04.02.08
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:42 am by Colin McNulty
Considering the debacle of putting on half a stone over Christmas, and not being able to go to Crossfit much, January has gone remarkably well on the weightloss front, thanks to the Zone Diet of course.
You may recall I was 13st 7 (189 lbs) up from 183 in December. Well it took about 2 weeks to lose what I’d gained, and now on 1st February I am officially the lightest I’ve been since leaving University some 13 odd years ago. Yep, finally the scales consistently start with that magic number: 12 ! Ok, it’s 12 st 13 and some loose change, but I’ll take it…. I’m 12 stone something again, woot !
12 st 13 is 181 lbs or 82kg, however my waist stubbornly remains at 36″ which makes my body fat calculation come out at 17%. Whilst I’m happy with a reduction in body fat percentage from 30% to 17% in a year, it’s not quite the 15% target I had set myself. Just 1 more inch off the waist and I’ll be there.
Still I can’t complain, the Zone Diet has been the most effective eating regime I’ve ever been on, I generally feel great on it, and I am rarely hungry. The only time hunger sets in is when it’s been over 5 hours since I last ate, which is what you’d expect anyway. Certainly I feel the need for neither mid morning snacks, nor mid afternoon snacks. I also feel I know far more about diet and weightloss than the vast majority of people out there today.
In fact, in a few days time I’m going to post a response to this news item:
TV Dr Chris Steele, has been shocked on his discovery that he has advanced heart disease. Dr Chris Steele is the resident expert on ITVs show “This Morning” for 20 years, and he took part in 3D heart imaging tests for a feature for the show.
Worse than that, he found out his heart condition was worse than 98% of the UK population! Which puts him in the extremely high risk group.
I don’t intend on pulling any punches!
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03.01.08
Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 7:54 am by Colin McNulty
This morning I was 13st 7 (189 lbs) up from 183 when I checked my body fat before Christmas. I’ve really noticed it in my waist mostly, and the tape measure shows that I’ve gained an extra inch there back up to 37″!
This puts my body fat percentage back up to 18%. Bugger!
The Zone Diet shall have to come to my rescue once more. What does help is that the wife and I have decided to go tea total for a couple of months, at least till her birthday, and see how we feel after that. I can’t say that isn’t going to be hard, cos it is but it needs to be done and will be interesting to see the effects it has on us.
What doesn’t help is that I’m feeling pretty beat up at the moment and can’t workout as normal. I hurt my elbow back when I went on my brothers stag do and it’s never properly healed. In fact it’s been getting worse and now it hurts not only when I’m lifting weights, but doing mundane stuff round the house: like lifting a drink, or pickup up a book, or brushing my teeth.
As a result I’ve been doing other stuff at Crossfit, but Monday’s leg and sit up intensive workout beat me up big style and I have a sore knee and sore stomach muscles as a result, and that was 3 days ago.
I’ve been wanting to see about going down to the new Awsome Walls climbing wall that’s upped up down the road from me, which is apparently one of the highest climbing walls in England. But I can’t in my current injured state. I’m also planning to take up Krav Maga this year too, but that is similarly going to have to wait.
Welcome to 2008, ho hum!
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23.12.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:33 am by Colin McNulty
I figure that things are inevitably not going to go well for the diet over Christmas, which is fine. The Zone Diet has proved its efficacy and a week off to enjoy myself over the holiday seems like a just reward for a years hard work and effort. So my pre-Christmas measurements are:
Weight = 13 st 1 = 183 lbs - same as last months weight
Waist = 36 inches - 1/2 down of last month.
Here’s where things get at a bit odd as compared with last months percentage fat loss calculation although I’ve lost no weight this month, and only 1/2 an inch off my waist, according to the body fat charts in the Zone books, I’m now 16% body fat, down 2% on last month!
It’s odder than that though, as my waist is on the border of being 35.5″ which would give me a body fat percentage of 15%, which is my target. Conversely if I lose just 1 more pound to 182, I move into a different row on the chart and go up to 17% body fat!
It’s all rather confusing really.
