Starting October 2005 I went on the Zone Diet. Now, I’ll be point blank honest, I looked at the Zone Diet book by Dr. Barry Sears, and my eyes started glazing over on page two. In hind sight, I’ll say that my reaction probably had more to do with my not wanting to have to measure than anything else. It requires a lot of attention to combination of foods and coming up with well balanced meals. My version of the Zone Diet was to go out to my front porch each morning and bring in a small, black, thermal bag full of food for my day. ChefsDiet bases their menus on the principles of the Zone Diet, and one of those principles is to not let more than 4-5 hours go between meals. Wow! What a concept – they actually wanted me to eat more meals?
Each little, black bag contained Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and two snacks. I quickly realized that my body embraced the new eating habits because for the first time in my life, I was becoming hungry on a schedule. You see, sometimes, I would have to eat, even though I wasn’t hungry, because I didn’t get hungry that often. You might think it would have been better just to wait until I got hungry, but if I didn’t eat something, then my blood sugar would drop, and I would potentially get a migraine as well as many other unpleasant side effects. So, I ate when not hungry. If you’re eating when you’re not hungry to begin with, then how do you know when it’s time to stop?
I can’t rave enough about this period in my life. My food was delivered. I didn’t have to go to the store, I didn’t have to try and figure out what to make, I didn’t have to cook (2 – 5 minutes in the microwave), and because all of the food came in containers you could eat out of, no dishes! Who wouldn’t be in heaven? Not only that, but Denny became jealous of what I was eating, and let’s face it, most of the time when you’re on a diet, it’s the other way around.
During the course of a year, I lost 75 pounds, eating more than I was used to, eating more frequently than I was used to, and enjoying every bite. It became increasingly clear to me that the wonderful food I was receiving would be very difficult to replicate with the same success. I became a ChefsDiet junkie – I didn’t want the gravy train to stop. I even put Denny on the program so I didn’t have to think about what to fix for him, and there was then no conflict about whether we needed to go through a fast food drive through.
The pictures are from a European River cruise that Denny and I took in November 2006 to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Both of us slimmer from eating the wonderful food, and feeling fantastic. My skin tone had improved, my breathing became less labored and I didn’t wheeze as often. We walked all over the streets of Europe and loved every minute of it. Life was wonderful. All I needed was to win the lottery so that this lifestyle could continue forever.
This, by far, was the easiest diet I have ever tried. Even people at work were jealous of the food I got to eat. And it was easy because someone else did all of the figuring and cooking, all I had to do was to stick to what came in the little black bag.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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