I was 6 weeks into the zone and loving every minute of it. People commented on my appearance. My motivation was athletic performance and it was going great. Then one of my friends said that I looked too skinny,and that I should stop doing what I was doing.
It affected me. I started cheating on my zone, and now it has been 3 weeks and I feel terrible. How do I get back??? Help me. I need some motivation and support. The problem is that I don't need to lose weight, so most of my friends are not sympathetic, but i want to be back to feeling great.
Has anyone else experienced this?

This is an easy one ... Let's see - where do I start ...

First of all - as to getting back "in the/on the Zone" : one of it's beauties is that just as you can [ and most likely will at some points ] fall off - you can just as easily "get back on" - in other words - just resolve to start back up with your next meal, and you're back on. You don't have to go out and rearrange your life of buy special foods or nutrition items - just go back to eating what and when you were for the last 6 weeks. You had an obviously excellent start but that's exactly what it was - a start. You know - you're not going to rebuild Rome in a day !

You mention being an athlete. I have no idea what exactly is your athletic passion or persuasion but I am certain you have experienced "ups and downs" getting to where you are performance wise ... I am certain that at times you "fell off the program" [ whatever one you were on ] and had to "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, etc., etc.

If you were out riding your bike and fell off is it likely you would immediately abandon bike riding, up and walk away never to set foot on a bike again ? Assuming you were ok I am sure you would simply get back on the bike and continue on. Treat “riding the Zone” the same way.

I was once a fairly serious ski racer. Falling/crashing/failing to finish [DNF;s} were part of the game. When you had a particularly spectacular crash one of my coaches was fond of saying “ First of all are you OK ? Now the important part : I hope you learned something from nearly killing yourself !”.

So ... first of all ... falling "out of the Zone" is nothing you should be upset about - so what ? Put it behind you and get back on …

- that's the important part.

If you follow the plan for any length of time you will find that it is perfectly normal for life's situations to converge so that you deviate off for a meal here, a day there, or, maybe even a couple of days. Once again - as easy as it can be to "fall off" - it's just as easy to "get back on".

I have been “on the plan” for about 10 years – I wouldn’t be so naïve as to suggest, and I hope you wouldn’t be so naïve as to believe if I did, that I have never strayed off here and there !

Straying off is no big dea …

– getting back on is.

I go to DisneyWorld every year for an extended vacation. Talk about "dining delights" at every turn !!! Although I stay on the Zone diet for about 95% of the time I’m there - there is "that other 5%" !!! I'm sorry but when you're eating at the Chefs de Paris and they have one of the finest pastry chefs IN THE WORLD, who has concocted "calorie incorporated" - I'm going to have one !

I shovel it down with immense pleasure as I careen "off of the Zone Expressway, through the guardrail, and sail into the abyss below of the River of Calories, Saturated Fats, and Processed Carbohydrates". I don't dwell on it but I am fairly certain that a few of these desserts contain more calories than I sometimes consume in an entire day !! I go to bed dreaming of how incredibly rich the whole thing was and HOW LUCKY I AM THAT I REALIZE YOU CAN ONLY EAT ONE OF THOSE ABOUT TWO OR THREE TIMES A YEAR - AND LIVE. [ Unlike the 300 lb+ guy at the next table who probably has several every day at Disney ]

Nest day I just go back to where I was and remind myself how fortunate I am to have only eaten one !@

Here's something YOU [ or typically anyone ] will have to get used to if you continue on the Zone diet : If you haven't noticed by now it's time you did that as far as I can tell about 90% of the people around you shovel food down without the slightest thought or awareness or care for what it is and the effect it may have on their health.

Why do you think OBESITY IS AN EPIDEMIC ?

From now on when you go through the checkout counter at the supermarket do a survey of how many articles [ or ENTIRE magazines ! ] are concerned with "dieting/losing weight".

Keep doing this and you will find it is either extremely rare or non existent that there are NOT - SEVERAL - EVERY MONTH ... MONTH AFTER MONTH ...YEAR AFTER YEAR.

If this endless stream of magazines and articles actually worked – they would have disappeared long, long, ago.

Another way to put it : If it weren’t for the fact that lots and lots and lots and lots of people hadn’t tried various diets and strategies – AND FAILED – they would have disappeared long, long, ago.

The publishers of those periodicals are voting with the precious amount of their front cover space that there are lots and lots of “dieting losers” out there.

