I have been reading a lot of information on the website, and I am very interested in the Zone. I wonder though if anyone out there has had success by applying most of the Zone principles most of the time rather than follow it religiously? For example, I would sometimes like to have cereal for breakfast or maybe pasta or potatoes for dinner while eating Zone meals at the other meals of the day. Will the weight still come off? There are some foods, like split pea soup, bananas, bread, that I feel have nutritional merits. How can those foods fit into the Zone?

Thanks for any replies.

Ryan,
Everyone is different. You may be able to work in some of your favorite meal items, but it really depends on how well your body can handle the unfavorable carbs. You probably will not have as much success eating those things, as they can cause insulin levels to be higher. But, you can perhaps moderate it to some degree by accompanying the unfavorable carbs with adequate protein and fat.

Another suggestion would be to include those items in condiment portions, to avoid having more than 25% of your total carb coming from those sources, and the other 75% coming from veggies and fruit.

Incidently, the Zone sells a cereal and some pasta. You might be interested in these products