Diets vs calorie deficit

kegan5 · September 2019

I was told by a personal trainer I should do the zone diet plus a fitness plan.

As far as I've read on here the basics of losing weight are to burn more than you eat.

What would the benefits of following this zone diet? Its extremely difficult as I work on a ship, food provided doesn't give much variety to allow these 30/40/40 food type breakdown.

Are there benefits to this zone diet or should I stick with the basic burn more eat less rule?

Additionally, about 2 years ago I went to kickboxing total body work out classes.

The amount I burn per class is about the same what I'm burning now, the only difference is I didn't watch my diet with a magnifying glass. I ate more vegetables, avoided eating out when possible, less chocolate etc but i wasn't removing things entirely. I was very slim back then, so I guess I'm curious if I'm wasting my time with this zone diet. Also back then I believe my carb intake was higher than proteins and fats.

ceiswyn · September 2019

Personal trainers are not dietitians, and they often believe a lot of 'bro science'.

The only benefit of the 'zone diet' is if it makes it easier your you, personally, to achieve your goals. It doesn't sound like it does, so I'd go with just a simple calorie deficit using whatever macros do work for you, both practically and in terms of satisfaction. (Remembering that 'satisfaction' is mental as much as physical)

WinoGelato · September 2019

Ultimately weight loss comes down to being in a sustained calorie deficit over time. Macronutrient splits (protein/fat/carbs) can help with satiety and overall body composition.
Eating a varied nutrient dense diet is important for overall health.
Fitting in foods you love can help with satiety.

Those are what’s important.
Some people like the structure of a named “plan” to follow. Some people find that eating in a certain way (low carb for example) helps them achieve the calorie deficit without specifically tracking calories. Others (like myself) like the freedom of eating whatever you can fit into a flexible diet.

There’s no particular advantage to any named plan when weight loss is the goal. Calorie deficit is all that matters.

Good luck.

BarbaraHelen2013 · September 2019

I’ve not heard of the ‘zone’ diet. Would you mind explaining what it entails?

You’ve given a breakdown of 30/40/40 of something but as that comes to more than 100 it doesn’t seem to be alluding to fat protein and carbohydrates?

Basically, though, what you’ve read here is absolutely true ‘burn more than you eat’ is the crux of the matter. And that is 100%! 😉

kegan5 · September 2019

Thank you everyone this is really helpful.

BarbaraHelen2013 yes it's a break down of 40% carbs 30% protein 30% fat. I'm not too familiar with the ins and out perhaps someone else can answer that.

The list of foods I was given would put foods under each category, some would fall under both like certain cheese could be used as protein or fat.

I'm going to stick to my own diet, keeping it balanced but not losing sleep over whether I had 35% instead or 30%

MikePTY · September 2019

I'm not familiar with the zone diet, but basically, like any other diet, you will lose weight if you eat at a calorie deficit and won't lose weight if you are not. That is true of any diet. You do not need to be on the zone or anything else, just at a calorie deficit. If this zone diet is hard to do for your circumstances, it is not a good fit for you personally.

As mentioned above, personal trainers are not dieticians, and their area of speciality is exercise, not nutrition and weight loss. I would be very hesitant taking nutrition advice from one.

cmriverside · September 2019

The Zone Diet was created back in the day before there were easy online ways to track food. It's an easy-to-adhere-to plan and there's nothing wrong with 40 30 30 as a macro split. It's simply a convenient and easy macro split, it gives a higher protein amount and lower carb. I would just log food here, stay within calories, and look at my macros and try to learn about them instead of using a worksheet and trying to fit foods into it.

The bottom line of weight management is calories. Full Stop.

The Zone helps you hit some randomly set macros.

The FOOD page here does the same thing quickly and no fuss.

If you want to set your daily Goal to 40 30 30 go to MY HOME~>Goals, here:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals

kimny72 · September 2019

It really isn't "diets vs calorie deficit". The only point of a diet is to make it easier for you to be in a calorie deficit, that's how they all work, though they rarely say that.

The Zone Diet is a decent diet, it's really about the macro split, which is pretty close to what a lot of folks here end up aiming for. I remember Jennifer Anniston was on it for awhile when Friends was on (that's when I bought the book

).

Ultimately, the calories will determine if you lose/gain/maintain weight. Those macros might make it easier for you, but it's not worth killing yourself if figuring macros in your real life will be too difficult.

Emmapatterson1729 · September 2019

I've lost using MFP a few times over years (always gain with injuries-and jump back on, lose and maintain).

I never knew what a macro was. From my personal experience and opinion, macros usually make no difference in my weight-loss.

This time around... Had to research macros due to a carb sensitivity. But still believe with no medical issues causing sensitivities to any one macro, most can successively lose weight without paying too much attention to or stressing over macros, putting focus on calories, everything else are just personal preferences.

Losing weight focusing on one number (calories) isn't too stressful or difficult. It's like the more numbers to track and worry about, the more overwhelming losing weight becomes. I always tell people to keep it simple, as simple as possible.

Good luck.

heybales · September 2019

Some of the specifics of that diet compared to just picking (or having MFP assign) a calorie goal and doing the same macro splits.

Each meal and snack was a max of so many calories, and kept the ratio. This wasn't an overall day goal.
Dr Sears theory was never go more than 4-5 hrs without a correct ratio intake, and not too much at once to elevate insulin response.

The diet had you estimate LBM, and that and activity level assigned so many blocks of protein to eat daily (blocks had so many grams, was supposed to make it easier to do the math for all the macros).

The exercise was to be either strength training, or easy cardio that would still be using fat as primary fuel source - nothing intense to move you into higher % carbs used.

And reason for that was because it really was low calorie over all.
So trying to keep mainly a fat burning response to body by low insulin hits and high % of fat burning activity.

I'll say one year I had 10 lbs to drop to race weight and about a month to first tri of the year.
I happened upon Maffetone training method at same time and was going to attempt that, and he also did the 40/30/30 split though not so strict. First time investigating the science behind these things, so even though I saw Sears was going out into un-studied areas, his premise was decent.
I did the Sears method and dropped the weight in 3 wks. And my energy level was just great and performance increasing (of course with weight gone that should help) - I was overall just shocked at both diet and Maffetone training method.

Because I'd just come from the very fadish late '80's where everything talked about fueling your workouts with carbs - carbs was king, low fat was best. Even Backpacker magazine recommended munching on carbs constantly to keep fueled.
So from that background to Sears/Maf was very striking.

But it was low calorie, it required being very honest with setup to avoid too low, and strict adherence - I'd suggest test the ratios on a reasonable deficit program and maybe benefit.

Diets vs calorie deficit

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