Ok, so you do the Zone Diet and lose the weight you need to and you're down to a really nice weight -- I know at that point, Barry Sears says, you just "add a little fat" to your diet to stop losing weight and maintain your nice new weight. But HOW MUCH is "a little fat"? Like, if I'm one of those typical American women who needs 11 P + 11 C + 11 F per day to lose weight, how much would I add? Is there a rule of thumb, like do about one and a half times as much fat as you've been doing? Or is it pure guesswork? TIA for any information on this!

Probably a bit of guesswork!

I would start out adding 1-2 additional blocks per meal, and just monitor your weight. If you are able to hold your weight steady, then that is where you stay. However, if you notice yourself gaining, then cut it back. Alternatively, if you are not maintaining and are still losing, then increase it.

I've heard "fat block" used to mean two different things -- (1) 3.0 grams of fat ("A complete fat block") and (2) 1.5 grams of fat (that assumes that you're eating 1.5 grams of additional fat in your low-fat protein, so the total comes up to 3.0 grams). When you say add 1 or 2 blocks of fat per meal and see what happens with your weight, do you mean add 1 or 2 "complete fat blocks" (that would be 3 or 6 grams of fat) or 1 or 2 blocks that are 1.5 grams each (that would be 1.5 or 3 grams of fat)?

Let's see, if I added 2 "complete fat blocks" per meal that would total 18 additional grams of fat per day or about 162 additional calories. It sounds like maybe being in the Zone allows a person to "thrive" on far fewer calories than even "normal weight" non-Zone people usually eat -- is that correct? Does being in the Zone make your body work more efficiently so that you need fewer calories per day to operate on?

What you're looking at is ideal body fat%. For an average man 15%, woman 22%. If you are at your goal and still loosing add 1 complete fat block-3g, per meal. If you're still looseing add 2 complete fat blocks-6g,per meal.