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12.12.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:32 am by Colin McNulty
RANT mode definitely ON
I spend some time on ZoneLiving.com as there’s a small but interesting community of Zoners there and it’s one of Dr Sears official sites. I received an email from them yesterday advertising a press release which they’ve posted on their front page here The article is entitled: “Arizona State Researchers find Zone is superior to Atkins for energy, healthy bones, and cholesterol levels.”
I was shocked when I read this article. It’s one of the most sensationalised, vitriolic, gutter tabloid, trash journalism, being passed off as real “science”. The factually incorrect research jumps to wild and unfounded conclusions, in a desperate attempt to make The Zone Diet look better than Atkins. It shows a surprising level of insecurity on behalf of the Zone Diet, that it feels the constant need to bash the Atkins Diet by constantly comparing themselves, and trying to discredit Atkins.
I went off on one in the comments and have felt quite justified in my criticism by being backed up by several other commenters too. This is a reproduction of my comment (or you can read it at the bottom of the article linked above):
By Colin @ Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:38 AM
Before I critique this article, I’d like to say that I’ve tried both the Atkins and the Zone, and I find the Zone to be the superior diet and am a big advocate of it. However it’s a shame that such a biased report such as this appears on this website.
> The Atkins diet entails very low carbohydrate, less than 20 grams daily,
That is a factually incorrect statement. The Atkins takes a 4 stage process, the first of which is a very strict “Induction Phase” which dictates a 20g carb per day restriction, but this is only for the first 2 weeks. Note this is not “less than” 20 grams as the article says, and the article makes no reference to the fact this is only for 2 weeks, which Atkins freely admits should not be sustained.
> The downside of severely low carbohydrate intake is that dieters go in to what’s called ketosis or the inefficiency of the body to oxidize fat
I have 2 issues with this statement. The first is that Ketosis is not a “downside” of the Atkins diet, it is in fact the *aim* of the diet. Atkins asserts that the presence of ketones in the urine is a natural by product of burning fat for energy, and is simply a measure of the diets success.
The second is that in the article ketosis is defined as “inefficiency of the body to oxidize fat”. I do not believe that is a suitable interpretation of the term ketosis, rather it’s one that attempts to paint ketosis as bad.
> their research uncovered that the ketogenic diet may increase bone loss because of an increase in acid in the body
Very inflammatory use of the word “uncovered” here, suggesting some dark revelation, whereas in fact the research found “an increase in acid” though which one and where and how much isn’t mentioned. Note also that they did not discover bone loss, they discovered an increase of acid, and made the very unscientific leap that this acid “may” result in bone loss, without any evidence of that.
> a higher percentage of calcium was found in the urine of those on the KLC diet, leading the researchers to believe that the bones are “leaching” calcium.
Another shocking and knee jerk interpretation of the facts here. The Atkins is typically a high calcium diet, due often to an increase in intake of dairy products. Leaping to the conclusion that bones are “leaching” calcium (is that even possible?) strikes me as a desperate attempt at trying to make the facts match a pre-existence theory, rather than real science.
A proper scientific response here should have been: We detected in increase in Calcium in the urine, a specific dietary controlled study is required to determine if a low carb diet is responsible, where 2 diets are compared that have an equal intake of calcium.
> those following the KLC diet experienced a greater increase in LDL cholesterol
It is laughable that this argument is used to discredit the Atkins diet, when Dr Sears himself has regularly stated that cholesterol is an irrelevance, e.g. when it comes to preventing heart attacks. I quote Dr Sears from p17 of The Anti Inflammation Zone: “The trouble is, 50 percent of all heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol levels, and the best drug that reduces heart attacks (aspirin) doesn’t have any effect on cholesterol levels.”
> Their most recent article published in October explains that the body needs carbohydrates for energy so if you are taking in an extremely low amount of carbohydrates and only receiving energy from protein
Fat is stored carbohydrates. Stored energy for later use. That’s why it’s there. In order for any dieter on any diet to lose fat, that fat must by definition been broken down for use as energy. This ridiculous statement that “the body needs carbohydrates for energy” is an attack on all diets. It is also extremely rare for the body to consume protein for energy, something that only occurs in extreme cases of malnutrition.
