The Zone: A Dietary Road Map to Lose Weight Permanently : Reset Your Genetic Code : Prevent Disease : Achieve Maximum Physical Performance (Hardcover) Review

After a lot of encouragement from my mother, who has been following the Zone for two years, I decided to try this diet.I've been on it for 3 months and I've lost 28 pounds and 2 clothing sizes without really changing my modest exercise habits.I eat half as many calories as I used to, but I'm not hungry.I used to have terrible insomnia, often getting no more than 4 hours of sleep a night - that has vanished along with my nearly-constant heartburn.After two months, my blood cholesterol dropped from 200 to 180.I have energy to burn.I take a Cheat Day on Sundays when I eat all the evil things I've been craving that week - croissants, Nutella, McD's sausage biscuits, creamy desserts - and by the end of the day I feel so draggy, dehydrated, sinus-y, that it's a relief to wake up Monday morning and go back onto the plan.
So, why don't I recommend this book?It was the first book Barry Sears (co-)wrote about the Zone, and it reads like an infomercial.The writing style is... loud.It is also poorly organized, jumping around from biochemical jargon to little tidbits of practical advice to anecdotal evidence to health claims for different conditions.And finally, this book doesn't provide any information beyond the very basics about how to actually follow the plan.If you are already convinced (perhaps by all these glowing reviews) of the benefits of the Zone and want to jump right in, the more comprehensive Mastering the Zone with its tons of practical tips is a much better place to start.If after beginning the diet you want more background information about how it works, then pick up this book.The one good thing about the early book is the more gourmet recipes (like the lamb with herbed cheese on zucchini-and-squash "pasta" - mmmm!).There are more recipes in Mastering the Zone, but for my taste they stick too strictly to the glycemic-index guide and also try too hard for one-pot meals; I've never used them.
An issue to look out for: I found that the body fat tables in the back way overestimated my fat weight, which meant an artificially low food intake level.After a couple of weeks hovering on the edge of hunger, I got my body fat percentage measured on a machine at the employee wellness office at work and got a result of ten percentage points less!I raised my food intake and continued losing weight at a healthy clip, with no more hunger pangs.I suspect that the bodyfat-table problem may be why a few reviewers here felt hungry on the Zone.The tables probably underestimated their lean weight, resulting in recommended food intakes that were too low.
The bottom line: even if all the health claims aren't sound, this is a balanced low-calorie diet that's easy to follow indefinitely without hunger, and what can be wrong with that - unless you are Nabisco Foods or something?Just try to start with Mastering the Zone instead.

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