Welcome to The Zone in Karen's Kitchen!

Around here, it is generally referring to "The Zone Diet" so called by many of its followers, and references are made to "the zone", "zoning out your recipes", "zoned out", "zonies", "Zonatics," and "Zoneis." "Blessings of/from the Zone" might be a possible greeting, and these folks have been known to sign their letters "Zonefully Yours," or tell you "May the Good Eicosanoids Be With You!". Yeah, yeah, a little weird, but hey, the results of this balanced way of eating are so phenomenal, you will find yourself doing the same thing after a few weeks of trying it!

You may have heard the word used in sports for entering into a level of peak concentration and physical performance. While an athlete trains, this level is where he or she strives to find oneself at the time of the testing or competition.

In 1995 Dr. Barry Sears, a PhD. in Biochemistry, released an amazing book called Enter the Zone that talked about how each of us, even the ordinary couch potato, could put themselves into a "zone" of peak mental, emotional, physical and hormonal well being. He surprised everyone by saying all you have to do is "change the way you eat."

This was shocking, because he was not having us do any strange food combining or nutrient elimination or worse yet, deprivation, like telling us to stop eating fat or to stop eating protein. Instead, he told us to eat a nice, well balanced meals and a couple of snacks consisting of the three nutrient groups: protein, carbohydrates and fat. Take it easy on the refined and overprocessed foods or the carbohydrate dense ones, and eat lots of fruits and veggies for your main carbohydrate choices.

This is a protein adequate, fat and carbohydrate moderate diet. Others jumped on the band wagon in very generic ways by calling it 40-30-30 Nutrition, which is true. 40% of your calories come from carbohydrate choices, 30% of your calories come from protein choices and finally, 30% of your calories come from fat. When you consider that carbs have LOTS of fiber that doesn't get counted towards your carbohydrate intake, then you realize that you get nice generous portions of carbs. Protein is pretty straight forward, but low fat sources are reccomended since saturated fats are not really good for you. Fats have over two times the calories by volume that protein does, so even though you are using all those healthy monounsaturated fat choices like nuts, avocados, olives and and their oils, you are still not getting copious quantities of fat, just an adequate amount to cut that hunger, oil those joints and feed your brain..

Yes, there are detractors, but across the board, they are folks who have not tried Zoning. Yes, it can seem difficult to understand, but that is why I wrote poster and menu planner so it doesn't HAVE to be hard. In fact, that is my first reccomendation in instructing someone how to follow the Zone. BUY MY POSTER.

After that, you can find lots of help around here, or you can join my Discussion Group or Newsletter. You can always write to me directly via e-mail address of karen@karenskitchen.com for a private consultation at 1-619-697-7269 for only $35 an hour.

I know this doesn't explain it all, but it is a start. Come on in, mosey on over to that table by the window with the big comfy chair. There's LOTS of reading material here in Karen's Kitchen, and you are welcomed to visit here anytime!

Warmest Regards,

Karen