I've been doing the zone for about three weeks, and honestly i love the results i'm getting....so i want to continue. What i need is some advice on meal timing. I am going to be starting with the Sheriff's dept. where i live, and it will be a flex shift in the county jail. So that basically means that i'm going to have two 4-5 hour blocks a day where i won't be able to eat. On top of that, i'm having a hard time planning out what my day would be when i'm working 2nd shift, because i know my kids will wake up me at 7 at the latest, so i'm looking at a day of 0600-midnight. So, do you add in a snack or space out the meals?

Background:
25 yo Male, 170 @ 11%BMI, currently on 18 blocks.

Hi Sean!

Congrats on yoru new job!

Glad to hear you're doing well with the Zone.

Waiting 4 to 5 hours to eat again after a meal should be fine. It's the average time people usually go between a meal and a snack. There's no reason to add an extra block. Simply do your best to spread your 18 blocks throughout your waking hours according to the Zone timing rules.

One way to do it would be to eat 3 4-block meals and eat the rest of your blocks as 1 and 2 block snacks to fit your scheduling needs.

Thanks Sue! Thats what i was thinking about doing, just wasn't completely sure since i'm still kinda starting out with the Zone.

Sean,

Are you able to drink during those 2 blocks of time?

Here is my idea (will have to give the credit for this one to E. Wally):

take along a container of soymilk. He recommends the "Silk" Organic Vanilla flavored soymilk. If you look at the label, it is very well-balanced, closer to the Zone than regular milk is. In any case, you can add soymilk to a cup of coffee (I drink decaf). You will be able to sip your way through that 4-5 hour block of time, while filling your tummy with small amounts of a perfectly balanced beverage. Might be just the thing that you need to get yourself through. If you add 1/2 cup to your coffee on one block of time, and then another 1/2 cup to your coffee on the other block of time, you will have only used up one of your blocks, and you will still have the balance of zone blocks left to eat good food in between your 4-5 hour blocks of time.

(reading through that, I hope you can tell which "blocks" I am talking about!)

Hopefully, if you are able to have a beverage during this time, that this solution will work for you.

Great Sean! You're welcome!

That should work fine. If not, we can figure out another way to do it.

Keep us updated!

Hi, I'm also new to the zone and my problem is the time between dinner and the late night snack.

I rise early and have breakfast at 6, lunch at 12, snack around 4 and dinner at 6pm.

Problem is I love an early night (around 8:30pm) and I feel that it is too soon after dinner to snack. It's hard to reshuffle dinner time as I cook for my family and like eating together.

Welcome Jan!

It'll be fine to eat the snack 2.5 hours after dinner.

Jan,
I have another solution for you...

I notice that you have a 6 hour timespan between breakfast and lunch. That might be pushing the threshold a bit.

So, since you are concerned about eating a snack too close to dinner, I was thinking that you could split the bedtime snack, and eat 1/2 block between breakfast and lunch, and then the other 1/2 block for your bedtime snack.

Would that work out for you?