Zone Diet Meals for Athletes

Dr. Barry Sears named his dietary program the Zone, inspired by a term that athletes use for their peak performance level. Since 1992, when he proved that the Zone Diet meals are effective for swimming, he has sold various success stories about the Zone diet for athletes.

A Zone Diet Success Story

Back in 1990, Dr. Barry Sears succeeded in convincing the coach of the men and women's swimming team from Stanford University USA to put his sports teams on the Zone Diet . Already boasting a good record, the Stanford teams wrested the NCAA championship from Texas. There also some unsubstantiated claims about Dr Sears' involvement in the record-breaking 1992 US Olympics swimming team, many of whose members came from Stanford. Zone diet meals were quickly adopted by a range of other athletes such as motorcycle racers or martial artists, who also found them successful.

Zone Diet Side Stories

Since then, Dr. Barry Sears has strongly recommended his Zone diet for athletes of all kinds, including those practicing endurance sports (marathon runners, triathletes, cyclists, hikers, climbers). Many trainers, specialized nutritionists and sportsmen complained, however, that the Zone diet lowered their performance capacity. Tests were made on endurance sportsmen, both on a regular diet and Zone. Tests proved that the Zone diet cannot supply their calorie needs or maintain their VO2max level and, by any standards, is low on protein intake.

What is VO2max

Also known as “aerobic power”, it relates to the capacity of the body to exercise intensely using oxygen as a source of energy. It is a known fact that, in training, the more intensively we work our body, the more oxygen we need. At a certain point, for some reason, our body cannot use oxygen anymore, no matter how intense the exercise gets. That is our VO2max. At that certain moment, if we continue exercising, the body searches for an anaerobic energy resource, which causes rapid accumulation of lactic acid, and we can't go on training more than a few minutes longer.

VO2max is a variable that can be improved. It depends on gender, body composition (fat vs. lean mass), training status, age, genetics, nutritional status and exercise mode. It is true that more body fat causes lower levels of VO2max, which can partially explain VO2max increases with Zone Diet . But that works only for fat people, and athletes don't usually count in this category.

At the same time, other biological facts are conveniently left aside. In what exercise mode is concerned, it has been observed that endurance sports require higher VO2max values than mild sports. Also, increasing protein intake in Zone Diet means trading a quick source of energy (carbohydrates) for a much more expensive one (protein). This may not affect performance in mild sports, but surely proves inefficient in endurance sports.

Conclusion

The Facts About Fitness web site, makes a calculation that a hypothetical athlete who weights 180 pounds should have 2106 calories daily on Zone Diet. But the human body is known to burn 12 calories per pound per day if leading a rather sedentary life. That means our 180 pounds athlete should have 2160 calories only on his rest-day.

Some sources do not recommend the Zone diet for any kind of performance sport. Its main inconveniences are said to be:

  • low calorie limits
  • much higher protein consumption than endurance athletes are allowed to have
  • depriving the body of its favorite source of energy

Are there any kinds of sportsmen that benefit from the Zone Diet ?

  • Yes, in sports that require very low body fat mass, such as speed-running.
  • Sportsmen who have gained excessive weight and need to get back into shape quickly.

Where performance sport is concerned, Zone Diet is not at all recommended as a long term dietary option.