Zone Diet for CrossFit

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

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 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.