Zone Diet for CrossFit

csmcozart

Has anyone tried the zone diet? If so, what was your experience like? Did you see results? I have been doing CrossFit for two months and am having trouble dialing in my nutrition to support both muscle growth and fat loss.

tomcustombuilder

Losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is a slippery slope. What is your height and weight?

csmcozart

I’m 5’9 and 187.

tomcustombuilder

csmcozart wrote: »

I’m 5’9 and 187.

you’re right in the middle of which direction to go. Look in the mirror and decide if you need to lose fat or add muscle and do what the mirror says. Attempting to do do both at the same time can be an exercise in frustration.

neanderthin

If you happen to have a lot of body fat available and your untrained then there is a good chance that that actually might happen, and it also works on a timeline for those individuals but it's still hard to see under all the fat though. If your a lean individual and well versed in resistance training and do it like religion, then the chances are diabolically small if it happens and will more than likely be the most frustrating thing you ever try to do while trying to be in a state of hypertrophy. A simple factor like sleep quality can throw a wrench in the works, so there's more to it as well. "Dialing in" would require multiple DEXA scans and even then it's not really that reliable, so it's difficult to find some moment in time where one can say, yeah that was worth it. It's hyped a lot that people believe it's fairly simple and achievable, when in fact for the vast majority where it actually takes place, it goes mostly unnoticed. If a person happens to be obese then losing a little lean mass while in a deficit is not the end of the world, especially if their nutrition is suited for that intervention, which is basically consuming enough quality protein. Personally I suggest you pick either building muscle or losing fat as an achievable goal. Your basically looking for a positive conclusion of a very well formulated scientific experiment without the lab to analyze or gather proper data for the small changes in body composition. This has been my experience over the years and many other people I've talked to, but hey there's got to be that unicorn out there somewhere. Cheers

Corina1143

The zone diet. Not intentionally, but the macros are close to how I eat naturally, so of course I'm all for it!

csmcozart

I’m going to build until spring and then work on losing fat. Any lean muscle gained should help with the fat loss later.

sollyn23l2

csmcozart wrote: »

I’m going to build until spring and then work on losing fat. Any lean muscle gained should help with the fat loss later.

Sounds like a good plan.... but don't be afraid to switch to losing fat a bit sooner if you feel like you're getting too fluffy. Because you will inevitably gain some fat along with the muscle (it's the nature of the beast).

rileysowner

I did the zone diet a long time back. At that point, I was sucked in by the so-called logic of why the zone was the best diet. It worked well. However, as I learned more, I realized that why the zone worked for weight loss was the calorie deficit it established. I switched to just counting calories, and doing that worked just as well. Having said that, the macro breakdown in the zone is reasonable, and if it works for your way of eating, I would say it is a valid way to progress.

csmcozart

Thank you all. I’ve been following a 30, 40, 30 macro split (carbs, protein, fat). The zone diet recomendé a 40, 30, 30. I was considering it because I crash in the afternoons after training.

AnnPT77

csmcozart wrote: »

Thank you all. I’ve been following a 30, 40, 30 macro split (carbs, protein, fat). The zone diet recomendé a 40, 30, 30. I was considering it because I crash in the afternoons after training.

An energy level crash after training might be a sign that more carbs - or different timing of carbs - could be helpful, sure.

You might want to consider looking at your macro needs in grams, rather than as percents . . . we do need to get certain minimums of protein and fats for best health, and those minimums differ somewhat depending on personal goals. With reduced calories, if you buy into the idea that one needs at least X grams of protein and Y grams of fat, then the percentage of calories that are protein or fat are going to differ depending on the calorie goal.

As an example, as a non-large woman, my current protein minimum is 100g daily. Were I eating 1200 calories daily (which I'm not!), that would be 33% of my calories. If I'm eating 2000 calories (closer to reality), that 100g would be 20% of calories. The point here is not my personal calorie or protein goals, it's that percents have limitations for nutrition planning, IMO especially in a context of athletic goals.

