I recently was at a social gathering with some women and we were all enjoying our conversations on decorating with Feng Shui and the importance of having a balanced harmonious home. Over the course of the luncheon one of the gals made mention that I eat a lot and never seem to gain weight.
My response was “I eat in The Zone”.
I have always led a very active lifestyle filled with exercise. It makes me feel good.
However as we age, things do change and it is really a blessed coincidence that I had the book, The Zone by Barry Sears Ph.D, to take me from an area of guessing what makes me feel good with food, to having a working knowledge on how I can be healthy with food.
I bought The Zone book in late of 1995, hard to believe I can say that, and just only started using it a couple of years ago. Funny how these things happen and if you are in your twenties or thirties reading this, and have the inclination to buy a book that you feel inside that you may not be ready for it, go ahead and buy it and the day will present itself when you are ready for the information.
The thing I love about Dr. Sears' book, is that I read it like a novel. I then took my post-it notes, (Oprah taught me this) and flagged the pages of importance and after I finished reading it, I revisited those pages. For someone who has a degree in nutrition it is very easy to understand proteins and carbohydrates and fats and how biochemically they regulate your body. A student who was fortunate enough to study nutrition in depth would know that the main focus of nutrition is to keep the body in an anti-inflammatory state so that disease cannot proliferate.
For the other 99% of the population it is a by guess and by golly that we manage our food groups. I just think of the years of looking at the pyramid food groups on packaging and thinking I understood it, and I would try to eat healthily, but I just did not have enough of the information that I needed to make informed food choices.
The basis of the book is to empower you with knowledge so you are able to work with food as a fuel and a drug and to balance the ratio between the two. It did take me more than one reading of the proteins and carbohydrates and fats charts, and I was a little frantic thinking how am I going to get away from visiting those charts in his book. Yes, I did end up photocopying the book pages charts thinking I would not be able to download all that information. In hindsight I needed to take a big breath and stop being so impatient and just be grateful that I got the information at all and how blessed I was all those years earlier eating and exercising in ignorant bliss.
If I have any regret it is that I didn’t open the book fifteen years earlier.
As children we all grow up dependant on our parents to educate on how to feed ourselves. However, the information floats off into the air when you finally do leave home to go to college, or just move out and integrate into the work force and forge your own way. This book would be an amazing gift for parents to give their children when they are leaving home. As a parent you could read the book yourself first so you could be up to speed as it is life changing how your health is changed for the positive with this life altering information.
The wonderful thing is that it is really easy and now I have a working knowledge of what is a protein, a carbohydrate, a mixed protein/carbohydrate combination and fats. It has really been the most amazing experience to have this knowledge and all I had to do was open the book and read it.
This book is endorsed by all the major health organizations and is so powerful. If you have someone you love, who is struggling with food and you do not know what to do start by educating yourself. Then you can share with your family and friends the importance of having a quality life filled with empowering food choices.
A huge thank you to Barry Sears Ph.D for writing The Zone and you can visit his website for further information. Visit the "ABOUT" page and check out his time line of contributions to educating and healing people through what we put in our bodies.
It is just a click away…. enjoy! www.drsears.com
Have a beautiful day,
Photo: ‘alive’ PKM
Joy,
Rena
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