The Zone is not some mystical place. It is a
state of hormonal balance that can be achieved by your diet. In
particular, it can be defined as keeping the hormone insulin in a tight
zone: not too high, not too low. The Zone Diet is a life-long hormonal
control strategy. Once you begin to think hormonally about food instead
of calorically, you begin to realize that many of the dietary
recommendations made by the U.S. government and leading nutritional
experts are simply dead wrong.
To understand hormonal thinking and its
implications, you must realize the following:
- It is impossible for dietary fat alone to make
you fat
- It is excessive levels of the hormone insulin
that makes you fat and keeps you fat. How do you increase insulin
levels? By eating too many fat-free carbohydrates or too many calories
at any one meal. Americans do both. People tend to forget that the best
way to fatten cattle is to raise their insulin levels by feeding them
excessive amounts of low-fat grain. The best way to fatten humans is to
raise their insulin levels by feeding them excessive amounts of low-fat
grain, but now in the form of pasta and bagels.
Your stomach is politically incorrect
The stomach is basically a vat of acid that
breaks all food into its basic components. From that perspective, one
Snickers bar has the same amount of carbohydrate as 2 oz. of pasta.
Most people would not eat four Snickers bars at one sitting, but they
would eat 8 oz. of pasta. The stomach can't tell the difference. And
the more carbohydrates you eat, the more insulin you produce. And the
more insulin you produce, the fatter you become.
Not everyone is genetically the same
About 25% of the U.S. population are genetically
lucky because they have a low insulin response to carbohydrates. These
people will never become fat, and they will always do well on any
high-carbohydrate diet whether it be pasta, Snickers, or Twinkies.
Unfortunately the other 75% of the U.S. population aren't so lucky. As
they increase the amount of fat-free carbohydrates in their diet, they
increase the production of insulin.
10,000 years ago there were no grains on the
face of the earth
Through much of man's evolution, he has been
exposed to only two food groups: low-fat protein and fruits and
vegetables. This is what man is genetically designed to eat. When
grains were first introduced into the human diet, three things
immediately happened:
1. Mankind shrank in size from lack of adequate
protein.
2. Diseases of "modern civilization", such as
heart attacks and arthritis, first appeared.
3. Obesity became prevalent.
How do we know? From comparison of Egyptian
mummies to the skeletons of neo-paleolithic man. It is estimated that
Egyptians had the same amount of obesity as found in the United States
today. We can determine this from the excess amount of skin found
around the stomachs of preserved mummies. The ancient Egyptian diet is
very similar to that currently being recommended to Americans.
It takes fat to burn fat
Fat slows down the entry rate of carbohydrates
into the bloodstream thereby decreasing the production of insulin.
Since it's insulin that makes you fat, having more fat in the diet is
important for reducing insulin, especially since it does not stimulate
insulin production. The best type of fat is monounsaturated fat, like
olive oil, guacamole, almonds, and macadamia nuts.
You can use food as a hormonal ATM card
The average American male or female carries a
minimum of 100,000 calories of stored body fat. To put this in
perspective, this amount of stored body fat is equivalent to eating
1,700 pancakes. That's a pretty big breakfast. The calories you need
for energy are already stored in your body. What you need is a hormonal
ATM card to release them. Maintaining insulin in a tight zone is that
ATM card.
The number-one predictor of heart disease is not
high cholesterol, or high blood pressure, but elevated levels of
insulin. How can you tell you have elevated insulin levels? Look in the
mirror. If you're fat and shaped like an apple, you have elevated
insulin levels. But you can still be thin and have elevated insulin.
How can you tell? You have high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol.
This is why high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets can be extremely dangerous
to cardiovascular patients if they lose weight, but see an increase in
triglycerides and a decrease in HDL cholesterol.
Carbohydrates are a drug
The body needs a certain amount of carbohydrates
at every meal for optimal brain function, just like a drug. However,
excessive consumption of any drug leads to toxic side effects. The side
effect of an overdose of carbohydrates at any meal is excess production
of insulin, and that can be dangerous to your health.
Implications of the Zone Diet Plan
Our growing epidemic of obesity is not caused by
excess fat consumption (which has actually decreased by 14% in the past
15 years), but because of increased carbohydrate consumption. The enemy
has never been fat, but excessive levels of insulin. Keeping insulin in
that tight zone is where optimal performance is achieved. The only drug
known to medical science that can achieve that is called food. The
epidemic increase in obesity in America also has ominous implications
for the future of our health care system as millions of people may be
unknowingly driven toward early cardiovascular events due to increased
insulin production. This statement should not be taken lightly as in
1996, the American Heart Association announced that cardiovascular
deaths in the U.S. were increasing for the first time after a steady
continuous decline since 1980. The hormonal consequences of our 15-year
love affair with fat-free carbohydrates are now becoming apparent.
Controlling insulin levels can reverse that trend. That is what the
Zone diet plan is all about.
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