Knighty, agreed to a point. having said that, these are some pretty unreal success stories. good luck finding anything similar for weight watchers or atkins. ;-)
dr. sears took a big risk when he took on the manuel uribe project - a guy who had been a 100% dietary / hormonal failure for the duration of his life. perhaps he was the biggest dietary / hormonal failure on the entire planet given he was the heaviest man in the world! remember, the discovery channel was involved with manuel after his mexican tv plea for help so if the zone didn't work out then it would be all over the press. but it did work out - better than anyone could have predicted except, perhaps, dr. sears himself.
manuel uribe was no cherry picked project. there was a risk of failure and it would've been broadcast throughout the world via the discovery channel. while all too easy, i think it is a mistake to under estimate the risk dr. sears took when he took on the manuel uribe project.
my conclusions are based upon personal experience. other experiences may differ, for better or worse, but one won't know until one tries it.
my point isn't that the zone will work 100% of the time, rather, that there is enough evidence that the zone, being a moderate diet by nature, is worth a try and then its merits can be empirically gauged by the only person that matters - the person trying it.
i've seen a few negative reports on the zone. they tend to fall into two categories.
1. it isn't possible to eat like that.
2. it is too difficult to follow.
the former tend not to be of the type, "i'm not getting good results, what can i do to get better results?" rather, they tend to be of the type, "this diet is hocus pocus crap, the calorie count is too low and it won't work. not that i've tried it, but i won't mention that" type. ;-)
this just isn't true. many of the crossfit.com people are incredibly fit, not to mention all the olympic medal athletes. if manuel uribe can lose his hunger and depression on just over 2000 calories a day, folks 500 lbs less ought to be able to do fine, too.
the latter confuse the challenge of learning something new with difficult to follow long term. the zone is simple for me to follow, but i've calibrated my mind to the diet, which did take some time. there is a little work required to get calibrated - no doubt.
another mistake almost everyone makes is to think in terms of calories and exercise alone. a retired doctor recently made this error when we were discussing diet. i asked him a simple question. "if you take identical twins, put them on equal calorie diets and exercise programs and give one of them anabolic steroids, would you expect both to have equal muscle mass and body fat percentage?"
his answer? "no." he started to realize the error of his lifelong over simplified calorie paradigm.
the truth is hormones play a HUGE role in what the body does with calories.
just as a person using anabolic steroids will use marginally more calories to build muscle, a person who's diet constantly keeps insulin at high levels will use marginally more calories to store glucose, much of it as fat on the waistline. this is the typical high carb diet in action.
the long and the short is that your poker game will get better with stabilized blood glucose (brain food) levels. :-) |
