Originally Posted by
Elorabird
Hi All,
Question 1: Does anyone beleive what the Zone Diet is pumping? As far as I understand its philosophy, it basically recommends that your carb, protein and fat ratios pretty much line up each meal, in such a way that it controll insulin and thus resulting hormone fluctuations responsible for fat storage etc. The crux is when you calculate your calorie allotment and always come up recommended to eat under 1500 cals. I tried it an it recommended I eat 1100 cals per day (my BMR is over 1300/day). The protein reco was low too.
Question 2: (This is the one I really wan't to know your thoughts on) Fat Wars (author: Brad J. King) recommends and even pays kudos to the Zone Diet, and his macros rec's are close to the same but overall cals come out a bit higher (still lower than calculations found withing this website and many others). Still protein rec's come out to be between 20% - 30% of overall macro's - not the 40% you usually see with many body building diets. His standard Macro rec is: 30%protein, 30%fats and 40% carbs with last meal of the day carbs coming only from fibrous veg.
Your 2 cents please?
I am not going to get into the 'pseudoscience' behind the diets over and above a general comment that it is all a bit of a bull <- the diets work because they:
1. control calories
2. control hunger
3. increase protein
(4. often increase vegetable intake)
^
Do that and you generally get good results with 95% of the population.
If you add in a:
5. decreased carb content
And you also get better results than higher carb diets when dealing with insulin resistant individuals (which covers about 95% of today's overweight individuals too).
Insulin is NOT a 'carb only' substrate - it is also released to variable degrees with proteins (eg: BCAA/ whey/ dairy => highly insulinogenic, more so than some things like fruit or starches). Additionally, you don't NEED insulin to store fat. FAT being a typical example ->> it doesn't require insulin for storage and passes freely over membranes in and out of fat cells. Thus you can fill all your baby fat cells very effectively if you were to simply eat in excess of your requirements.
With regards to 'diet ratio's' and whether or not it matters that you get '30%' or '40%' from protein ->> basically, it means didly squat. Additionally, most of the time 'bb diets' are far too high in protein anyway (you don't NEED 2 x total weight in lb in protein).... not only that, but why eat 'to a ratio'?? The % of calories consumed in protein doesn't determine what your body
needs... Your protein requirement should be/ needs to be based on your lean mass, your physiological state (assisted/ juiced, growing, pregnant etc), your goals (to cut/ gain/ endurance), as well as your training style/ intensity and your overall calorie intake (lower cals/ higher protein).
^
eg:
if you were CUTTING at 1300 cals... 40% = 130g protein... which, if you were lean and active, is probably far too low.... So in that instance you would probably be better off with more than the 'recommended %'.
if you were GAINING at 2300 cals... 40% = 230g protein... which, if your carb content was adequate, is going to be far in excess of your requirements. So less than the '40%' would be required.
^
Generic formula are just that - generic.... And they often become useless when you add 'variables' to the equation.
Lastly - doesn't mean a thing taking carbs out of your last meal - >> it is, once again, a way to control calories.... In fact, I have always recommended carbs in the last meal of the day (usually fruit) when cutting.... This is especially for those who are training early the next morning... Reason being is that it helps to keep the liver/ body happy overnight and aids in energy/ training the next morning.
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