Let me summarise, I am a believer in the Zone Diet as a superior diet to Atkins, but for reasons that are nothing to do with the content of this article. I sincerely hope that Dr Sears is not aware that such a biased and factually incorrect article, one that is almost devoid of any scientific process, is being used to promote his diet. The Zone diet does not need this kind of tabloid journalism and today I am ashamed to call myself a Zone convert and be associated with this tripe.
RANT mode OFF.
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02.12.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:30 pm by Colin McNulty
7 lbs lost this month!
Last months Zone Diet weightloss update I was at 13 st 8 (190 lbs / 86kg). This month I’m down to 13 st 1 (183 lbs / 83kg). Whereas in October I lost 2 pounds only, this month it’s 7 lbs (3kg). Interestingly though, my body fat percentage is still 18% according to the Zone Diet book charts.
The reason is that I’ve lost another half inch off my waist, now down to 36.5 inches, and whilst this pushes me left another column on the chart, I also move up a row due to the extra weightloss, and this maintains the 18% body fat percentage. The upside is the next 1/2 inch lost should drop me 2% points.
So why did I lose 2 lbs in October and 7 lbs in November? What changed? What did I do different? How did I more than triple my previous months weightloss?
The answer is I did exactly what I said I’d do: cut back on the wine. Ok, it’s not quite been the tea total affair that I’d planned, but certainly not drinking (mostly) during the week has made a big difference.
The second change was I went back to weighing and measuring. It seems that over time, portion sizes miraculously change in your head. For stuff you like, the sizes slowly creep up, an ounce of cheese becomes an ounce and a quarter, then an ounce and a half. So every few months, it’s a good idea to recalibrate yourself by checking the things you’ve become accustomed to measuring by eye.
Clearly December is going to be a challenge what with Christmas coming, but I aim to get a head start by doing the best I can for the next 3 weeks before Christmas. If I lose another 2 lbs and drop into the 12 stone range, I’ll weigh less than I have for about 10 years!
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01.11.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 7:02 am by Colin McNulty
My last months update showed my weightloss (or fat loss) on the Zone Diet Plan had stalled, which was a stark contrast to previous months. Take June for example where I lost 4% body fat in one month on the Zone Diet.
This month is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand I’ve lost a bit of weight, down to 13st 8 (190 lbs / 86kg) although my waist is still 37 inches at the belly button, which maintains my body fat at 18%. The real question though is how my Zone Diet efforts have gone this month, in terms of menu and recipe choices, and how much I’ve cheated!
Actually I’ve not done as well as I’d hoped at recovering my previous zone diet zeal. I continue to make good Zone diet menu choices for breakfast, eat good zone food for lunch, and my repertoire of zone diet recipes for tea (dinner to most people) is expanding nicely. (Did a nice baked Haddock with lime and curry powder, served on a bed of stir fried vegetables the other day.)
No, it’s still the evenings that let me down. I have cut back on the wine some, but not nearly enough. There’s also too many sweets and chocolate sneaking in during the week day evenings too. Not much, but enough to make a difference. The big question is why? Am I messing up and not really in The Zone at all?
I don’t think so, as it’s not really that I’m craving these things. I’m not hungry in the evenings, nor do I have the lust for a sugary snack. No it’s more habit grown from many years having a glass of wine with the evening meal, and/or watching a film. A glass leads to 2, then to 3, and by the time I’ve had 3 glasses of wine, all bets are off. Then, if there are sweets in the house, my ability to resist is sufficiently diminished.
The point is, I know it’s the wine that’s the route cause of the problem, not my Zone Diet food choices. In the last couple of years, I’ve packed in the cigarettes, started exercising regularly, sorted out my diet…. the booze is the next big battle: finding that happy balance. I’m determined that this month will be different, in fact it has to be if I’m going to meet my target of 15% by Feb 2008, especially with Christmas round the corner!
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01.10.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 7:25 pm by Colin McNulty
It was bound to happen eventually, and it did in September: I stopped losing weight!
For the last few months on the zone diet, my fat loss / weight loss has diminished to 1% body fat per month. In September it stopped completely and I am still 18% body fat percentage and 13st 10 (192 lbs / 87kg) with a waist of 37″ (at the widest point). This is completely my own fault as I’ve cheated horendously again.
