In the Zone, Part 2
WOD: 4/19/17
5x500m Row
Rest as needed between efforts.
Get in the Zone Pt.2
If you spent your weekend like I did then you ate a whole lotta chocolate and there is nothing wrong with that, some chocolate is good for the soul. (FYI don’t eat too much, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing ;D)
A few weeks back I wrote an article all about the Zone Diet and the history/background of it. I hopefully shed some light as to what being “in the Zone” means and also what it took to be in the Zone in regards to how many blocks a person should eat per meal. In it I also had a link to the CrossFit Journal that was a few pages long dedicated to the Zone Diet. If you didn’t get a chance to look at it or couldn’t find it in that blog post I’ll put it in an easier to find space right here.
How about a quick review as to what the Zone Diet is. Essentially it is a method to weigh out proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Each has their own measurement that is equivalent to 1 block.
1 block of protein = 7 grams of protein
1 block of carbohydrates = 9 grams of carbohydrates
1 block of fat = 1.5 grams of fat
You also must make sure that in every meal you have the same amount of blocks for all three of those macronutrients. While being on the Zone you are not recommended to have a meal with 5 blocks of protein, 8 blocks of carbs and 2 blocks of fats. (Once you begin to get more advanced/comfortable with how the Zone works, you can begin messing around with those numbers. If you are just beginning to explore the Zone diet, though, that will start to become overbearing. Keep it simple!)
Now that the basics are out of the way let’s get into the nitty-gritty pieces.
I’ve tried the Zone before, and I’ll be completely honest I did not last very long. The main reason, I like to believe, is that I’m not very creative when it comes to food so if you are creative, I believe you will have a significantly easier time trying this than I did! On the bright side when I do make meals that are considered “in the Zone”, it’s pretty easy (as long as you have something to measure out grams of food).
The first key to unlocking the Zone Diet is figuring out what your body type is.
Using this figure that I pulled off of the CrossFit Journal article you can begin to gauge just where you sit in regards to body size.
The following step would be to plan out how many blocks you are going to eat per meal and how often you are going to eat. Dr. Barry Sears stated that you want to eat within an hour of waking up, and then not to go more than 4 hours without eating either a meal or a snack. Knowing that little piece of information is extremely helpful because it helps time when to eat your meals.
Now, possibly after doing this for a few days or weeks you may have, or already have, been feeling hungry all the time. Ask my father he knows this all too well. Don’t fret though! There is an easy way to adjust that. Simply take another look at when you are eating. All that you need to do is adjust the amount of blocks per meal that still accommodates your total daily block intake. As long as you get the correct amount of blocks in everyday, it doesn’t quite matter what order you take them in. If that doesn’t work then you may begin to consider bumping up your total daily block intake by one or two.
Not too long ago my father had a conversation with Derek about what he (my father) should do
about the Zone. He was saying he felt hungry all of the time and didn’t know how to fix it. That’s when Derek hit him with some knowledge! All Derek said was something like “look at what times you ate before you did the Zone, now look at what times you eat while being on the Zone. You should try to imitate what times you ate while you were off the Zone, just make sure that you are still eating the correct amount of blocks per meal!” Something that simple never crossed my father’s mind and it helped him immensely.
We (being my father and I) rented a book called Mastering the Zone Written by Dr. Barry Sears. That book does a fantastic job in breaking down EXACTLY how many blocks you need to be eating in a day based off of some calculations. Unfortunately we had to return this Holy Grail back to the library which makes it hard for me to start spewing facts about the Zone. But I highly recommend going to the public library and renting it if you are somewhat interested in starting the Zone diet.
--Written by Austin Gray