I am fairly new to The Zone Diet. I work out 3-4/week. I was wondering how long after a work out is completed should I take my post work-out snack/meal? Or I should ask how long do I have? 30 minutes, 1 hour. I read in the athlete chapter of Dr. Sears "The Zone Living" how the Stanford swimmers were doing good by eating after a work out.

Also, my dad was the one that told be about The Zone. He preaches whole/wheat grain over white flower. From the book I get the fealing that whole/wheat is better than white, but not as good as vegetables. Right now my carbs are heavy on wheat bread, Lipton's whole grain pastas, and Special K's Protein cereal. Is this not good?

Hi,

The short answer, no, not good if you want to lower your insulin into the Zone. Whole wheat or white doesn't matter in regard to the favorability of wheat for the Zone Diet. Whole grain or white, you'd eat wheat in very small amounts, or better yet, not at all.

I would disagree with Sue just a bit on the wheat dilemma. I don't believe that an unfavorable food should be avoided completely. Sure, you will have better results lowering insulin levels by eating more favorables, but that does not mean that you can't include up to 25% of unfavorables in a meal or snack.

And, Sears does not really rate the "favorability" of the unfavorables, but if you study the glycemic load tables, you might be able to gain more understanding of which unfavorable products are "better" than others.