**********************************

One of your biggest difficulties in "staying on the Zone" - or any other sensible eating plan - is the world [ people ] around you !!!!!!!!!

YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY LOSERS AT LOSING AND/OR CONTROLING WEIGHT

**********************************

YOU - if you continue - will be a "nutritional oasis" surrounded by the desert of the typical self destructive American diet.

By the way - I have been following the Zone tenets for about 10 years and it was at least SEVERAL YEARS before I consciously realized this fact and why, at times, found it difficult to "stay on the path"!

[ here's the important part ]

Once I CONCIOUSLY acknowledged that 98% OF THE TIME I WAS NOT GOING TO GET ANY SUPPORT FROM THE PEOPLE AROUND ME ... and ... if anything, I would be at the least subconsciously DISCOURAGED from eating sanely - I felt much, much better about it !

I knew what I was up against and it was VERY comforting to remind myself that there was no shortage of the various Zone books being sold at every Barnes & Noble and others. I may not be in the majority but I was far from alone.

***********************************

YOU also have an additional challenge on top of the above :

I also was skinny for about 80% of my life until middle age set in, I didn't adjust, got fat, had a heart attack, smartened up, fell into the Zone by accident, and went back to the same weight I was in high school – skinny.

You being skinny, once again, are [ excuse the pun ] "figuratively speaking" - an "island of trim appearance" in a "sea of obese others".

And if you don’t know by now, Americans are getting even more obese at an ever increasing rate.

It is not only acceptable but in some perverse ways “fashionable” to be obese.

Being skinny in today's society automatically puts you in a distinct MINORITY and by definition you therefore share little in common with the others.

You simply are not going to get much, if any at all, support from those around you. And here's something you have to realize : there are certainly those around you who are jealous, who have failed, sometimes failed many times, to control their weight.
Someone who has failed at ANYTHING is the last person one can expect to get support from when YOU have succeeded at what THEY failed at.

Now remember ALL those magazines and articles on “dieting” that have been appearing at the check out counter for the last 10 years or so :

Kid - there are very few people who have NOT failed at some sort of diet.

Remember : YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY LOSERS AT LOSING AND/OR CONTROLING WEIGHT

If any of those magazines or articles worked at all – they would have disappeared long ago ! The fact they are still there – and in INCREASING numbers – tells you the publishers are “voting with their precious front cover space” that there are lots and lots of people out there looking for this solution to their obesity problem.

I once worked in an office of about 15 people. We often worked long hours. On account of this we had a small dining room, refrigerators for keeping food, and a modest kitchen. In other words often you would eat lunch and dinner there. In other words you were intimately exposed/effected/immersed in everyone else's eating habits. To make a long story short I was the only skinny person there and the only person eating a healthy diet. The owner was pathologically obese and a favorite "dinner topic" for him was the hip replacements he planned on. [ his hips were failing from severe obesity ]. We all got along and enjoyed each other's company but I WAS routinely the butt of jokes and comments about "the strange food I ate", and/or how little I ate, albeit in a good natured way, but never the less - in a good natured way - I was DIFFERENT ... a little WEIRD ... because I was skinny and didn't eat most of the things they ate and when I did - not in remotely the quantity they did.

For example : most Friday's the owner bought pizza for everyone. As I mentioned, there were about 15 of us. He would bring in about 10 large pizzas ! Most with "everything" on them. Usually I didn't have any at all - this AMAZED everyone.

By the end of the afternoon ALL of the pizzas were always eaten. Do the arithmetic: the average was 2/3 of a large pizza per person. Knowing that at least a few ate only 2 or 3 slices means that at least a few ate a WHOLE pie.

... and I was the "weird" one.


Among them was a young kid just out of college. He was fairly thin when he started there. After about 2 years he had put on a lot of weight. We had both left there and I ran back into him not long ago. He was thin again. We got along well when we had been working together and in talking about "the good old days" he said he "seriously" had to apologize for all the times he made fun of me and my diet and hoped I knew he didn't mean to offend me - he was just joking around. [ he had been and I really didn't mind ] and went on to say how when he left there, thanks to all the food, and usually fattening food they ate there, he had, in his own words, "turned into a blimp" - and it dawned on him just how right what I was doing was AND how much respect he had for me to be able to "do my thing" in the face of the good natured but constant ridicule, and, exposure to "fast food" on a daily basis.

