The Zone Diet
The following information is from studying over different data over the internet and the reason I decided to do write about Zone Diet because it is inflammation at genetic level.
I personally haven't tried the zone diet yet,but i really found it interesting as the benefits are none but anti-aging plus is easy to do it
Let's get started.
One way or another, you’ve probably heard of the Zone Diet.
Maybe it was through one of its celebrity followers; Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, and Demi Moore have all been rumored to be fans.
Either way, the Zone Diet was created by Barry Sears, Ph.D, formerly a research scientist at the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to help people lose weight and lower their risk of chronic disease by reducing diet-induced inflammation.
According to Sears, “the zone” is a physiological state in which your body is primed to control inflammation. It’s determined by three clinical markers that measure insulin and other inflammation-promoting hormones. By keeping your body in this zone, the Zone Diet results in losing one to two pounds per week—or that's at least what its proponents claim.
The Zone Diet is often called a fad diet, despite its 30-year history and three New York Times best-selling books. This year, it tied with three other diets to be named the 22nd best overall diet (out of 40 diets) evaluated in the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Diet Rankings of 2018—meaning it likely won't hurt your health, but it might not be your best option.
What Does Inflammation Have to Do with Weight?
For one, research has linked elevated levels of inflammation-sensitive proteins in the body with future weight gain. One scientific review even called obesity a “state of low-grade, chronic inflammation.”
Essentially, inflammation is how your immune system protects your body from foreign substances, like when you have a wound. But foreign substances, like allergens, can also be found in the air and your food, and can sometimes cause an an inflammatory response in your body.
“Inflammation as it relates to weight regulation is a phenomenon where external stresspredisposes the body to an increase in stress-related markers in the blood," explains Fatima Cody Stanford, M.D., an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts. When the body has an increase in inflammatory markers, there is often an increase in fat tissue. That's because chronic inflammation can cause your fat cells to retain those foreign substances, as well as fluid, eventually growing bigger and bigger.
The Zone Diet also puts an emphasis on managing insulin, a hormone that regulates the storage of fat, in your system. When your blood sugar spikes—after eating foods like refined carbohydrates, processed foods, and sugary foods—it causes counter-spikes in insulin, which can trigger inflammation.
How Do I Get into the Zone?
Your diet is the key. An anti-inflammatory diet like the Zone Diet will get you to the Zone and keep you there for a lifetime. The Zone Diet is designed to control the expression of inflammatory genes. The Zone Diet can be enhanced by anti-inflammatory supplements, such as omega-3 fatty acids and polyphenols.
What Are the Food Ingredients Used in the Zone Diet?
The primary ingredients are low-fat protein, colorful carbohydrates rich in polyphenols, and fat that is low in both saturated fat and omega-6 fats. The secret is balancing these ingredients to get the appropriate hormonal responses at each meal. What the Zone Diet Food Pyramid looks like is shown here.
The less white (white bread, white rice, white pasta, and white potatoes) you put on your plate, the less cellular inflammation you are going to create.
You also have to stick to a strict schedule: You’ll eat three meals and two snacks, and you should never go more than five hours without eating. That’s important because “when people eat frequent meals and snacks, they’re less likely to overeat later in the day and may have a lower likelihood of craving foods that are known to be worse for our health, liked processed, sweet, and salty foods,” all of which cause inflammation, says Stanford. Regular eating also keeps your blood sugar levels steady, which helps avoid an inflammatory response.
How Do You Follow the Zone Diet?
The Zone Diet has no specific phases and is designed to be followed for a lifetime.
There are two ways to follow the Zone Diet: the hand-eye method, or using Zone food blocks.
Most people start with the hand-eye method and progress to using Zone food blocks later, since it is more advanced. You can switch between both methods whenever you feel like, since they each have their own benefits.
What Foods Can You Eat on the Zone Diet?
A lot of the favorable Zone Diet food choices are similar to those of the Mediterranean Diet, which is one of the healthiest diets on the planet.
In fact, the creator of the Zone Diet has recently released a new book called The Mediterranean Zone, in which he covers the similarities and benefits of the two diets.
Protein
Protein options in the Zone Diet should be lean. Good options include:
Lean beef, lamb
Skinless chicken and turkey breast
Fish and shellfish
Vegetarian protein, tofu, other soy products
Egg whites
Low-fat cheeses
Low-fat milk and yogurt
Fat
The Zone Diet encourages choosing a type of monounsaturated fat. Good options include:
Avocados
Nuts, such as macadamia, peanuts, cashews, almonds or pistachios
Peanut butter
Tahini
Oils such as canola oil, sesame oil, peanut oil and olive oil
Carbs
The Zone Diet encourages its followers to choose vegetables with a low glycemic index and a little fruit.
