I've been eating this way for a while now and I do enjoy it. I try really hard to eat zone favorable options and I have even cut back on my fruit a lot. I don't think I've reached the zone though. Like how do you know when you've reached it? I'm always tired, especially since I have 2 young children and the youngest often wakes during the night. I try to go to bed before 10 and I am up at 6 for the day. I have been measuring my food and really going by 'zone at a glance.' My plate is mostly veggies and I find I stay full longer when I eat a lot of veggies.

Can anyone who has been in the zone repeatedly explain to me what you experience?

That would be me, lol. I have energy, all the time, day and night, even when I've been with my little grandsons, ages 1 and 3, 24/7 baby sitting for a weekend, or staying at their house of a couple weeks at a time (but I realize a weekend plus a couple of weeks every 2 mos is not the same as every day). Since I've been "in the Zone" my skin is softer and smoother than I can even remember it being before. I'm not hungry and I have that lean, strong feeling. Not being hungry was a huge change for me. I literally don't feel like I need to eat at meal time, though I can easily eat and enjoy my entire meal. Also, I don't have the little aches and pains, headaches, colds and other complaints that my friends all seem to have. I also sleep well all night long without waking.

Make sure you're eating enough. Try adding a little more monounsaturated fat to your meals. It won't be enough to prevent fat loss. In fact it can help promote fat loss because it results in better insulin control. You could also try adding another snack to you day, in addition to the extra fat. Tweak things here and there if you need to, according to Zone recommendations, so you can go at least 4 hours between meal without getting hungry. Omega Rx and polyphenols can make a big difference in you energy levels, too. I noticed a big difference when I added them.

I have been in the zone repeatedly, and done so for ... a decade at least I think. But I'm continually learning about my body, what I need, etc, the whole time. It is a lifelong learning experience--I'll only stop learning when I die!!
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So here's my own experiences, take from it what you want, let go of the rest. :-)
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When I'm fully in the zone, I really feel it. My energy shoots up. I'm more mentally alert even if I haven't had as much sleep as I'd like to; I'm more able to absorb information. I feel better physically. I have more stamina. I become more active physically naturally--it just happens by itself, as a direct result of the diet. (Many people find they have the same experience I believe--that they go on this diet, they get in the zone, and then they naturally start being more physically active. It's because they no longer feel lethargic because of the food I think.) I feel the change probably several days after I start zoning, if I've fallen off the zone. And I've fallen off many times!! If it's just one small misstep, or several missteps, it may be a shorter time before I feel the energy coursing through my veins again.
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And one way I know I'm going into the zone, by the way, is when I'm still drinking the same amount of water, BUT, my body has started using the water somehow, I forgot the scientific explanation for it, and suddenly my urine becomes a lot more dark yellow, on the same amount of water per day, and I end up having to drink a lot more in order to have light or clear urine. So it's an odd feeling because I go into the zone and suddenly I'm not peeing that much anymore.
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Anyway. I have experienced this remarkable energy when I was 192 lbs, so I was 60 lbs overweight and still very energetic, still not having many colds etc., and I'm 130-135 lbs now (and the weight loss is due to the zone diet by the way--no other diet has worked for me like the zone diet has!), and I still experience this very particular energy that I have come to call "that zone energy." I will be honest--I don't think I felt very different when I was in the zone at 192 than now when I am 130 (actually, 132 the last time I looked, but anyway ...)
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When I was going without much sleep this past summer because of very severe congestion that blocked my breathing, very severe allergies, reflux (phelgm coming up to block my breathing), my heart stopping periodically or frequently, my breathing stopping periodically or frequently---and these breath- and heart-stopping start happening when I try to sleep, and they happen during the day too when I'm not trying to sleep, and I have gone as little as 1 hour per day of sleep due to all of these problems, and it has gone on for weeks--the zone diet was what helped give me the energy to research, to get help, to exercise even though I was terribly sleep-deprived, etc., etc., etc.

I think at one point I was averaging two hours of actual sleep per night for a week or two, and I am not exaggerating ... I was keeping a notebook and writing down how much I slept. I have mild sleep apnea it turns out, and getting the Holter monitor to monitor my heart next week. I have gone as long as 3 nights and 3 days, roughly, with absolutely no sleep at all, and again, not exaggerating--it was that bad.