More interestingly he also mentioned how certain people were genuinely pissed off at me and even thought, or at least according to him SAID they thought that, for example, when I would sit down and ONLY eat a salad instead of the 3 foot pastrami sub they were having - I ... WAS MAKING FUN OF THEM !

I only mention this because this was a REVELATION to ME ! [ That someone thought I was deliberately doing this. He thought it was pretty amusing too ]

The lesson is that YOU will have to be for the most part and in most situations : YOUR OWN BEST SUPPORTER

Realizing this and reminding yourself about this is very important. VERY IMPORTANT


I want to make it clear that I am and have been for some time, very content with my diet - in fact - I LOVE my diet.

However - there were/are foods that I grew up with, ate ALL THE TIME, and to this day - LOVE ...

but I eat them rarely and in very small amounts - compared to how I used to consume them :

Pizza and bread above all others.

Catch this - I once owned a pizza restaurant ! TRUE

And to give you an idea of just how much I love/loved pizza - For the several years that I owned it I ate virtually nothing but pizza - 7 days a week, morning, noon, night, and in between !

TRUE

Pizza was virtually the "sole culprit" for me going, for very short periods, off of the Zone eating plan in the first year or two.

I didn't have much trouble limiting it - but impossible to eliminate it. Now you could argue that there ARE ways to eat pizza and stay "in the Zone" but, you have to remember you are talking about someone who for a number of YEARS ate as much of it as they wanted, anytime they wanted.

IT WAS ALWAYS WITHIN ARM’S REACH

MY WAY of eating pizza - is to eat at least half of a large pie for starters, and within a few hours - the rest.

Eventually I found that LIMITING pizza consumption simply didn't work - in fact - I eventually realized it made it worse.

So - for me I did the smart thing - and don’t' eat it at all.


FOR ME - this works.

Now, a trick I used that helped me immensely in giving up and continuing to leave pizza off of the table was this :

When I would be around pizza and others consuming pizza [ almost always populated by many overweight types] I developed the simple mantra " yes they have the pizza - but I have my health"

Would I trade my health for one, or two, three, slices of pizza ? Would I trade my health for the whole freakin pie ?

Not much of a trade is it ?

So maybe that's something I can leave you with. Whenever you are "eating your way" and others are not, and no one is supporting/encouraging YOU - remind yourself : "they have whatever it is , and you have your health and vitality"

Would you trade ?

Not much of a trade is it ?

Or,

Would you rather have their support instead of your vitality ?

Not much of a trade is it ?

You don’t really need their support but you do need your vitality.

Be serene in putting YOUR needs first.

E Wally,
I am so glad that someone with your background, passion, and longevity with the Zone responded to my dilema. I am printing out your response so that I can use it when i need strength.
There really are many times when people criticize what I eat and they are eating enough for an entire city.
Thank you for caring enough to take the time to support my journey. You really have inspired me and helped me to recommit to my Zone lifestyle.
Your love may be pizza but mine is chocolate.... oh heavens vacation is just around the corner.... I will be strong!
I will have my print out!
Cheers,
Nancy

Hi Nancy,

I'm so happy I was able to connect.

I'm a bit busy at the moment but I'll respond with some more as soon as I have a moment to collect my thoughts.

As I mentioned - once I realized - and it was quite a while before I did - that the average person could not care less about their diet, it made it much easier to "stay in the Zone".

In fact - it made all the difference in the world to me.

Instead of feeling somewhat uncomfortable when I ordered the Caesar salad at Uno's and everyone else was diving into their wonderfull deep dish pizza and the remarks came: "Not having any pizza ? There's lots here - sure you don't want any?" - I EXPECTED the remarks and let them sail right over my head.

Those kind of remarks have become part of my life and accepting it made all the difference. In fact, I really don't even hear them, or at least, conciosly acknowledge them anymore - they're part of the "background noise" of a conversation.

By the way - Uno's has one of if not the most health concious menus of any of the chains by far. There are many healthy choices available. Several of their "flatbread" pizzas are nutritionally very good. As always the biggest problem with pizza is the dough - often TONS of unprocessed carbs.

If you don't eat ALL of the dough of a typical slice of [ I wish I could remember the name of it ] it's very close to Zone balanced - close enough for government work !

They also offer salmon several ways and have many healthy "sides".





I have accumulated a number of articles mostly from medical journals and edited them down to the interesting/pertinent materiel as it relates to diet, nutrition, and specific disease prevention.

If you like I'd be happy to email a few to you and if you find them interesting I can send you more.