The irony is it’s the fact that the Zone Diet is soooo effective, that has caused my weightloss to stall. Because if it wasn’t so easy to stay on, and so easy to lose weight on, I wouldn’t have been complacent enough to cheat so much! However, I’m determined to get back on track, and like all well intentioned dieters, it starts tomorrow…. well the day after actually, but that’s another story.
Starting 3rd Oct I’m back to the more strict regime of counting blocks properly. That means weighing and measuring all ingredients and noting their zone diet block numbers, and making sure I’m balanced. I know that breakfast and lunch are normally ok, although I have had a lot of pre-bought smoothies for breakfast, and the Glycemic Index of these is not what it could be, so they will have to be scaled back.
No, it’s the evenings that are my downfall, still too much wine, chocolate and ice cream to regularly of an evening. That’s what’s got to stop. However, I am still on track for my ultimate goal: to reach 15% body fat by Feb 2008, so 4 months and 3% to lose. And now I’ve been convinced to try the Fish Oil Supplements, things should move along even faster.
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14.09.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 6:15 am by Colin McNulty
I thought I’d post up yesterdays Zone Diet food intake, just for fun and your criticism. It’s never a bad idea to get people to critique you once is a while, so feel free to point out any mistakes you think I’m making. I’m on 17 blocks per day.
Breakfast - 5 blocks
- 5oz Cold Roast Turkey Breast (5 Protein blocks)
- 75g Light Philadelphia Cream Cheese (7.5g of fat = 5 Fat blocks)
- 200ml Innocent Fruit Smoothie (30g of carbs = roughly 3 Carb blocks)
- 1 apple (2 Carb blocks)
Morning Snack - 1 block
- 1oz Cheddar Cheese (1P and I count 1 Fat block here too, as it’s full fat cheese)
- 1 Satsuma (1C)
Lunch - 5 blocks
- 200g Smoked Mackerel (5P)
- 1 1/2 cups grapes (3C)
- 1 Satsuma (1C)
- 1 Nectarine (1C)
- 15 Cashew Nuts (5F)
Tea - 5 blocks
This was not a normal tea we had, I decided to do something as close as I could to what I would have considered “normal food” before the Zone, so it was Bangers and Mash with gravy! Only I zoned it of course, and one interesting twist: it wasn’t mash potato, but mashed cauliflower. I’ve found mashed cauliflower to be an excellent mashed potato substitute.
- 400g of good quality, 97% Pork Sausages (10P)
- 1 Large cauliflower 4 cups worth (2C)
- 1 9inch Parsnip (3C)
- 2/3 cup Onion (1C)
- Bisto Beef Gravy, about 35g dry weight (4C)
- 4 tsp Light Mayonnaise (4F)
- 2 tsp Butter (6F)
The Mash was made by steaming the cauliflower, parsnip and onion for 20 mins, then blending them together with a hand blender, with the Mayo, butter and some wholegrain mustard.
The observant amongst you will notice that this meal adds up to a balanced 10 blocker, however I ate exactly half this.
Evening Snack - 1 block
- 1 cup natural yoghurt (1P and 1C)
- 9 Pistachio nuts (1F)
Actually, I’m not sure that 9 Pistachio nuts are 1 block of fat. But 3 Cashews are, and to my eye a Cashew is about 3 times the size of a Pistachio, so that’s how I got to 9 = 1 block. Do you know better, please comment.
So how’s that, any problems or improvements you can see, let me know.
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02.09.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 8:54 am by Colin McNulty
The inexorable fat loss continues, with this months 37″ waist making the body fat percentage calculation now 18%, compared to last months 19% body fat. Note that weight is about the same at 13st 10.
It is interesting actually because it seems hard not to loss fat on the Zone Diet. This month for example, I can probably put down these items as things normally not conducive to losing weight or fat, but that I have consumed anyway and still lost fat:
- 3 litres of ice cream
- 1kg of old fashioned sweets from www.AQuarterOf.com
- about 10 bottles of wine
- 8 bars of chocolate
Careless I suppose, and I reckon if I was being more strict with my diet I’d already be at my target 15% body fat. Be hey, if I can still eat and drink what I like and still lose weight, why not?
I’m a complete Zone Diet convert, it’s true. In fact, I’m almost concerned about what happens after I reach 15%, because how do I stop losing fat when I get there? It’s a bizarre thought to think I might get too thin!
