I've been on the zone for about a week it ended up being the topic of discussion at lunch. I feel better. This diet is much easier and less disruptive than previous diets, and this one is WORKING. Plus, my husband is losing weight, too - and he's loving the meals. There's just one hang up - the time of dinner. Dinner time has always been around 5 - even the cat eats then! Its not that we can't change, but do we need to? Can we eat dinner at 5 and have a 6 block snack before with the evening news? Or even two 3 blocks spread out through the evening?

thanks,

nan

I didn't quite understand your post, but I think that you are wanting to alter your meal sizes so that you can eat throughout the evening? (I don't think that you really meant having a 6 block snack!)

Here is an example of what I do: I might have a quick snack while preparing dinner, that snack is about one block in size. Then, I will cut my dinner down to 2 blocks (since I used up one of my dinner blocks), and then I have my evening snack as planned, right around bedtime.

Well, golly, now we're both confused! :)

Actually, looking at your answer, I know why I confused you - I'm assuming when you say your snack was "1 block" you mean one block of each protein, carb and fat ... right? I was calling that a "3 block," since it has, well, three blocks. That would make a 6-block snack in Nanspeak equal to a 2-block snack in what I now assume is correct Zone lingo.

Okay, so now that I have the terminology down, let me try again. Chapter 6 in Mastering the Zone that gives this schedule for meal times:

breakfast = 3 protein, 3 carb, 3 fat

lunch (w/n 5 hours) = 3 protein, 3 carb, 3 fat

evening snack (around 5 pm) = 1 protein, 1 carb, 1 fat

dinner (w/n 2-3 hours of snack) = 3 protein, 3 carb, 3 fat

bedtime snack = 1 protein, 1 carb, 1 fat

My question is can I eat dinner around 5 p.m. (about 5 hours after lunch) and then combine the two 1-block snacks into one 2-blocksnack that I eat as my latenight snack? Or is a 2-block snack too right before bed? My husband does shift work and we have young children and we can't sit down and eat together as a family if I have to wait until 7 to eat dinner. Plus 7 is bath and getting ready for bed time with the kids, so that means that its around 8 before I get to eat dinner.

AHH, now I understand!

It is recommended to eat 5-6 times per day, that is what keeps insulin levels regulated, but as long as you are eating within 5 hours of your last meal, and you are not suffering any hunger, then you could try it.

However, let me suggest an alternative: how about eating your mid-afternoon snack up a few hours, say like around 3 or 3:30? I don't know how the rest of your schedule is going, but if you eat a fairly early breakfast, then you could even eat lunch an hour earlier, or you could move the snack between breakfast and lunch.

Anyhow, the point is that you don't have to stick with the schedule as written in the book, and you don't even have to have the same meal sizes. Some people even make their meals/snacks to be 2 block meals eaten 3 hours apart!