Hi, my husband and I have been on the Zone since Feb 9th. He has lost a total of 14 Ibs and in the last two weeks he has lost no weight at all. He is 11 blocks at 203 Ibs. He is frustrated and feels he should switch to antother weight loss plan. Can anyone suggest tips on how he can achieve more weight loss? Thanks :(

[quote:8d851f75c6="cearramac"]Hi, my husband and I have been on the Zone since Feb 9th. He has lost a total of 14 Ibs and in the last two weeks he has lost no weight at all. He is 11 blocks at 203 Ibs. He is frustrated and feels he should switch to antother weight loss plan. Can anyone suggest tips on how he can achieve more weight loss? Thanks :([/quote:8d851f75c6] Hi, We need more info about your husband to make suggestions. If you could post his LBM, amount and type of physical activity per week, and a detatiled sample of his daily menu (specific foods and specific amounts of each food) we would be able to make suggestions. Sue

Mu husband weighs 203Lbs, total body fat is 26%, & LBM 151.70. He eats alot of vegetables, out of fruit only apples and has low-carb bread at least once a day. I make all his meals for him to make sure he is getting his full 11 blocks. I give him a schedule of when to eat all his meals. His activity level is very low.. He will not try any other fruit. Let me know if this is enough req. info. Thank you

[quote:829d39ad8a="cearramac"]Mu husband weighs 203Lbs, total body fat is 26%, & LBM 151.70. He eats alot of vegetables, out of fruit only apples and has low-carb bread at least once a day. I make all his meals for him to make sure he is getting his full 11 blocks. I give him a schedule of when to eat all his meals. His activity level is very low.. He will not try any other fruit. Let me know if this is enough req. info. Thank you[/quote:829d39ad8a] Hi, No, this info is not specific enough to be able to help. Please refer to my previous post for the specific info needed. In the meantime, make sure he is drinking plenty of water during the day and following Zone guidelines as to eating within an hour after waking, not going more than 5 waking hours without a meal or snack, and being sure to have a snack within an hour of bedtime. Sue

Meal plan as follows: Breakfast:one of the following: Spanish Omelet, Oatmeal Breakfast, 2slices low-carb bread (12gr.carbs)) with 2 ounce back bacon, 1 ounce cheese, 1tsp.butter, and 1/2 or whole apple to make up all the carb #'s On of the following: lunch: 2sl low-carb bread, 1tsp mayo, 1 ounce cheese, 2 ounce turkey, and 1/2 or whole apple. or Eggplant Parma, chili, etc....(all recommended zone meals) Snack: 1/2cup yogurt and 1 tsp almonds, or 1/2 Zone bar One of the following: Dinner: Chili, Chicken Fajitas, Ginger Chicken, Stuffed Peppers, Unstuffed Cabbage, Beef Stew, etc....(all recommended zone meals) Late snack; usually the tortilla chips,salsa,cheese and guacamole He drinks alot of water! All meals I make are all from the Zone books or from the Zone site. I measure everything and always check the blocks over and over. There are many different meals other than the ones I listed I make from The Zone.

Hi. You have been zoning for about 5 weeks. Your husband lost 14 pounds in the first 3 weeks and held steady weight for 2 weeks after that. On page 5 of The Top 100 Zone Foods, [b:f6fb23bc80]Dr. Sears[/b:f6fb23bc80] says: [quote:f6fb23bc80]"You'll see a change in your body shape as you begin to shed fat. You can expect to lose up to 5 pounds during your first week on the Zone Diet (1 to 2 pounds of fat and 2 to 3 pounds of retained water). Excess insulin levels generated by high-carbohydrate diets cause you to retain 2 to 3 pounds of water that are shed once you switch to fewer carbohydrates and more protein."[/quote:f6fb23bc80] also from [b:f6fb23bc80]"Ask Dr. Sears"[/b:f6fb23bc80] [quote:f6fb23bc80]"Maximum weight loss per week" Dear Dr. Sears, You state in your book that it is impossible to loose more than 1 1/2 pounds of fat per week. Yet on a commercial diet plan I once lost 50 ponds over a period of 6 months. My weight dropped from 250 to 200 during that time. How is this possible and what did I actually loose ? Zebman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Zebman, It is impossible to lose more than approx. 1 1/2 lbs. of fat per week unless you are training vigorously on a daily basis. However, you can lose more weight in the form of water weight and muscle mass-- not a healthy choice. Dr. Barry Sears[/quote:f6fb23bc80] My comment, for what it's worth. Your husband lost nearly 5 pounds per week for 3 weeks. The weight loss in the 2nd and 3rd week was almost too fast, perhaps creating expectations for the same result. Some of the progress he is making may have been masked by water loss. How are his clothes fitting? If he can realistically expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, is he not still ahead of schedule? Sue can probably comment better on realistic expectations. Charlie