I do this for a number of people I have come in contact with who are interested in this for one reason or another.

I am new to the forums so if your email address is here somewhere - I'm not aware of it.

MIne is : ewally@verizon.net


If you have your health and vitality - you have it all.

Wally

HI Nancy,

It occured to me to ask you what exactly was it that got you "off track" ?

From what you originally mentioned it seems you have been able to "balance" your eating.

Is it that you are not getting any support from those around you is the primary culprit?

I'm not sure this is going to encourage or discourage you but in all the time I've been following the Zone eating plan - about 10 years - I have had many, many, conversations with friends and others around me about just what I do to maintain my excellent appearance. Overwhelmingly these people were at least mildly obese - many seriously obese and often already incurring chronic disease because of it.

When I would mention the very basics of the Zone diet and it became apparent that their present food intake [ calling it a "diet" is giving the random act of filling one's stomach a bit more credit than it deserves ! ] would have to be significantly modified - and horror of horrors probably reduced in quantity - that would be the end of any further conversation about that.

This can be or lead to being quite discouraging if you or I or anyone, allow it to.

A way to not allow it to for me was the conscious recognition that the status quo of the typical American diet - friends and family included - was horrible.

As I've mentioned : Obesity IS and epidemic.


I'm assuming you are a bit younger than I am - unfortunatly lots and lots of folks are at my point in life. Here's an example of how discouraging this can be if you let it :

A very close long time friend had a cardiac event very similar to mine about 2 years after mine. He had always been at least overweight if not significantly obese since I ever knew him. By that time I had figured out that it was my diet that had caused the cardiac event and over a couple of conversations told him he ought to do what I did or it was probably going to happen again.

To make a long story short he soon put the heart attack behind him and continued on his ways - that is - diet wise, and if anything gained even more weight eventually. About 4 years ago it was necessary to have quadruple bypass. Believe it or not he soon put this behind him too, that is, it had no effect on his diet which I think you can imagine was atrocious. Last year he had another cardiac incident and through the miracle of modern interventional medical procedures and wonder drugs and oxygen tanks he's "living" at home as he's too incapacitated to work anymore.

Now, when he eventually "had the big one" I started to feel pretty bad about it and wondered if I shouldn't have been more proactive - you know, "taken the bull by the horns", "read him the riot act", etc..

I mentioned this to his wife and she, fortunatly, made it clear to me that I wasn't the only person that had tried to get through to him and he simply wasn't going to listen to me or anyone, and that, there were lots of people like him. You do what you can and if they don't respond - move on. You did your best.

As or leader Barry Sears preaches - we would all be way better off if we treated the injestion of food like we do drugs - with care and consideration.

At present only a small minority of the American population does this.

Understand this, acknowledge this, accept this, don't let it get to you, and most important of all : be serene with this knowledge.

Wally

HI Wally,
I too fell off the wagon yesterday! But sfter reading your response yuo gave me that strenght I sooo needed.. I was in the zone for about 5 weeks.. and yesterday somehow i go tthis compulsive urge to eat everything within my reach... I was a bulimic long time ago and every so often i get back in that cycle ( but fo ronly a day or two)... Ive been struggling with it for about 5 years and let me tell ya it's very hard to not stuff my face with all kinds of foods when i am sad or stressed out... I did the unthinkable yesterday and i feel sooo horrible about it, I had gone without doing that for a while but i was weak and went right back in the hole... However, today is a brand new day and i have faith taht i will continue my zone path... I had a great breakfast and workout and i feel great... and your article... wow!!! amazing youre truly an inspiration, i will print it out and keep it with me for whenever i feel down and about to fall off the wagon..
And you are right... People are not very supportive of our healthy eating choices.. especially fat people around us... I also get made fun of at work ... People make fun of what i eat and at the fact that i work out 5-6 days a week.. they think im crazy and i dont need to lose weight... A co worker even tells me i need to eat more adn brings pastries to my office... He says that at 23 i shouldnt be putting soo much emphazis n my looks and weight... That i should enjoy life a bit more.... Things like that make double question what im doing and that maybe it would be soo much better to just eat and eat.... but then once im more level headed i realize that theyre just jealous and wished they could look loke me and be healthier...

Thank you Wally!! From the bottom of my heart!!! Youve brought back the determination and strenght i needed to continue ...

HI Em,

No thanks necessary - my reward is knowing I've been able to pass on the benefits of my own experiences so they help someone else deal with what I have had to also.

