| Back on the Zone - Day 8 |
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Well I must say that I hit a few speed bumps this week. The last few days I have skipped a couple of meals, or waited to long between meals to eat. I have still managed to eat a Zone meal at the next meal, however, as the Zone is already calorie restrictive as it is, missing meals is a recipe for disaster! The breakdown coincided with me staying up late to keep working, and therefore sleeping in long enough to make me run late in the morning. Waking up late caused me put my focus on getting out the door and not on what am I going to eat this morning, etc. I think this will be correctable simply by getting on a better sleep schedule and then sticking with it. Plus, this sounds a bit over the top but I almost think I need to add my meal times to my Blackberry for a week just to remind me to eat! Getting consistent with feeding time early on will help me make it stick. Once the habits are in place it will be simple to fudge here and there and get back on track, whereas if I go off track at all now, it is much harder to recover from! Brian K. mentioned today that he has been Zoning for a while and he is always hungry between Lunch and Dinner. He noted that he eats 2 apples for his Carb intake at Lunch. Swapping out an apple for some green veggies would help stave off hunger in the afternoon because it is more fibrous and the glycemic load is lower. He also noted that he leaned out pretty fast and was starving for Carbs for 2 days. Once you get lean it is important to add more fat to the diet (Omega 3 fatty acids) to make up for the caloric deficit. When your body has body fat to give it will do so (especially when doing intense activities like CrossFit) to make up for the caloric deficit but when you lean out it won't give up any more fat to the cause and you will begin to metabolize muscle and protein. If you increase intake of protein or carbs you will upset your insulin/glucogon balance which is the primary aim of the Zone. By increasing good fats you will fix your caloric deficit without disturbing this balance. You start by doubling your fat blocks. Watch your body composition and your performance. Performance should increase, but you should not lean out or bulk up. This is called the Athletes Zone and is the next progression after the Zone gets you as far as it can. One interesting thing to note is that Athletes eating upwards of 5x the fat are eating very simliar to Paleo which is high in fat. The ratio basically skews from 30% fat to close to 63% fat. Who would have 'thunk' it? You get lean and reach higher levels of performance by eating more fat! |