Hi, I'm in agreement with Charlie's post. The Zone is a way to acheive excellent health by controlling hormones, but is not specifically a weight loss plan. That said, if one is above ideal body fat, focuses on insulin control, and is successful at keeping one's insulin in within Zone levels, one will easily lose a pound or two of body fat per week after a slightly larger initial weight loss during the first week or two. The larger loss the first week is due to loss of retained fluid. I have several ideas about what may be happening with your husband's weight. I was looking for more specific info than naming recipes in regard to his daily eating plan, but I do have a bit of a better picture from the info you posted. I will assume he's sedentary since and he's eating 11 blocks and you haven't mentioned his activity. It would still be helpful for me to know his activity in an average day/week. In regard to his plateau, the first things that come to mind after reading your info are inadequate block intake, the GL of his meals, either too much or too little fat, or some combination of these three things. To get a better picture of things I suggest he check his bodyfat and LBM every two weeks or so. His LBM should remain the same or increase, while his body fat decreases. Also helpful would be to monitor whether or not he has any hunger about 4 hours after meals, and if he does, the type of hunger (focused or loopy, for more details see Zone info regardig adjusting carbs). The 14 lb weight loss in the first 3 weeks, tells me he may have been eating too little and his body has now been alerted that he is not getting enough food. This will slow his metabolism and prevent weight loss as his body tries to make better use of an inadequate food intake. (See explanation, in Zone books, in regard to the body perceiving starvation.) He could also be gradually losing LBM even though his total weight remains the same. I would add a block or two to his daily meal plan by making breakfast and lunch into 4 block meals. This could be as easy as adding a glass of milk to each meal. Another thing I see is a higher than desireable GL in the meals you listed which were not recipies from Zone books. At breakfast replace the bread with some low GI berries, or even better, veggies (like an omelet filled with black beans and toppped with salsa). Add veggies in place of the bread at lunch and keep the apple to one block or replace it with berries. Instead of chips, salsa, cheese, and guacamole at bedtime, try cottage cheese, 1 tomato chopped and 1/4 cup salsa, guacamole, and 1chip crushed on top. The Zoned recipies you're making may have to be adusted depending on his particular needs. (See "Adjusting Your Hormonal Carburetor".) Also remember that unfavorable carbs must be kept to no more than 25% of all carb in a meal. Some Zoners do better with a mixture of carb densities and others with only very low GI carbs. Experimentation is sometimes necessary at first. It's very helpful to learn how to recognize when one is in the Zone and when one's meal has taken one out of the Zone. Once one can recognize the difference, a food diary can be a valuable tool in fine tuning one's diet. Errors with fat are also common among new Zoners and can slow weight loss. (See the FAQS on this site regarding fat for specific details.) He may not be getting enough fat in which case the carbs digest more quiclky and stimulate insulin too much, or he may be getting too much fat hidden in the protein sources (bacon, cheese...) which will prevent tapping into body fat stores even if insulin is within Zone levels. IMO, the best way to acheive weight loss in the Zone is to focus on lowering insulin. A quick and easy way to do this is to use only veggies for carbs at first. Keep meals simple by making choices according to "The Food Block Guide" on this site. By 4 or 5 days later you will begin to see progress again, which indicates you will have lowered insulin back into the Zone and can begin to add back a little fruit and unfavorable carb here and there. Dr. Sears has recommended this method many times and it works great! Read your Zone books over and over, focusing on the ways to acheive better insulin control. Your husband's individual carb sensitivity will determine how strict he has to be with carbs and fats to achieve insulin control within the Zone. I also noticed a lot of sources of saturated fats in yor husband's meal plan (cheese, butter, bacon). I would try to substitute lower fat protein sources, and also incorporate more monounsaturated fat into his diet. If you have questions. Please don't hesitate to ask. Sue

Hi cearramac, Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the minimum number of blocks for a man 14? I understood women were to eat 11. Based on this information, your husband is probably probably experiencing the slowing down of his metabolism. The body's metabolism will slow down if it perceives it is being deprived of enough calories to maintain its current expenditure. Sort of a conservation mode, if you will. I'll bet if you boost his meals to 4 blocks instead of 3, and see that he is taking in 14 blocks minimum (even more if he is active) his metabolism will kick-start again. Use the body fat calculator on this site, which factors in activity level and gender to find out exactly how many blocks he should be eating. Unless he is a very small man, he should certainly be eating more blocks that you are as a woman. Good Luck, Carrie