I am vastly better now physically, all of the above have gone down dramatically, for a variety of reasons, including drastic lifestyle changes, and NAET treatments (http://www.naet.com). I now sleep 6-9 hours a night, although my sleep apnea obviously affects the quality of my sleep.

But, I keep falling off the diet now that I'm far better, and I learn from it that, well, I still feel so much better when I'm zoning than when I fall off, so I keep exploring the good reasons why I fall off (emotional eating, etc) and exploring alternatives to emotional eating (e.g., drinking two teas that are very intense-tasting to satisfy my need for something intense). Also, too, I need to find ways to heal my emotional eating.

Oh, another sign that I'm in the zone. I no longer have "carbohydrate cravings." I have gone months and absolutely no cravings. It's hard to describe, but

I find when I eat a lot of refined carbs, e.g., pasta, that I feel very pleasantly ... lethargic. It's not a bad feeling. It's serotonin I think, triggered by the bread and carbs and so forth. BUT, this experience makes me sluggish, less alert obviously, makes me just want to sink into my Lazy Boy chair or coach and watch TV and do nothing. When I'm in the zone, I'm much more inclined to DO things.

My "emotional eating" is not the same as "carbohydrate cravings." The two feels different to me. The emotional eating is more for ... well, I have a lot trauma to heal, and I'm healing, slowly, and thankful that I'm healing, and there are days when I get triggered and then I need comfort food. But when I do emotional eating, I tend to eat stuff now like ... coconut flakes with cocoa and fructose and salt and olive oil all mixed up--very tasty for me--or a combination of nut butters (cashew butter, almond butter, peanut butter) mixed up with a little banana and so forth--also tasty, but I try to limit this kind of eating to only several times a week and stick to teas (Bengal tea is one example of an intense-tasting tea) the rest of the time ...

Hope this helps!!! It's my personal story, and I can't speak for you obviously--your experience may be different--but hopefully, you will have kind of the same experience--that even though you're sleep deprived, you'll still experience increased energy and mental alertness and so forth anyway.

A

Sue mentioned something very impt. When I'm in the zone, I stop being physically hungry. I have to remember to eat every three or four hours no matter what or I'll fall out of the zone. I usually enjoy my food but don't FEEL the need to eat it, but I DO eat it because I need to maintain my lack of hunger.

I eat way too much fat--not a good idea--and still losing weight, abient rather slowly ... probably half a pound per week. Makes me wonder how the heck I can keep my weight stable once I arrive at my ideal weight, since I eat so much fat (not a good idea, because fats have Omega-6s which cause inflammation, and I'm making it more difficult for myself in the long run, so I need to work on that part some more to avoid absorbing more Omega-6s when I'm emotional-eating) and still get to a healthy weight, but anyway ...

A

But. "that time of the month" DOES affect my hunger. But that's a different issue perhaps ... most of the time I have no hunger.

Since you explained it like that Sarah, maybe I have been in the zone? I find it very hard for me to sit still now. I always have to be up moving around and doing something. EXCEPT when I eat bad carbs, (cookies, junk, from my emotional eating), I just want to lay around and do nothing.

Sue- I already have doubled my fat intake with every snack and meal. I don't even count the fat in my meat anymore, I just go ahead and eat my 3-4 fat blocks on top of what's in the meat.

I have struggled with a food addiction for a very long time and I fall off the wagon so easily. I hate it. I struggle daily. But I am getting better. This weekend was bad for me.

And my time of the month- I always want chocolate =\

Kara, you're supposed to add 3 or 4 blocks of fat to a meal regardless of the meat. The fat blocks in the Zone Food Block list only contain half of the amount of fat needed for Zone balance (it's presumed the rest of the fat is in the meat). You can double, triple, or more the amount of fat blocks you add to a meal, depending on you needs and your activity. There's no reason to hesitate to add some more monounsaturated fat when satiety and/or energy are lacking.

Ways to satisfy you chocolate needs and stay in the Zone: 4 varieties of Zone cookies, Sue's Brownie Batter Smoothie (google it if you can't find it with a search here), 2 chocolate varieties of Zone bars, chocolate avocado pudding, chocolate nut butter spreads (mix Zone favorable nut butters with raw cacao powder, a couple drops of agave and some olive oil)...

Kara - here's another idea for guiltless indulgence in chocolate - make hot cocoa or chocolate milk using unsweetened almond milk, stevia and some form of powdered cocoa. I like the raw cacao powder because is has the most antioxidants. The amount of protein/carb/fat is negligible and pretty balanced so it doesn't count toward your allowed number of blocks.