I just can't emphasize enough that there is truly in all respects an epidemic of obesity occuring in particular in the U.S. - and - believe it or not, thanks to our gargantuan food industry going international, it is being literally spread around the world.

No kidding.

AGain, I am new to using the forums so if there is a better way to do this - such as email as an attachment - I don't know how to do that.

I'm pasting in below a very interesting article that is self explanatory but it really strikes home illustrating just how serious a problem obesity has become, how much of the blame falls on the food industry, and what a difficult fight it's going to be to deal with it.

This is one of the best articles I have read concerning this and it is really an "eye opener" as to the extent of this problem and how much blame falls on the food industry, and, above all else says to YOU AND ME : that whether we know it or not, whether we realize it or not, the "deck is stacked against" anyone attempting to maintain a sensible diet - and - THAT is why it can very much "feel" like WE are the "weird" ones !@

The article in it's entirety appeared in the Lancet - one of the most respected medical journals in the world. The people who wrote the article and the many quoted are among the most respected in their fields - this is not coming from some nobody with an axe to grind with the food industry.


[If entirely "pasting in" something at length is not accepted behavior someone please let me know how I should be doing this and I'l be happy to comply ]

Here goes :


Fighting Obesity Will Involve Politics As Well As Medicine

By Jeff Minerd, MedPage Today Staff Writer
Reviewed by Rubeen K. Israni, M.D., Fellow, Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension Division, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
September 29, 2005


Review

LONDON, Sept. 30-

Winning the battle of the bulge, which is now a worldwide conflict, will take more than simply convincing patients to eat less and exercise more. It will also require winning a political war against the food industry.

That is the take home message hammered home again and again by writers of a review article in the October 1 issue of The Lancet.
In many countries, excessive calorie intake -- encouraged by the restaurant industry’s aggressive marketing of large-portion meals loaded with fats, sugars, and salts -- has overtaken lack of exercise as the leading contributor to obesity and overweight, according to David W. Haslam, M.D., of National Obesity Forum in Hertfordshire, England, and W. Philip T. James, M.D., of the International Obesity Task Force in London.

The prevention and treatment challenges posed by the global obesity epidemic are “overwhelming,” wrote Drs. Haslam and James. The statistics, which are compelling, include these:
• An estimated 1.1 billion adults worldwide are overweight, including 312 million who are obese. Ten percent of children worldwide are overweight or obese.
• The number of deaths per year attributable to obesity in the United Kingdom is 30,000. That figure is ten times higher in the United States, where obesity may soon overtake smoking as the main cause of preventable illness and death.
• It is estimated that obesity decreases life expectancy by 7 years for a 40 year old. The risk of death of every unit increase in BMI remains substantial until age 75.
• Excess body weight is the sixth most important risk factor contributing to the overall burden of disease worldwide.

The only region of the world where obesity is not common is sub-Saharan Africa.

The spread of fast food restaurants -- and their marketing tactics -- to developing countries is partly to blame for the worldwide obesity problem, the authors said.
“Given the fixed energy requirements of a population, the only ways to promote sales involved provision of products with higher content of fats, sugars, and salts in larger portions, making them available everywhere, and promoting eating and drinking on the move since this distracts the normal appetite regulatory response,” they said.

To help counteract this phenomenon, doctors should advise patients not to eat on their feet, the authors said. Patients should also be told not to eat while watching television, as TV also interferes with cognitive control of food intake.
The medical community’s ultimate challenge, however, will not be managing patients but taking on the food industry, the authors concluded.

“The industrial interests, with powers exceeding even those of the tobacco industry, are on the alert and often acting to slow the drive for change by intense political lobbying at the highest level and by engaging in tactics well rehearsed by the tobacco companies,” they said.

Dr.Sam Gidding, of the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware and a spokesperson for the American Heart Association, particularly agreed with the article’s indictment of the restaurant industry.

The industry’s portion sizes and advertising “encourage people to eat beyond a rational capacity,” he said. Without government regulation to set healthy portion sizes, the problem is likely to continue, he added.
“People have forgotten that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins,” Dr. Gidding said. “This article reminds us of that.”
Drs. Haslam and James have received support from Abbot Laboratories and served as investigators in clinical trials of Abbot’s obesity drug Meridia (sibutramine).
Primary source: The Lancet
Source reference:
Haslam DW and James WTP. Obesity. The Lancet. Advanced online publication September 29, 2005

Thanks Wally! Great article!