Good options include:
Fruit such as berries, apples, oranges, plums and more
Vegetables such as cucumbers, peppers, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, yellow squash, chickpeas and more
Grains, such as oatmeal and barley
What Can't You Eat on the Zone Diet?
Nothing is strictly banned on the Zone Diet. However, certain food choices are considered unfavorable because they promote inflammation.
High-sugar fruits: Such as bananas, grapes, raisins, dried fruits and mangoes.
High-sugar or starchy vegetables: Like peas, corn, carrots and potatoes.
Refined and processed carbs: Bread, bagels, pasta, noodles and other white-flour products.
Other processed foods: Including breakfast cereals and muffins.
Foods with added sugar: Such as candy, cakes and cookies.
Soft drinks: Neither sugar-sweetened nor sugar-free drinks are recommended.
Coffee and tea: Keep these to a minimum, since water is the beverage of choice.
How Does the Zone Diet Work?
The Zone Diet claims to optimize your hormones to allow your body to enter a state called "the Zone." This is where your body is optimized to control inflammation from your diet.
The reported benefits of being in "the Zone" are:
Losing extra body fat as fast as possible
Maintaining wellness into older age
Slowing down the rate of aging
Performing better and thinking faster
Dr. Sears recommends testing three blood values to determine whether you are in "the Zone."
Benefits of the Zone Diet
Following the Zone Diet has many benefits.
Unlike other diets, the Zone Diet does not strictly restrict any food choices. However, it does recommend against options that are unfavorable, such as added sugar and processed foods. This can make the Zone Diet more appealing than other diets for people who struggle with food restrictions.
The recommended food choices for the Zone Diet are quite similar to the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet is supported by evidence as being one of the best for your long-term health. The Zone Diet also provides you with flexibility, since there are two methods of following the diet.
The Zone Food Block method can also help fat loss because it controls how many calories you eat per day. It is well known that controlling your calorie intake helps with weight loss
If you want to find out how many calories you need to eat per day to maintain and lose weight, you can find out here.
Disadvantages of the Zone Diet
Although the Zone Diet has several benefits, it also has some disadvantages.
First, the Zone Diet makes many strong health claims that are based on the theory behind the diet.
However, there is little evidence to support that the theory produces the purported results
For example, the Zone Diet claims to improve performance. However, a study on athletes following the diet found that, although they lost weight, they also lost endurance and were exhausted faster than others
Reducing diet-induced inflammation to reach "the Zone" is another claim the diet makes. The Zone Diet claims that once your blood values meet their targets, your body would be in "the Zone."
Although some research shows the diet may improve your blood values, more research is needed before researchers can say this significantly reduces inflammation in the body
There is also little evidence that supports the Zone Diet's 40% carb, 30% protein and 30% fat ratio as the optimal ratio for fat loss and health benefits.
Another study compared the effects of a Zone-type diet that had 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat to the effects of a diet that had 60% carbs, 15% protein and 25% fat
The study did find people on a Zone-based ratio lost more weight. However, that difference could be due to higher protein intake
Interestingly, the study also found no significant differences in blood values of sugar, fat and cholesterol between the two groups.
This does not match the claims made by the Zone Diet and could mean the improved blood values found in other studies may be due to supplementing with omega-3 and polyphenols, rather than benefits from diet alone.
The Zone Diet makes hefty health claims. However, there isn't enough evidence to support them.
Should You Try the Zone Diet?
At the end of the day, choose a diet that best matches your lifestyle.
The Zone Diet could be ideal for you if you want a diet that has similar food options to the Mediterranean Diet, but provides you with clear guidelines to follow. However, the health claims the diet makes are best taken with a grain of salt. Although the theory behind the diet may be linked with better health outcomes, there is not enough evidence to say the diet will reduce your risk of chronic disease, slow down aging, improve physical performance or help you think faster.
If you want to try to build healthy eating habits, the Zone Diet may help get you started and help you practice portion control.
Yet what matters in the long term is basing your diet around whole and unprocessed foods — regardless of the name of the diet.
High-dose Omega-3 Fatty Acids
It is often difficult to obtain adequate levels of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) that are the molecular building blocks to produce a specialized group of hormones known as resolvins. Resolvins are critical to the resolution of inflammation. Without adequate levels of these omega-3 fatty acids in the blood, it is impossible to make adequate levels of resolvins to return the body back to equilibrium after the initiation of inflammation. If the initiation phase of inflammation is too strong or the resolution phase is too weak, the result is chronic cellular inflammation. To achieve adequate levels of resolvin formation, a healthy person will require a minimum of 2.5 grams per day of EPA and DHA. For those with an existing chronic inflammatory disease, the levels of EPA and DHA required can be considerably higher to increase the resolution of existing cellular inflammation.
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Disclaimer:Please take a doctor's opinion before starting your diet!
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Your Well-wisher,
Dr.Insiya
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