What You Should Know About "The Zone": Zone Perfect Products & More
Sep 22 '03 (Updated Apr 09 '07)
The Bottom Line Snacks, puddings, shakes .. no, it's not heaven, it's the Zone Brand!
Sports nutrition is a rapidly growing business. Each week new products designed to help burn fat, grow muscle, get lean and bulk up hit the shelves. Often times people see the big bold letters LOSE WEIGHT NOW, NO EXERCISE NEEDED and turn into consumer zombies. They fail to read the fine print, ingredients or disclaimers. Sure, you can take a pill that will help you lose weight without having to exercise – but chances are that the one or two pounds you lose today will find you in a week or so – and bring a few new friends along. As I have said so many times before, you didn’t get fat overnight so don’t expect to lose the weight in a short period of time. Any product that claims to “effortless shed weight” is, in my opinion, a complete farce. The only way to lose weight is through exercise – be it a daily walk, hitting the gym, taking an aerobics class or just getting active in some way.
Zone Perfect isn’t really a diet. Diets are restrictive and limit what you can eat. Zone is more of a healthy meal plan that gives you some freedoms and is a lot less expensive than Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers [or any of the other diet guru corporations]. The real perk here is that you can still have good food, you won’t be eating friend chicken or bowls of pasta but on the same token you aren’t doing a low carbohydrate diet that get real old, real quick for most people. Being someone that maintains a low carb intake a majority of the time, I choose my cheat days to indulge in a craving or two. When I first adapted this diet I would go all out – ice cream, garlic bread, chocolate, milk … not all together but I would pound down some serious junk. This made getting back on the wagon the next day ‘that much harder’ and took me longer to get back into ketosis. The Zone Perfect products allow me to satisfy my cravings regardless of where I am in my diet cycle but if I am deep into ketosis, I’m only sneak a bite or two and not gobble up the whole bar. Some of these products have really helped save me when I was ready to pull my hair out and snap. I’m not saying that you’ll fall in love with every flavor or product – but if you are doing any type of diet, I highly suggest that you check out what they have to offer.
Zone Perfect Nutrition Bar
By far the easiest way to get on the program is to invest in some of the bars that Zone offers. There are a variety of flavors but personally I can’t resist the Zone Perfect Chocolate Mint or the Zone Perfect Chocolate Peanut Butter. Your best bet is to find a local store that carries these and try out a few of the flavors. I’ve found them at places like Target, Wal-Mart, Nutri-Sport and the sport shop at my gym. The bars all follow the basic principal of the Zone Diet that is structured around the 㦔% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat” or 40 / 30 / 30 eating principal. These are not meant to replace a meal, just something to hold you over until you can eat a well-balanced and nutritious meal. The bars are usually priced around $1.00 - $1.50 with discounts given for purchasing a box. Before you commit to a dozen bars you might want to try the flavors first so you aren’t stuck with ones you don’t like.
Zone Perfect Nutritional Drinks
Pressed for time? Kids late for school? Can’t sit down and have a meal? The ready-to-drink cans will give you what you need to keep going and stay on target with your diet. I’ve only had the chance to try out the chocolate version of the drink, also available in vanilla, and it tasted a lot like the chocolate shake mix. There’s no aftertaste and drinking it down isn’t a chore. If you have tried other premixed drinks and found them gritty or chalk-like, you owe it to yourself to give this a try. They are best served ice cold or if you want, pop it in the freezer for a few minutes to give it a smoothie taste. To go all out, pour this into a blender, add ice and a little frappucino mix and you’ll be in heaven. Priced at about $1.65 - $1.75 a can, these aren’t the most economical ways to stick to your diet but in a pinch they are better than alternatives. Don’t pass out when you see the carbohydrate count on the container, remember, this contains fructose not straight sugar.
Zone Perfect Meals
One of the pricier items that Zone puts out are the complete meals. These are a lot like the prepackaged spaghetti dinners you see at the grocery store – everything hermetically sealed, no refrigeration or freezing necessary. Currently there are six “delicious” meals to choose from including vegetarian chili, chicken jumbo and chicken Dijon. The price initially turned me off – there was no way I was going to pay nine dollars for two meals. Do you have any idea how much chicken I can get for that price? My local sports nutrition store owner is married to a woman that has been on the Zone diet for a long time and has had a lot of success with it. When I spotted a stack of these dinners on the shelf behind the counter I asked if they were planning on selling them. Nope, they weren’t for sale but he did give me two different meals to try out to see if I liked them. I got the salmon and vegetable and vegetarian chili. Now, I am huge fan of chili and get a little picky when I order it or someone is serving it for dinner. I can’t say that the veggie chili was horrible, it wasn’t, it just didn’t appeal to me in the least. The salmon meal was good, but nothing that I’d rave about. The portions are a little on the small side but that’s to be expected from a prepackaged meal. Zone is charging $8.90 for a two meal deal [same flavor], personally I’d rather take that money and hit a huge buffet or salad bar and actually get something out of it.