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16.08.07
Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 10:10 pm by Colin McNulty
This is an email I sent a guy who was just starting on the zone, and not getting it quite right. I hope I’ve managed to correct him properly. “> ” denote his comments on what he was eating, I thought I’d stick it up here for your benefit, if you’ve got an opinion, feel free to pipe up:
> Breakfast - porriage, small slice cold meat, 4 almonds.
You’re not giving precise measurements but that looks like 2 problems: not enough protein (*small* slice of meat), and too many carbs (porridge - I’m assuming a bowl full?). I always start by planning the protein in my meals. Protein always is the start which drives how much carb and fat to add. These days, protein is the only thing I still actually measure with scales, as it’s the most important to get right.
> snack - apple, small slice cold meat, 4 almonds.
Again, a *small* slice doesn’t sound like enough.
> Lunch 1 egg, 1 small brown pitta bread, small amount of cheese grated over and salad.
This looks a better protein to carb ratio, so long as the pitta was really small. Where’s the fat though? Salad dressing perhaps?
> dinner - 1 slice beef ham (thin), 3 small pototo, veg seclection stir fried with small amount of olive oil.
1 thin slice of ham doesn’t sound like nearly enough protein. Potatoes are very carb dense, so 3 pototoes could easily be 5 or 6 blocks worth of carbs. And what was in the veg selection? Carots and parsnips for example would be fine, but not with the potatoes.
> snack - plain yogurt, apple, 4 almonds and 1 thin slice of fruit loaf (home made)
That was a great snack, until the apple and fruit loaf! lol. 
A typical balance zone snack here would have been: plain yoghurt (1 block protein and 1 block carbs) and almonds (1 block fat). The apple adds 2 blocks of carbs with no protein or fat to balance it. And only you and the recipe book know how many carbs are in the fruit loaf.
> It was only a thin slice without any butter.
That’s not zone thinking. Butter is fine (in moderation) as a fat source. It’s actually better to have butter on a carb source, than just pure carbs, cos the fat helps to tell your brain you are full (providing the protein is there too).
The nice part about the zone is this: you can eat exactly what you are used to eating. You just need to change the proportions, and that can take some getting used to, cos you have to throw away everything you thought you knew about “healthy eating”. Let me give you an example:
When I first started on the zone, it entertained me no end that I could have a zoned bacon butty for breakfast! ;D Here’s what my bacon butties used to look like:
Old bacon butty: 2 slices of bread, 2 rashers of bacon, butter and brown source. Yum.
Then I zoned it, for my 5 block breakfast. I checked the carb count of the bread on the packet (9g carbs = 1 block) and found that 1 slice was 18g carbs, so 2 slices were 4 blocks. Then I checked the protein count of the bacon (7g of protein = 1 block) and discovered that an entire 6 rasher packet was about 35g protein, so that’s my 5 blocks).
So 2 pieces of bread and 6 rashers of bacon was 4 blocks of carbs and 5 blocks of protein. Checking the HP Brown Sauce bottle I discovered a modest squirt of HP was about 10g of carbs (about a block) which conveniently made up my missing carb block. But no fat yet - well 1/3 of a teaspoon of butter is 1 block of fat, so a thin spreading of butter on each bread makes the fat. Excellent, my 5 zone block bacon butty breakfast now looks like:
New bacon butty: 2 slices of bread, 6 rashers of bacon, butter and brown source. Yum, yum yum! 
What’s the difference? I use 3x as much bacon, and a little less butter than I would have done, apart from that, it’s exactly the same.
Just for the record, I don’t suggest this for every breakfast, as bacon is a fatty protein source, and all 5 blocks of carbs are made up of unfavourable (read high Glycemic Index) carbs. But it’s an illustration as to how you only have to change proportions, and normally that change is simply more protein, less carbs.
My personal recommendation, is that you go strict Zone for 2 weeks. Buy one of the Zone Books and measure everything for just 2 weeks. Once you’ve done that, you get a really good feel for what’s what. Like I said, I only measure the protein now, just to be sure I get enough, everything else is an educated guess, and I’m still losing fat (2 stone in fat lost now) and gaining muscle.
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