On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Dr. James Alpigini wrote:

> I would not recommend the Zone as a diet.  The calories are restricted to
> the point where you can impact your metabolism, and most likely cause
> muscle loss in the process.

My experience with the Zone was somewhat similar.  I weighed 255
when I started it, but my LBM was 180.  I calculated my Zone
prescription to be 18 blocks, which is a bit short of 1800
calories.  I did lose weight quickly, which is not a surprise.
However, it became clear that I was losing a significant amount
of muscle in the process.  For one thing, even though my body
weight was declining, so was my ability to do push-ups.  I began
to experience cold hands and feet much of the time, and my body
temperature upon waking in the morning was quite low, sometimes
as low as 95.6.  When I had lost 33 pounds and recalibrated, it
turned out that about ten of those pounds lost were muscle.  This
is when I switched to paleo.

I regained the lost muscle in a fairly short time (six months or
so), but my body fat fluctuated and eventually started to go back
up.  So, while I agree that the caloric restriction on the Zone
was excessive (although Sears is thinking not just about weight
loss but also the anti-aging aspect of caloric restriction), I
cannot say that calorically unrestricted paleo has been effective
for weight loss.  My experience is that if I want to lose fat,
even on paleo, I must restrict calories to some extent.

Todd Moody
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