Hello all!

I've been in the zone since July 2005 (a mere 4 months and my clothes are falling off!).
However, a little glitch in this plan has been bothering me and I need some insight from y'all:

On his webpage, Dr. Spears claims that if the vegetable you are consuming has a fibre content (in grams) over 50% of the total carb content, you may neglect the protein content of the vegetable. He says this is because most of the protein bonds with the fibre and is not digested.
It seems like an awful lot of protein to not count toward blocks when you eat as many high-protein veggies as I do (i.e. broccoli, spinach, etc.).
Also, in contrast to what Dr. Spears suggests, most vegetarians go by a rule of thumb that 85% of vegetable protein is digested, regardless of fibre content.

So what theory do you girls and guys follow? I just want to be sure I'm not consuming too much protein here!

Laurel

Hi Laurel - and nice to meet you. Brenda (BC) is a lot more clued in than I am on zoning and the tecnicalities of it all. I'm sure she'll be along soon to give a word or two of help. Personally - I don't worry about any of it. I count the calories involved by controlling the size of my portions and that's my entire WOE plan in about a dozen words! O - and mix the exercise up every day. Best wishes for your ongoing success!

__________________
The fox is wild!



5'3" Maintaining 121-125
Original weight 198 +

Hi Laurel, and welcome! It's very nice to see you here and you've asked a very good question!

Here's my take, based on a few years of watching the Zone evolve, but first a little history, if you'll indulge me....

The Zone as practiced in real life is an extremely flexible plan. For example, you can choose to Zone by counting grams, counting blocks, eyeballing portions or in some cases a personal combination. It really depends on the amount of precision and control you want or need. Counting grams was Dr. Sears original method, and naturally the one that is most precise, but he soon realized that it was too tedious a method for most people to bother with and developed the block method, a shorthand way of counting carbs, protein, and fat. Then a few years later developed the eyeball method so that more people could understand the Zone and get some benefits.

OK!!! Enough history, and you may well know all that, anyway! But it does have bearing here. For example, those people who choose to eyeball portions or use the block method don't generally take into account the protein portion of veggies at all......so you can see it's not critical to success the Zone to establish an " absolutely correct" percentage.

However, when Dr Sears recommends 50%, my interpretation is that he does so because in the Zone, getting adequate protein is absolutely a priority. Since no one can say with certainty how much protein is bioavailable in any one veggie for any one person at any one time, it would be logical, in Zone terms, to err on the side of "more" protein than "less." So in my take, you are perfectly safe using the 50% number.

As for me personally, over the years I switch back and forth among the methods, depending on how much I want or need to deal with tracking what I eat and how I'm feeling (and looking, LOL). Generally if I'm counting blocks, I do count the protein content in beans and legumes (even though it's not all bioavailable) but I don't count the protein in any other veggies. I figure it all evens out, frankly. When I'm counting grams, I pretty much ignore the amounts in low protein veggies, and count about 50% for higher protein veggies. Over the years, I've found that such approximations don't affect the outcome, at least for me

Most of the Zoners I've known who have counted grams are rather iconoclastic and have used whatever numbers they are most comfortable with in dealing with the veggie protein issue. I hope that's reassuring to you as a relatively new Zoner, trying to do things "right," that you can be somewhat flexible in your interpretations and still be Zoning quite nicely.

I'd love to hear more about how you are doing with the Zone, and what lead you to pick the Zone in the first place. Again, welcome, Laurel!

(And I promise I'm not always this long-winded in my replies )

Edit: Beachfox, that's pretty much what "eyeballing" is all about--portion control, and I know it's worked beautifully for you. Thanks for chiming in with your experience!

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BC
LC Since 1998
Highest Weight 172
Current 104-108