I just finished my first week on the zone diet. I've had zero refined sugar, and zero grains for the week. I'm consuming 18-20 blocks a day. I'm finding it really difficult to get enough carbs from the preferred list. 16 cups of any vegetable is just not feasible in one meal. So, I end up getting most of my carbs from fruit (apples/oranges & berries mainly).

My questions:

1) Do most people end up consuming grains/non-ideal carbs in order to meet the carb requirements?

2) After a 4-5 block meal of of meat & veggies/fruit, my stomach feels physically full, but I still feel "empty" and hungry. Also, my energy level has dropped considerably this week. From my searching, I'm considering "grain withdrawal" as a possible explanation to this. Based on my past experience, I believe if I added in some rice or wheat to the meal I would not feel this way. What's your experience with this situation?

3) Are there zone coaches available for 1v1 counseling/training? I found this page http://www.zonediet.com/tools/zone-coaches but it didn't have any direct links or contact information available.

my background: 6'3, 185lbs. I'm sitting all day for work, but I do crossfit 3x a week, and other occasional outdoor activities, and in general have a fairly high metabolism. Not really looking for weight loss, so much as a healthy diet & lifestyle. (I did drop nearly 2 pounds this week though)

Thanks

Erik, take a look at the food list, you can find favorable carbs with less volume to make it easier. Another idea is to have a glass of milk with a meal, which uses up one of your protein and carb block. if you end up Having more fruit, use mainly berries.

Hi Erik - I find it hard to eat a lot of broccoli, etc., too. These favorable items have really worked for me - hummus, tomatoes, cucumber, tomato paste, sauteed onion, water chestnuts. I usually have only 1/2 block of a fibrous vegetable per meal, 2.5 blocks from this list and a block of berries. So carbs for my typical meal might be 1/2 block cauliflower + 1/2 block of water chestnuts + 4 oz (1 block) of onion with 1/2 block of hummus as a sauce. That's 2.5 blocks, so a half a block of cherry tomatoes and 1 block of berries gets me to 4 blocks.

It looks like you might be eating too much fruit because you can't stomach all the fibrous vegetables. That can cause you to secret too much insulin which will make you hungry. Try substituting the more dense favorable vegetables for much of the fruit.

The only problem with eating more fruits than vegetables is that fruits have a higher glycemic index then vegetables, so they essentially digest faster than them. If you are having a hard time eating all of the vegetables, try juicing them. Although you will lose fiber from juicing, the amount of carbohydrates is the same. Just make sure that you are juicing your vegetable amounts from the "raw" list of vegetables :) I hope this helped and good luck!

Juicing the vegetable will make it an unfavorable carbohydrate.