Hello! I'm so glad to have found this forum and hope that someone can help me. I'm a 35 year old mom of two little ones. I have fought my weight my entire life -- not expremely overweight, but varying between 5 - 20 pounds over my ideal. I purchased the Soy Zone yesterday because I added 5 or so unwanted pounds (directly in my belly) over the holidays, but more importantly, am a vegetarian who tends to stray towards junk food too much and too often. The past week or so, I've felt so fatigued and terrible I knew I had to eat more healthily (is that a word?) Anyway, long story short, I've found the best way to control my weight is exercise. I ran a marathon in December, and want to do another in June. The Soy Zone makes total sense and I think will really help me feel better, but I am concerned that I won't have enough carbs to fuel my running (currently about 25 miles/week, will build up to 45/week when I start training again). Anyone have any experience with this? Maybe I should stay in the Zone as much as possible but supplement with carbs snacks before running? Thanks so much for your help! Any feedback is welcome...

No on the carb snacks. The "zone" switches you over to fat as a fuel. Initially, most of us have enough fat to fuel anything we want to do for quite a while. When you have burned up enough body fat to reach your target body fat level then add fat blocks to your diet sufficient to give you enough calories to do what ever you're doing without losing weight.

Angie, One of Dr. Sears' books addresses the issue (myth) of carb loading. I don't remember which one, but studies with athletes proved that it was an erroneous "well-known fact". I'll see if I can find it (although a friend has my original Zone book). Robbin P.S. I'm a vegetarian, too, and the Soy Zone is one of my favorite books!