Quantity Control

So you're pissed. You just read the paleo post, and we're telling you not to eat some of the foods that, you: love to eat, grew up eating, or just eat out of pure convenience. Paleo is a 'suggested' way of optimizing your food selection, to minimize health risks and maximize longevity (amongst other things). You can improve your performance, health, and quality of life, while still eating your favorite carbs (favorable or unfavorable). Lets be serious, a huge portion of the population loves to eat. When someone tells you that you can't eat something, its easy to get frustrated and fall off of a new way-of-eating (lets not call this a diet). We're now going to talk about Quantity.

Dr. Barry Sears, created the "Zone" diet and it is a great system to figure out your nutritional needs as well as find a "healthier" way to eat the "Unfavorable" carbohydrates we all love. The name sucks, people hate saying it, I personally hate hearing myself say it, but... it works. Plain and simple, the Zone balances out your meals to promote body-fat-burning and keep your blood sugar levels balanced and "in the zone" as long as possible; It also helps optimize energy levels and athletic performance. Some of CrossFit's most elite athletes, base their feeding off of the Zone. The Zone can be an essential tool to both leaning-out and building muscle for people.

A Zone balanced meal consists of three key Items (all which we've been talking about)
Carbohydrates (CHO) 40%
Protein (PRO) 30%
Fat (FAT) 30%

Keeping the 40:30:30 balanced ratio in your meal means that you will be balancing your blood sugar levels as well (not too high and not too low). Dr.Sears, beleives that many illnesses are caused by systemic inflammation, as well as silent inflammation which he traces all back to messed up insulin levels (your pancreas releases insulin to balance out the amount of sugar/glucose in your blood).

-Too High* = Inflammation
-Just Right = Low Stress Levels on Body, Healthy and Burning Fat.
-Too Low = Inflammation

*High insulin levels tell your body that you have sufficient energy and to stop burning fat. Proceeding this, anything you eat has the potential to being stored as fat.

So back to the 40:30:30. Ratios, how fun. Balancing sounds like there's some serious time involved. Dr.Sears built a method that takes all the math and calculations out of balancing your meals. If you spent enough time around WCCF, you've had to of heard someone saying something like "I'm doing 4 block meals" or "Dude, how many blocks are you doing?"

The Block Method
A BLOCK is a measuring unit designed to balance meals with ease.

1 Block of PRO = 7g (cooked)

1 Block of CHO = 9g

1 Block of FAT = 1.5g

I wasn't lying, no math is necessary.. Not going to ask you to start calculating grams and other madness of the sort. Blocks are simply measuring units that simplify the balancing of meals.

There are lists all over the internet that will tell you how much of any particular item equals a block.

The fine folks over at Camp Pendleton built an interactive list that is bad-ass. It has Favorable/UnFavorable carbs, proteins, fats, and specialized foods for other methodologies like Paleo. Everything is laid out so you will know exactly how much of what kind of foods you should be eating at any given time.

Zone Block Calculator (courtesy of CrossFit Camp Pendleton)

Example

A "4-BLOCK-MEAL" would consist of 4 Items from each macronutrient. So, thats 4 carb blocks, 4 protein blocks, and 4 fat blocks.

Typically people eat 12-18 blocks per day (depending on size/sex), split up into 5 Meals.

Using the List above, is a meal plan for a 13-Block person's day:

Every one of those meals where perfectly balanced, and all it took was a quick measuring cup and/or a scale. After 2 weeks or so of measuring and weighing, you should be able to eyeball the quantity on-the-fly. By having equal Protein/Carb/Fat blocks in each meal you've magically balanced your meal to the 40:30:30 ratio.

Take time to go over the pre-made block charts. You'll notice that you can make your meals for a big appetite or a small appetite. An apple is equivalent to 2 Blocks of carbs, just as 4 cups of broccoli is also 2 Blocks.

The Zone works to keep your insulin levels balanced while allowing a lot more freedom in choice of foods. The proportions will keep you within your nutritional needs, and the quality is at your discretion (though, cleaner "low GI" foods keep you balanced longer than "high GI" foods). One of the best parts about the Zone is the ability to get back on track. If you have a "cheat" day/meal, all you have to do is balance your next meal and your right back to burning fat and optimizing your health.

How Many Blocks Should I Eat?

These Prescriptions are for people with an active lifestyle (i.e. CrossFitters)

The Zone is a great starting point for any diet. There are many ways to tweak the Zone for different results. If you've made massive progress at the gym eating however you like, I salute you. Balancing your meals can rapidly increase your progress. Like the sound of that? Taking that to the next level and doing a combination Paleo/Zone diet will supercharge your results and bring you to a whole new level of health and performance.

Want more?
We'd be happy to host a Zone Seminar, if enough people are interested; ranging the full spectrum of the Zone: Introduction, Mechanics, Health Benefits + Longevity, as well as One-on-One time for individual Block Prescriptions for Weight Management, Weight Loss & Mass-Gain Cycling. Post thoughts in the comments.

References:
The Official Science Site of the Zone Diet
How Blood Sugar Levels Affect Weight Loss

Comments

[doogie]

I the question I have is how to determine blocks for individual food items we find at our super markets. For example, say I pick up a cup of chili that has nutritional information labeled on the back. It says 15 grams of fat, 10 grams of COH, and 21 grams of protein. Does this mean that the chili is considered a "3 block protein"?

[Dingo]

Dude I would be all over the Zone seminar like bees on honey or Cal on sleeveless t-shirts.

[doogie]

Looks like I forgot to proofread the first sentence! :)

[Cal]

I'm in for Zone seminar. And I'll supply the sleeveless t's for Berry.

[sean]

doogie,
with the zone, you only count things as a MACRO-NUTRIENT, so if its a vegetable or fruit, it only counts as a CHO, and we ditch the other nutritional values (same goes for FATS and PROTEIN).

-now as far as chili goes, subtract the Dietary Fiber from the carbs and divide by 9 (nine grams per carb block) for CHO blocks..

-if there's meat in the chilli, then value the PRO count on the can and divide by 7g (to get block measurement). make sense?

[doogie]

Makes perfect sense!

[Mike Sr. and Kristen L]

Really great explanation of the diet Sean. I would love to attend a seminar. You have a great knowledge and understanding of this lifestyle.

[Antonio]

Whole Paycheck (3640 N Halsted) has almonds for $4.99/pound. Note that these are in a bag, the bulk ones are $10/pound!

[Tatts]

I saw CF Santa Cruz did a zone challenge a couple of months ago. It was 6 or 9 weeks that people signed up for, similar to the burpee challenge. It looked awesome to me to have a group trying it together. If anything like that is in the works I would be in for that.

[Kim H]

So I'm a bit late to the posts, but I'd absolutely be in for a zone seminar and/or zone challenge. What a great way to start off the new year! Who isn't looking to get back on track nutritionally after the holidays....or am I the only one who can down double digits of mini xmas cookies before I even realize what I've done?