Like the South Beach Diet Plan the Zone Diet plan follows the gylcemic index and concentrates on good carbohydrates and stresses that you should avoid those carbohydrates that cause a quick rise in insulin levels. Most of your carbs should come from fruits and vegetables according to the Zone Diet plan and your fats should consist of monounsaturated fats from sources like olive oil and nuts. Most of the protein portion of the diet comes from meat.

The Zone Diet gets it name because it uses ‘zone food blocks’ to achieve the desired ratio of fat, protein and carbohydrates. A certain amount of these blocks are eaten during each meal. The number of blocks that are eaten each day depends of a persons weight and body proportions. Figuring out how many blocks you can consume during the day is the easy part putting you meals together so that they equal your correct number of blocks for the day is not so easy.

Of course to be able to do the Zone Diet Plan you pretty much need the book. Even with the book the Zone Diet Plan is very complex and time consuming. You will need to have a scale to measure things which can become tedious unless you have a personal chef like many of the celebrities who follow it.