Hey Zone Friends,

I have never asked a question on a blog, ever! So please take it easy on me if I mess up.

I have been doing the Zone Diet for a while now, but I was not super tight to it. Within the last six weeks, I got super tight on the diet. I have lost some weight, but I am SO HUNGRY. I can barely stand it. After losing 2 or so lbs a week, I am having hard time staying on the diet. I am ravenous from the time I wake up until I eat a final snack right before bed. Sometimes I wake up so hungry I can't go back to sleep. So I am hoping for help.

I am about 240. According to Dr. Sears body fat calculator I am about 27% fat. So I have some weight to lose. I workout, very intensely, 3-4 times a week. I finished P90X, now I modified the workout to fit my needs. The body fat calculator says 18 blocks a day. I am currently doing that.

I am starting to cheat, a lot. It started with a little and now it is much more because I am so hungry. I need help. I feel very good about my weight loss so far and P90X has whipped me into shape. I can't explain how much better I feel in terms of my attitude and just myself in general. I am starting to panic because I am starting to have a hard time sticking with the diet and I don't want to go back where I was. I would like to lose another 20 lbs before I go into more of a maintenance mode. If I can get to 200-210, I would go crazy.

I would like to thank you all for your advice in advance.

R

Robert, no worries, there's no judgment here. :)

It looks like you're not eating enough, probably because you might be underestimating your activity level with PX90 and the recent modifications you made to it. With a weight of 240 and 27 % body fat you have approximately 175 pounds of LBM. Your weight loss goal is very appropriate. 12 to 15 % body fat is a good goal for a man. At your current LBM that would be 196 to 206 pounds. 18 blocks means you have probably chosen the moderately active level for your protein requirement/block amount calculation. Increase right now to 20 blocks daily, which is your requirement when using the active level (or to 23 blocks, if you are lifting heavy weight daily, which would be very active). If this alone is not sufficient to resolve the hunger, then apply the Zone rule for to judge hunger 4 hours after a Zone balanced meal. If at 4 hours you have significant huger, your next step would be to judge the type of hunger and make a carbohydrate adjustment hunger based on that. For focused hunger (hungry and have good levels of energy and mental clarity) you would add one more block of carbohydrate to each meal; for unfocused hunger (hungry with symptoms such as lack of concentration, lack of energy, weak or spacy, jittery, headache, irritable or sleepy) you would drop 1 carbohydrate block from each meal.

Please keep us updated. There are additional ways to fine tune, but these suggestions would be the first things to try.


______________________________

sue
Consultant of Zone Labs
Certified Zone Affiliate

Lost 100 pounds "in the Zone" and have maintained over 16 years. Yeah Zone!

Robert,

I would additionally add that it is difficult to make adjustments using the hunger test as Sue described, if you are not eating favorable foods in the Zone.

It is a vicious cycle to breat, sometimes (and I have been there, believe me!). But, one important step is to really stick to the Zone favorable foods. I think that Sue's advice to increase zone blocks is spot on, as long as you are making this adjustment using the favorable foods. It is not going to help if you increase your blocks using unfavorables, because it will just continue the hunger and the spiral.

Good luck!