hitch a ride on my bandwagon
Something has really been bothering me lately, specifically Crossfit and the Zone. Many Crossfitters swear by The Zone Diet (see: Barry Sears, PhD), and I am having a hard time discovering any specific reason why they love the Zone Diet over any other diet, since it seems the “results” they see are merely the results of weight loss, restricted caloric intake and nothingmore. You probably remember I ranted about this a few months back, discussing the lack of evidence that the Zone is really anything special at all. But since I do Crossfit, the Zone keeps popping up again and again.
For example, here the Crossfit Journal
people claim that
CrossFit’s best performers are Zone eaters. When our second tier athletes commit to “strict” adherence to the Zone parameters, they generaly become top tier performers quickly. It seems that the Zone diet accelerates and amplifies the effects of the CrossFit regimen.
Okay, all typos and grammatical disasters aside, I want to see some evidence that someone eating the same number of calories with a different macronutrient composition wouldn’t show the same improvement. Causation vs correllation is rather important when making these sorts of statements.
I checked the Crossfit FAQs on nutrition, but apparently “WHY the Zone?” is not a frequently asked question. People generally only ask “how can I blindly jump onto your bandwagon?” and “what’s the easiest way to do it?”
I considered asking this person, who writes an entire blog on the subject why he feverently devotes so much time and energy into this, but as I learned earlier, it is best not to burst bubbles even when asking uestions out of strict curiosity. People get very upset, and once they’ve found a plan they really want to believe in it regardless of what is said about it. There’s nothing wrong with that (other than the fact that Barry Sears is making money off of these Crossfitters who are buying his block charts and books to try to keep up with the plan), as long as it works for people and they’re happy. Right?
Yet I can’t say it hasn’t been weighing heavily on my mind, as I try to unravel the mysteries of human behavior and understand why society scoffs upon truth. Do we all just need a bandwagon to jump on every once in a while? Should we all just try to live the placebo life?
It seems like that’s the answer. And I admire those who can do it.
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I prefer my fridge to look like that, I buy what I need to eat for a few days at a time, plan my meals. I like that. Fresh.
My Paul’s mom and dad left for Mexico until Feb, so they shut down their house, and emptied their fridge into ours. It is now so packed, and I franky hate it. I don’t know what is in there exactly now, and now I have to plan how to clean it out with meals built around the pieces that were dumped on us.
Barbara Doduk - December 6th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
[…] Only a few days after I wrote about Crossfit and the Zone, a reprint from the Crossfit journal addressing that exact issue shows up on the Crossfit website. Coincidence? Probably. Anyway I wrote a few comments, asking their opinion on the JAMA research that shows that that 1) the Atkins diet was more effective in controlling weight, blood sugar, insulin and cholesterol and 2) the science behind the Zone diet was proven to be false. […]
Malingering’s World » Now they’re mocking me - December 11th, 2007 at 10:45 am