Barry Sears - Mastering the Zone: The Next Step in Achieving SuperHealth and Permanent Fat Loss

MASTERING
THE
ZONE

THE NEXT STEP IN
ACHIEVING SUPERHEALTH AND
PERMANENT FAT LOSS

Barry Sears, Ph.D.

I hoped that by writing The Zone, I would be taking the first step in unearthing the Rosetta Stone of nutrition on how food affects hormonal response. Furthermore, I hoped to provide a readable summary of my work to other medical researchers, as well as to the lay public, who knew very little about those seemingly mystical and almost magical hormones known as eicosanoids that ultimately control our lives. Frankly, I never expected The Zone would sell so well. I am gratified, but still overwhelmed by the response. Yet I realize that many readers of The Zone still find it difficult to apply the concepts of the Zone to their daily lives. I hope that Mastering the Zone will remove many of those barriers, because in reality, the Zone Diet is incredibly easy to follow on a lifetime basis. Mastering the Zone is a compilation of the advice I have given over the years on how to easily integrate the principles of the Zone into your own life, whether youre a cardiovascular patient or a world-class athlete, or somewhere between these extremes.

Obviously, I had a strong personal reason for this quest to understand the Zone: my own health. With a family history of early death from heart disease, I knew I couldnt change my genes, but I could possibly control their expression by manipulation of levels of eicosanoids in my body. Frankly, I was willing to bet my life on the Zone.

Now that Im forty-nine, the obvious question is, how am I doing? Every cardiovascular indicator says that I have the heart of a twenty-five-year-old. More important, I feel I have uncovered a fundamental pathway to achieving SuperHealth that is easy for everyone to follow. What is SuperHealth? In essence, it is doing everything in your power to squeeze as much quality out of life as possible, and in the process begin to dissociate biological age from chronological age.

Writing both books has been like keeping a personal diary of my own scientific journey toward understanding how food controls hormonal response. I never anticipated the twists and turns of that journey, nor the fact it would take me nearly fourteen years to decipher this Rosetta Stone of nutrition. The Zone is not intuitively obvious, but it is based on a combination of cutting-edge biotechnology and common sense.

I hope that after you read this book, you can say the magic phrase, I can do this, because if you can, you have taken a major step forward to enhance the quality of your life by achieving SuperHealth. And in my opinion, the only way to achieve SuperHealth is by reaching the Zone and staying there on a lifelong basis.

T his book is not intended to replace medical advice or be a substitute for a physician. If you are sick or suspect you are sick, you should see a physician. If you are taking a prescription medication, you should never change diet (for better or worse) without consulting your physician, because any dietary change will affect the metabolism of that prescription drug.

Prevention will always be the best medicine. However, prevention can only be undertaken by the individual, and that includes eating correctly. This is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. You have to eat, so you might as well eat wisely.

Although this book is about food, the author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects arising from the use of nutritional supplements to your diet without appropriate medical supervision.

M astering the Zone. Sounds very New Age, like Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker about the Force. But its not. Instead its very similar to the advice your grandmother gave you about eating. Eat everything in moderation, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and have some protein at every meal. Your grandmother didnt know it, but she was teaching you the basic principles for developing a lifelong strategy of hormonal balance. If you can achieve this hormonal balance, you are well on your way to the Zone.

What is the Zone? It is the balance of hormonal responses that occurs every time you eat. A perfect equilibrium: not too high, not too low. Why should you want to get there? Simply said, if you can keep yourself in the Zone, then you will:

1. think better, because in the Zone you are maintaining stable blood sugar levels,

2. perform better, because being in the Zone allows you to increase oxygen transfer to your muscle cells,

3. look better, because in the Zone you are shedding excess body fat at the fastest possible rate, and

4. never be hungry between meals, because staying in the Zone means your brain is being constantly supplied with its primary fuel: blood sugar.

All these benefits of being in the Zone will emerge within a one- to two-week period if you follow the instructions in this book. But the best reason to want to stay in the Zone on a lifelong basis is to achieve SuperHealth.

For most people, health is defined as the absence of disease. SuperHealth goes beyond that. In a state of SuperHealth you will reduce the likelihood of developing chronic disease, the types of illnesses that represent the bulk of our health care costs. If you have read The Zone, you know that SuperHealth is exactly what you are aiming for. And the only way to obtain SuperHealth is to take control of your diet, and use it to keep yourself in the Zone on a continual basis. The more time you spend in the Zone, the more control you have over the ultimate quality of your life.

When I wrote The Zone in 1995, I tried to show that the age-old inherent common sense about dietary balance is really cutting-edge twenty-first-century hormonal control technology that can be mathematically defined with a precision your grandmother never dreamed of. While your grandmothers diet was prepared intuitively, you can do it scientifically.

This book marks the next step on that quest. It will show you how to make a wide range of food choices, from gourmet meals to fast-food drive-through fare and everything in between, while still staying in the Zone. Although thinking of food hormonally may be revolutionary, eating in the Zone is not. In fact, eating in the Zone is a lot like eating your grandmothers cooking (except for the fast food).

For those of you already in the Zone, this book offers new information on making the Zone part of your lifelong routine, from tips on eating out and shopping, to information about adjusting the Zone Diet to your own body chemistry, to more than a hundred and fifty new Zone meals that will make it easier for you to stay there. For those of you still struggling to reach the Zone, this volume will make your journey much faster and easier.

Once you use these tips, getting into the Zone and staying there becomes second nature because you will be eating the foods you already like to eat and adapting the recipes you currently use everyday into great Zone meals.

Let me help you visualize the Zone on a plate: a moderate serving of low-fat protein (such as fish or chicken) with a significant amount of vegetables covered with slivered almonds, and fruit for dessert. Every time you eat, make sure that your carbohydrates come with a protein chaser and a dash of fat. To be a little more precise, for every cup of vegetables, or half a piece of fruit or 1/4 cup of pasta that you plan to eat (these serving sizes will be explained later on), add an ounce of low-fat protein like chicken or fish. Then add a bit of monounsaturated fat, like a little olive oil or a few slivered almonds. Do this at every meal and snack, and, presto, youre pretty close to being in the Zone for the next four to six hours. And during that four- to six-hour period, you will be thinking better, performing better, and losing stored body fatall without hunger. This book will teach you how.