There's a thread here with a discussion about that (look under the bolded "Setting Macro Targets" heading in the first post):

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1

Another source for the protein estimate would be this evidence-based calculator and explanation (from a source that doesn't sell protein supplements!):

https://examine.com/protein-intake-calculator/
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

I'll point out that they use body weight as the variable for recommending protein, because that's how most of the research results are reported out, but that in the guide they mention that if substantially overweight, it can make sense to use a weight more like goal weight.

Quite a few people - I'm not one - find that they get enough fats with their natural eating patterns, so the actual balancing act is between protein and carbs.

If you have a calorie goal, and an idea of your protein and fat minimums, you may have better insight into the calories you have available to allocate to carbs. It's always fine (for a generally healthy person) to get more fats or more protein than the minimum, but I'm focused here on the carb allocation flexibility because you seem to be considering whether more carbs would help you avoid those crashes.

As an aside, post-workout crashes can be carb level or carb timing per se, but potentially could also have something to do with blood sugar stability, i.e., the particular carb choices or the dietary context in which they're consumed can matter. Endurance athletes sometimes benefit from pure sugar, but in other contexts, sugars on their own can possibly bring undesirable swings in blood sugar that result in an energy crash at some point.

Some of this is very situational or individual - but some experimentation should give you individualized insight into your personal needs.

tomcustombuilder

I am also in the camp of using grams instead of percentages. Mostly due to percentages can cause protein to lower as calories come down. Protein should be dependent on lean body mass and should remain the same when weight and calories come down. Carbs generally will be the macro that is adjusted. Fats? They usually are what they are…

csmcozart

I have been targeting 130g-185g of protein. Most days, I hit the upper limit. On non-training days, I’m closer to the minimum. 138g of carbs and 62g of fat. That’s a total of 1875 calories per day on training days. Some days I’m over 200g of protein, but those are exceptions.

I typically eat 2 eggs and 1 cup of oatmeal (dry weight) for breakfast, a protein shake w/creatine 2hrs before training, an apple plus one piece string cheese 45mins before a workout, 6oz grilled chicken breast and brown rice about an hour after working out, and a protein bar around 3 hrs after working out. Dinner consists of a protein and low carbs meal. That meal varies because it’s the one my wife normally cooks. The others are consistent during weekdays.

AnnPT77

@csmcozart, how fast have you been losing weight? Low calories can be a crash trigger, too.

csmcozart

I’m not gaining or losing on the scale, but I’m dropping belt holes.

AnnPT77

csmcozart wrote: »

I’m not gaining or losing on the scale, but I’m dropping belt holes.

That would be the result you want, then, mostly - seems like?

I asked because 1875 seems like not very many calories for a man your size. (I didn't ask whether you also eat back exercise calories; should've.) I'm not very intuitive about men's calorie needs, but usually expect them to be higher than mine. That's even though I'm a mysteriously good li'l ol' calorie burner for my demographic . . . but I'm 4" shorter, around 58 pounds lighter, very likely older (67), and 100% more female. I eat 1850+exercise to maintain.

Leaving that aside, what about trying moving some of your carb intake - somewhat quicker carbs, perhaps - before your workout, see if that helps with the post training crash? There are other things you could try, but if you're holding steady in weight, and getting what look like reasonable amounts of fats and protein, you'd otherwise have to decrease fat or protein, or add calories (so possibly gain weight), to increase carbs.

That's the kind analysis I meant when I mentioned that it could help with nutrition planning if you know your protein/fat targets in grams

If your sleep quality/quantity is sub-ideal, working on that could improve your overall energy profile, too.

csmcozart

Will you all add me so I can stay connected to you? I’m having trouble adding from my phone for some reason. Thanks!

HenryBurke

Love the comments and am afraid I can’t add much to the discussion that hasn’t been said. I CF and am currently in a weight loss phase, for summer months aesthetics . I run slightly under the prescribed 40/30/30 protocol in the CF Nutrition course for now.
Starting in October I’ll raise my 40/30/30 to a more appropriate level and add 5mg of creatine to my daily protein shake. About it and it works quite well. 6’1 53yo 200lb’ish