E Wally... Your responses are very valuable and I enjoy digesting all the info. Thank you for helping me and others.

So much of our journey is mental and your words are inspirational. Yes, I think people can not handle FIT people who love working out, eating well, and seeing the benefits... these people think there is something wrong with me... "I am obsessed" they say. Actually, I am dedicated to having great health and longevity, as well as passing this passion on to my children.
It is no surprise that my children, my husband, and I are all fit and healthy due to our attitude toward food. Good food = Good health.
My journey with the Zone was inspired by one of my good friends. We played collegiate soccer together years ago. She told me that she was achieving some great performance in the gym and on the field because of the zone. So I tried it. It did reduce my body fat and helped me being even more of an over achiever in the gym. After 6 weeks, a woman in the gym made a comment that I was "too thin".... but since my posting and your response, I am back on track. I have about a week under my belt. I ran a difficult run last night and felt great.
Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it.

Em... I am glad we can all help one another to meet our individual needs.

Nancy,

Very happy to have made some sort of contribution to your efforts.

I had consistently experienced the difficulty of I guess for lack of better expression - "being content to be following the Zone" for some time because of what you have to identify clearly as good old "peer pressure" - that thing we are ALL influenced by to one degree or another on a daily basis - It's real, it's there, and it has to be dealt with.

I DID feel uncomfortable in the face of negative comments to one degree, however innocuous, of my diet habits, phsical activity, and thin appearance.

In this situation it is VERY EASY and QUITE NORMAL to consciously or at the least subconsciously develope the impression that it is YOU that is ABNORMAL.

[ I have a background in counseling ]

For the average person this is typically quite disturbing whether they realize it or not - usually they don't overtly realize this.

Now I had slowly over time, years, accumulated an awareness that obesity had become a true EPIDEMIC : identified as such by the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.

One day the light bulb went on for some reason :

I'm surrounded by, intimitaly co existing with, sometimes eating three meals in a day plus snacks, with people who don't care in the least about what they shovel down.


THEY are the MAJORITY.


It is truly sad/unfortunate but this is the REALITY that I face, you face, anyone trying to maintain a sensible diet and appearance and fitness faces - on a DAILY BASIS.

WE are IMMERSED in this environment every waking hour.

Once I saw "the forest for the trees" it really turned my satisfaction/serenity with following the Zone completley around.

It all crystalized before my eyes : Negative comments, UNENCOURAGING comments, an ABSENCE of encouraging comments, a general absence of SUPPORT, is reality.

Now this is coming from someone with a background in counseling !

Wouldn't you think I would have recognized what it was that was "getting under my skin" ? !

This is why I ultimately realized how difficult it was to IDENTIFY - this feeling of "isolation", or, "abnormality" - which NO ONE is comfortable with.

In "Counseling 101" you learn that a huge step forward toward solving a problem - is first being able to IDENTIFY IT.


I see this "problem" being consistently encountered by people that are relatively new to the Zone - let's say in the first 3 - 9 months. That seems to be where this "bump in the Zone road to success" rears its ugly head. Unfortunatly this is IMHO when the Zone "newbie" is most vulnerable :

Their new eating "habits" are barely established and they typically have not established any networking with others "in the Zone".

To me - it is the "make or break" period where staying or not staying "in the Zone" occurs - a critical period.


So when it seems that someone is at this "crossroad" - to sum it all up - when you can help them IDENTIFY why they are encountering these difficult to put your finger on - but very powerful, feelings of "social discomfort", I firmly believe that if you can IDENTIFY for them what the problem is - their success rate in dealing with it is greatly increased.

I have from time to time thought of proposing/establishing The Zone Intervention Team that would spring into action when a Zone "newbie" fell into "the danger zone" !

[ Am I going a little too far ? Am I "over the edge" now !!! ]

Alchaholics Anonymous has been very successful at helping people through "the danger zone" of abstenence and key to this is a cadre of members who on a moment's notice will "support" someone in danger of "falling off the wagon".

I'm not proposing something quite so dramitic but maybe a group of "Zoners" ready to take the "newbie" out for a nice "Zone" meal at a local popular restaurant to show them that it can be done - and ENJOYED - and - most of all, THEY ARE NOT ALONE AT ALL.




Here's some facts I ran into just yesterday. I like to think I am quite aware of the "obesity Epidemic" but here's this thing called :

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Obesity Education Initiative

which is part of the U.S.Dept of Human Services

I had never heard of this !