Kara


Have you tried the Zone Fudge Bars? "Dr Sears" Zone Bars are awesome ! That will take care of the chocolate fix.

I agree with Larry on his advice regarding the chocolate craving. I just use plain milk and unsweetened cocoa powder. It is not the sweet that I am craving, it is the chocolate. If I continue to eat sweet things, I can never seem to get rid of the craving.

Hi Kara,

That could be that you're partially in the zone ... not 100% there ... I find it's not a sudden, abrupt transition from being non-zoned to being fully, 100% zoned ... I know some days I'm definitely not 100% zoned, some components of being fully zoned I don't have, e.g., perfect lack of hunger, but I still benefit a LOT anyway ... :-)

ANyway. here's a different way to satisfy your chocolate craving: A meal whose protein is made of ... chocolate. LOL. So you're eating chocolate for your protein and it's good for you!

See, I have white egg powder, meaning, a powder made from egg whites only. Nothing else basically. This is completely different from the egg protein powder that you see along with the other protein powders such as whey protein powders. The white egg powder is used to whip up into stiff foams and so forth for recipes.

Larry, I think it was, or John? I know I meant to explain ... the white egg powder DOES whip up to a stiff foam. Or it's supposed to anyway. That's what it's for. They use it to make those ... merigence cookies? ((I can't spell!!!) But, careful, read the label obviously to make sure it's pure egg whites. (Mine does have bakers yeast and citric acid but that's fine with me. From El Peto Products.)

I make a chocolate bar out of this egg white powder.

My recipe is 1/4 cup egg white powder (=20 grams protein), 2 tbspns cocoa (I use organic, fair trade cocoa because children are used as labour for regular cocoa, sad to say, and they suffer terribly), 1 tsp fructose, and extra-light-tasting olive oil. I combine all dry ingredients--I add a little bit of salt as well because salt really brings out the flavours--and then put in enough olive oil to make it come together into a nice, manageable bar. I find I need to massage it with my fingers for a bit to get everything to blend in nicely, then it's easy to shape it into a bar and eat it straight up.

The problem is, to make it work, I have to use MORE (extra-light-tasting) olive oil to make it into a nice bar than I actually need. So it's excessive fat, but fine for once in a while if you're ok with extra fat ... extra fat once in a while doesn't hurt ...

I find that the salt, again, is very important for me because it enchants, or really brings out, the flavours. I use sea salt, and it's better to add a bit of salt, massage the bar, taste the bar, then add a little bit more, and so on, until you find the right balance for you. Over time I know how much salt to add ... the amount of salt one wants is individual ...

I find it VERY satisfying, and it's a really BIG chocolate fix, because I'm eating something like 2/3 of a cup of chocolate, LOL.

The egg white powder plus the fructose plus the cocoa is what makes it taste like a milk chocolate bar, and the one tsp of fructose I don't use very often, but it makes up 25% of my unfavorable carbs, and I eat, for example, 2 cups of cauliflower and 1 cup of spagetti squash to balance out the fructose. And I'm totally stuffed!!!

Very healthy bar too ... :-) I love it ....

My cocoa is pretty sweet because I add Stevia.

Sue- You misunderstood! I ignore the fat that is in the meat and then add an additional 3-4 blocks on top of it. So I'm probably really getting 4-5 blocks of fat in a meal.

Thank you for the suggestions for the chocolate cravings!

Kara, 4-5 blocks still leaves room to try more.

And, yes, I had misunderstood. :-)

Kara, just in case I didn't misunderstand (I'm confused by your "4-5 blocks" remark), here are the facts on fat blocks, taken from "Mastering the Zone", by Barry Sears, pages 292-293:

"Why is a fat block only 1.5 g?

Every block of low-fat protein contains approximately 1.5 grams of hidden that. Therefore by adding one extra block (which is defined as 1.5 grams of fat) for each block of low-fat protein, you are actually consuming 3 grams of fat or two fat blocks (one internal in the protein and one external) for each protein block. If you're using fat-free protein sources, such as isolated protein powders, then you should be adding two blocks of fat to achieve the same ratio. Obviously, if you're eating higher fat protein choices, you would not be adding any extra fat blocks to your meal. Remember that every time you add additional fact blocks to a meal, they should be composed primarily of monounsaturated fat."