Zone Perfect Shake Mixes
Some people see the carbohydrate levels on these drinks and pass them by thinking they can’t have one without completely blowing their diet. And since it’s made by Zone, that confuses people even more. These shakes are made with fructose which acts differently than sugar when it hits your bloodstream. Sugar gives you a quick rush then a crash period; fructose doesn’t give you a huge jolt of energy but it burns off at a steady and time released pace. I tried both of the flavors before I purchased them and let me tell you, I had a hard time picking between the chocolate and vanilla. Ultimately I went with vanilla, if I wanted some chocolate in it I could toss in a half packet of sugar free cocoa mix. You can expect to pay anywhere from $12.99 to $16.99 on a 18 ounce can. If you use this according to the directions, 2 scoops, you should get nine servings from each resealable container.
Zone Perfect Puddings
When you are burned out on the Zone bars, their small but tasty line f pudding mixes are a great alternative. As with all the Zone Perfect items, this one slings to the 40 / 30 / 30 nutritional structure so you don’t have to feel guilty for indulging a craving. The current flavors include chocolate, butterscotch and lemon – three flavors that you can do a lot with! My personal favorite is to take the pudding mix and add some whipped topping to it, most of the whipped toppings on the market are extremely low in carbs [1 gram per serving] and won’t really throw you out of your cycle. Taste wise, the chocolate was a lot better than I expect, no chalky aftertaste and yes, it really does have a creamy chocolaty taste to it. The lemon, well, I am not a fan of lemon so I passed on the opportunity to try that out. Butterscotch. I am a butterscotch fanatic so I was a really curious about this flavor. Since I couldn’t find it locally I had to order it from the Zone site [6 boxes is the minimum] and I was praying that it would at least be palatable. To me it has a good taste, but not a great taste.
The pudding can be mixed with water or milk but if you are using milk [whole, skim, fat free etc] you have to remember to add in the nutritional values of it. If you are really into the diet you might want to adjust the portion size or stick with mixing it with water. Is it worth the price? Well, when ordering from the site you’ll have to purchase these in allotments of six [no flavor mixing] for a price of $1.49 each. That’s a fair price for pudding [unless you are a bargain hunter] but you are only getting two cups of pudding from one box and here’s a kicker – the suggested serving size is one half cup. To some people that might seem like a lot, to others not enough but personally, I could suck that down in thirty seconds. When you are doing this type of diet, a sweet treat like this might just save you from snapping and hitting a fast food establishment.
Getting Started – The Quick Start Kits
There are two choices of Quick Start Kits to choose from – the basic and the deluxe. Each of them come with books, videos, product samples, drink mixes, bars, assorted vitamins and supplements and a meal planner and food diary. The basic version costs $89.95 and the deluxe $141.95. With the deluxe you do get about twice as many products and samples so if you are serious about starting this diet and sticking with it, the deluxe version of the Quick Start Kit is your best bet. Usually when people spend a large chunk of money on something they tend to use it and stick with it – then again – if that were the case all the treadmills and recumbent bicycles in the world that are currently being used as clothes hangers and covered with dust would see a lot more use.
The Bottom Line
For the most part, all of the products from Zone are high quality but the meals and a few of the flavors of the bars just don’t appeal to me. That doesn’t mean that you won’t enjoy them, but try to find them locally before you order them from the site. Being someone that sticks to a low carb / no carb diet most of the time, I can snack on a small piece of the bar or have a small shake when the cravings really hit hard. Most people to adhere to the diet, follow it and exercise get great results – but that doesn’t mean that it will work for everyone so if you try this and don’t see results, don’t get discouraged and give up. You just need to try and find something that does work for you.
If you are interested in learning more about the Zone perfect diet, any of the products listed here or have any question, you can call their customer service number at [800] 666-6830. Check out their products, subscribe to their newsletter and find a retail store in your area that carries the Zone products by visiting their website at www.zoneperfect.com.
As always, thanks for the read!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2003 Freak369
Zone Perfect Nutrition Bars
Chocolate Mint
Chocolate Raspberry
Fudge Graham Cracker
Apple Cinnamon
Chocolate Peanut Butter
Strawberry Yogurt
Chocolate Almond Biscotti
Chocolate Caramel Cluster
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