Here's the full poop about it :

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/oei/oei_pd.htm


Here's some interesting excerpts :


The first "Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health," published in 1988, declared overweight and obesity to be one of the most prevalent diet-related problems in the United States.

In 2001, the "Surgeon General's Call To Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity" noted that overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions among all population groups

According to data from the ***1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), an estimated 64 percent of the adult population is overweight or obese.


*********************************

*** note as of 1999-2000

guess what ? It's gotten WORSE since then !

I can't remember the "current" figure for % of overweight population - but it's now higher.

In other words, something like SEVEN or EIGHT out of ten people are overweight.

"We are like Flounders swimming in a sea of Salmon"

Hey E Wally,
I just returned from a family get away to Chicago. Great fun! I read your last response, and I am so "on board" with your comments. The peer pressure, the obesity, and yes, even the support group for newbies. That would be so great to call or email someone and have a little network. This forum is like that, however not always able to prevent the consumption of an entire bag of hershey kisses!!! LOL

When we were in Chicago, we observed the most horrendous eating habits.... OH MY GOSH. It was disgusting. We are from Southern California, and so many people here are conscious of their health... well we saw the other side. It really made an impression on my 2 teenaged daughters. We are home again, and I am thrilled to cook and eat in the zone.

I really liked your comment about the 3 - 9 months thing... I think sometimes because I had 6 weeks under my belt that I was home free, and it became obvious that it was not enough time to solidify my new eating plan. I am on track now and feeling good. I am anxious to get back in the gym. I am going to start training for some upcoming runs, which always motivates me.

Thanks for your words of encouragement and time.
Nancy

Hi Nancy,

Glad I was able to help provide some postive motivation in following a "Zoned eating plan in an UNZoned world".

If I had known you were going to Chicago I would have suggested, if you like PIZZA, to take in The Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co. - that is - if you were prepared to most likely fall off "the plan" for one meal !

I'm a "Pizzaholic". Lived about 3 hours south of Chicago for a number of years operating a pizza parlor. [ Way before I ran into a heart attack and stumbled onto The Zone ]

In free time we went to Chicago frequently - maybe my favorite "Big City" after Boston - and took in the wonderful variety of pizza that can be found there.

The place I mentioned above was our favorite although to be honest with you their "pizza" is totally different from anything else we've ever had so I'm not sure you can compare it to more traditional pizza.

You can go to their website and check them out and get an idea of what I'm talking about.

It's been a while since our last time there but if I remember correctly it seems you could eat a fairly close to balanced meal with one of their regular creations - the hard part would be just eating 3 or 4 blocks - the "regular" size is huge in quantities. Definitely could NOT eat anywhere's near the amount of dough that comes with it !!! And that's where one might "throw in the Zone Towel" for the meal - the dough is incredible [ and also the cheese and tomatoe sauce ]

Next time you go check them out - a truly unique experience in every way in Chicago.

Ironically our favorite by far "chain" restaurant originated in Chicago primarily as a pizza parlour - UNO's.

Again - wish I had known you were going becuase I understand the ORIGINAL location is still being operated - and - they offer an extremely "Zone friendly" menu.

IN fact, they were recently named #1 in a survey of chain restaurants for a healthy menu.

The article is current and really well done. I've printed it out and keep a copy in the car. If I remember correctly there were several chains we don't have around here that are on the west coast that were mentioned. The article has links to all of their menus.

Here's the link to the article :

http://eating.health.com/2008/04/23...o-eat-out/


Do you have any Uno's around where you are ?


Thanks for your encouragement about the "support group" idea. Whenever I have a little time I've been "floating" the idea around the forums.

I have a counseling background and through the Zone Forums and other places there are a number of people I correspond with directly and supply primarily advice/encouragement regarding following the Zone eating concept. I've also accumulated a considerable amount of documents that apply to "Zone oriented nutrition" I guess you would say but which are from other than the "world of Zone". Almost all come from a variety of academic sources and world organizations who don't have any "axes to grind" - in other words - from "neutral" competent sources.

I've sent a number of these on to others and what most like about it is that I have edited them down to the pertinent/interesting materiel.

Some day I will either set up a "blog", although I don't like most blog websites and how they come across - or - I"ve thought of setting up a full website.

Now all I have to do first is find another 3 or 4 hours a day and I;ll be all set !

Anyway - if you want you can contact me directly via :

ewally@verizon.net


E.Wally