My coach told me to go on Zone too and I said, nope I'm doing Eat to Perform. We argued about it and I continued on ETP for the last 6 months since the argument, and yesterday he said, "Has anyone mentioned anything to you about your body composition? You look ripped. It's a crazy transformation!" Haha. I win.

https://www.facebook.com/EatToPerform?ref=br_tf if you're interested.

+1 to Eat to Perform. It's the only way I've been able to stay leaner and have all my lifts go up Plus mentally its way better than paleo or zone, which I've done both and all I do is think about food constantly. I feel like I have a much healthier attitude toward food following ETP.

Disclaimer: I don't "follow" zone, but I do think this is an easy way to understand it when using My Fitness Pal:

Go to: http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

Step 1, Entering your Stats and choosing the Lean Mass Formula and exercise level

Step 2: Assuming you want to lose weight, look at the "Fat Loss" column, and select either a 15% reduction or 20% depending on your goal.

Step 3: Under common plan, select Zone Diet, hit calculate

This will calculate how many grams P/C/F per meal and totals per day. This is the same thing as "blocks" just using P/C/F numbers which is easier to track in MFP.

Good Luck!

That site made it so much easier for me to understand IIFYM. To me it was like IIFM for dummies.

I just started Zone last Thursday, already seeing results. It is definitely not the easiest transition, but if you are already eating the right foods, it helps.

I have always been so frustrated that I eat so many raw foods, salads, lean proteins, etc, and I have a very hard time losing weight. My BMR is over 2200 calories, and I work out 5 days a week, so of course I was stumped. Starting zone, I realized I was way overeating on fats, protein, and carbs.

I tried to enter my stats into the calculator listed below but when I enter calculate it is asking me to enter my protein, fat grams - I have no idea, what should I enter?

Mummyadams wrote: »

I tried to enter my stats into the calculator listed below but when I enter calculate it is asking me to enter my protein, fat grams - I have no idea, what should I enter?

Hello @Mummyadams

This is information I received from the EAT,TRAIN,PROGRESS group that I am in. The moderators there give great advice so I wanted to share. I would suggest you continue to do research but this is what helped me set my goals.

SETTING MACRO TARGETS:

There are 4 macronutrients. A high level explanation of each of their functions is:

Protein, which is required for muscle retention/growth
Fat, which is required for healthy body functions
Carbs, which provide energy
Alcohol, which provides for embarrassing photos

Macronutrient goals should really not be based on percentages, but on grams which vary depending on your size and activity levels.

We would recommend, as a rule of thumb, the following:

1g of protein per lb of LBM as a minimum target

0.35g of fat per lb of total body weight as a minimum target

The balance can fall where you wish, taking into account performance, satiety and adherence.

Note: the above protein minimum assumes that you are on a deficit, are undertaking moderate exercise and do not have a significantly low or significantly high body fat percentage. It also assumes that you have no pre-existing medical condition that would require a lower intake.

At a very low body fat percentage or with highly intensive workouts a slightly higher amount of protein is recommended.

Conversely, at a very high body fat percentage or with no or little exercise, a slightly lower amount of protein is acceptable.

Also, at a high BF%, the fats recommendation can be decreased. If you have specific questions about this, please feel free to ask us for our input.

When you have determined the minimum grams of protein and fat, you can calculate the corresponding percentages based on your calorie target to input into MFP. Protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram. Note that MFP only allows 5% increments so you will need to pick the one nearest your desired target.


For example, say someone is 150 lbs with a BF% of 20% on a 2,000 calorie target. Note, a 20% body fat means that someone has a 80% lean body mass (LBM) as LBM is everything except fat (muscle, water, organs, tissue, etc). Their macros in grams would be:

Protein: 1 x 150 x 0.8 (LBM) = 120g x 4 calories = 480 calories divided by 2,000 (calorie target) = 24% - round up to 25%
Fat: 0.35 x 150 = 53.5g x 9 calories = 473 calories divided by 2,000 = 24% - round up to 25%
Carbs: balance of 50%
Remember, protein and fats are minimums and so do not worry about going over on these, carbs would be the variable in this case and you would be under on that macro in order to meet your calorie target.
//*****************************************************************************************************

And finally, this is a link I stumbled upon with some really good info. It gave me a better understanding of pretty much everything. http://www.simplesciencefitness.com/

I hope this helps a little. Good luck.

nope - when I choose Zone it is still asking me enter my .7 , .8 or .9 grams per lb of lean mass and the same with my carbs. really not sure how to enter this?