications.  Typically, those who undergo the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedure, which involves stapling of the stomach and bypassing the first part of the small intestines, have a hospital stay of two to four days.  Other gastric bypass procedures may have shorter or longer recovery times. 

Aside from common risks associated with surgeries like infection, after gastric bypass surgery, patients must be more sensitive to their nutritional intake.  Since the surgery bypasses a portion of the small intestine responsible for much of the body’s nutrient absorption, patients may face problems like lack of iron (anemia), lack of calcium leading to osteoporosis, lack of vitamin B12 and more.  With nutritional counseling and supplements, these effects can be lessened greatly. 

After gastric bypass surgery, there is also the possibility that the patient may experience “dumping syndrome,” an unpleasant reaction caused by food high in simple carbohydrates that involves abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, weakness, and sweating after eating. 

As the stomach is extremely sensitive for several weeks after gastric bypass surgery, initially patients subsist on a liquid or semi-liquid diet.  Afterwards, solid food will make the patient feel full very quickly as the new stomach pouch usually only holds a tablespoon of food.  The pouch will eventually expand and the patient will be expected to eat several small meals throughout the day.  In addition, the stomach probably will not be able to handle both solid food and liquid at the same time intake of fluid and food will have to be separated by at least 30 minutes.  Consumption of high-fat foods, alcohol, and sugar will not be tolerated by the digestive system after gastric bypass surgery and will make you feel ill.  Exercise in the form of walking should begin immediately following the hospital stay but more strenuous exercise should be gradually introduced 6-8 weeks after surgery.

Excess weight loss will begin immediately after gastric bypass surgery and typically continues for 18-24 months after surgery at which point many patients have lost between 50% and 100% of their excess weight.  This depends, however, on their commitment to follow the dietary and lifestyle guidelines outlined by their physician and dietary counselor.  Remember the surgery is not a solution in itself and results will depend on the patient’s commitment to eat properly and exercise.