What are Zone Diets?

When it comes to staying fit and healthy, one of the important points to remember always is that you need to be healthy from within as well as from the outside. That means that your diet is every bit as important as getting plenty of daily exercise and fresh air. There are plenty of different diets around that offer this or that benefit, but for the most part, you need a well balanced diet that provides all of your body's nutritional needs.

Where most diets fall down is in their attempts to cause weight loss by omitting certain food groups. This is not such a great idea as when you deprive your body of certain food groups, you are also depriving it of the nutrients that are specific to those food groups and could actually be doing yourself more harm than good.

The Zone Diet is a good compromise between low calorie, low GI foods and retaining all the major food groups in your diet. It works on the main principle of dividing your diet into 40% carbohydrates combined with 30% protein and 30% fats. Now many people's immediate reaction to this is why does it include such a high percentage of fats? Aren't fats bad for you and don't they cause weight gain?

Well, actually that's not the case depending upon which types of fats you're talking about. The fats in the Zone Diet are primarily unsaturated or mono unsaturated fats such as those found in good foods such as olive oil, sunflower and other seeds, nuts, omega 3 and 6 acids (essential fatty acids) and similar. What it does not want you to make that 30% up with is fats from dairy products or animal fats which are known as saturated fats. These are the ones that will cause higher levels of cholesterol and plenty of related problems, whereas the good fats actually create the opposite scenario of lower bad LDL cholesterol and higher levels of good HDL cholesterol.

The Zone diet is not just a food diet, by the way. It also promotes combining diet with daily exercise to help your body burn off excess calories to promote weight loss. Its a more rounded diet plan in that it promotes balance and harmony with your body along with plenty of fresh air and exercise to promote good health and vitality.

All in all, the Zone Diet is one of the better plans around and one that is well worth opting for over the other less healthy fad type diets.

My Health Today