We Ask at the Plan Z Diet: Is Natural Really Natural?

We ask at the Plan Z Diet: Is Natural Really Natural?

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet

Coming out of college my first job was working for one of the Big Food companies. I was assigned to the Marketing Department.

Can I just say it? I loved my job! LOVED it.

I loved it so much I enrolled at Northwestern University to take more courses on marketing. I worked all day at marketing and I absorbed more marketing knowledge at night.

I was a sponge for marketing knowledge; everything from packaging to TV ad copy. I was enthralled with the reports on the experiences the customer had with the product. Was the product appealing? Was the packaging colorful and did it attract your attention? What information was on the package that was helpful in making the decision to buy it? I wanted to know more about everything.

I studied. I absorbed. I memorized.
Then I grew up.

So what does that mean?

Well, I started to design the Plan Z Diet and got involved in deciphering what the advertising really meant. I learned to read labels. I studied the ingredients list and found out what was healthy and what was not. What the box said on the front was not always a totally truthful indicator of whether what was in the package was good for me. In fact, most stuff that comes in a box or a package is full of all kinds of things that we really should not eat if we want to be truly healthy.

And what they say on the front of the box to entice you to buy it is in fact, just that. An enticement. Sometimes it’s truthful and sometimes it’s just plain manipulative. There is some government scrutiny in relation to what a food manufacturer can say on the packaging, but much of it is pretty vague. The food companies can get away with a lot.

I am not here to blame the ad agency. Their job is to make the product as appealing as possible; within the rules. So they do just that.

The video above is a funny look at the whole packaging issue as it relates to whether what’s in the package is healthful or not. This is put together by the USDA Organic Division. They are trying to “sell you” on eating organic. I support that effort. Much of what I eat is organic but I’ll admit too, that I do buy things that are not organic. I prioritize.

Some folks say eating organic is too expensive.

A comprehensive study came out recently that nails the numbers. The study (published in the prestigious British Medical Journal) found that it costs $550 a year more to eat organic. That might sound like a lot. Break it down by day though, and it’s $1.50 more per day to eat organic. For $1.50 a day, (or the price of what would now be considered a cheap cup of coffee), I can make eating organic an even bigger priority. Can you?

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Plan Z Diet Grilled Peaches with Cinnamon Butter

Plan Z Diet Grilled Peaches with Cinnamon Butter

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet

Plan Z Diet by Zola

This is a ZReboot recipe. I adapted this recipe for Plan Z from one of Bobby Flay’s ideas. I love a good grilled peach in the summer. Even if you have a crowd over for a barbecue you can grill up a bunch of these in a jiffy and everyone will enjoy a healthy dessert.

To read the full recipe for Plan Z Diet Grilled Peaches with Cinnamon Butter  head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/recipes/grilled-peaches-with-cinnamon-butter-sauce/

Cheers,


To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Why Do Men Lose Weight Faster Than Women?

Why Do Men Lose Weight Faster Than Women?

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet

It is a fact.
Men lose faster than women.

I hear about it every day. When a husband and wife go on the Plan Z Diet together, the wife will invariably complain at some point that her husband is ahead of her in the weight loss battle.

There’s no one to blame except Mother Nature.
Here’s some science to back it all up. I got this from a CNN report:

In one study out of England, men and women were each put on commercial weight-loss programs such as Atkins, Slim-Fast and Weight Watchers. Two months in, the men had lost twice as much weight as the women — and three times as much body fat. But by six months, the rate of weight loss had evened out between the genders.

If you’re a guy, you can thank the testosterone you have — and the extra estrogen you don’t — for your weight-loss edge. On average, women have between 6 and 11% more body fat than men, an assumed evolutionary adaptation to help during pregnancy. From puberty to menopause, women maintain more average body fat than men — even when they take in fewer calories.

But it’s important to remember that “fat” doesn’t mean “unhealthy.” Yes, women have larger fat stores, but it’s part of their physiology, meaning it’s not extra weight. So if a woman has 11% more body fat than a man, it doesn’t mean she’s 11% “fatter.” A perfectly fit woman will still hold 6 to 11% more body fat than a perfectly fit man.

So there you have it, but in my opinion that doesn’t answer all of it. I’ve observed a few other things. What I’m going to say doesn’t have any sanctioned science behind it. It’s just anecdotal evidence I’ve gathered over the years while developing the Plan Z Diet.

I postulate that women get stuck on a diet more often than men. Men have a tendency to lose at a fairly even pace. Women get stuck at different points during the dieting process. My feeling is this is not only hormonal (we have that monthly event during our childbearing years), but also because women diet more often than men. Women try all kinds of diets only to fail and start over again sometime later. You keep up this kind of behavior and you train your body to stop losing at about the same point each time. About 35% of women on the Plan Z Diet have some kind of stall between days 9 and 13. This is about the time most women quit a diet. Their body wants the status quo. In other words, your body wants you to go back and gain that fat back that you lost in the last two weeks. It wants to go back where it was, and the more we repeat the process the more ingrained it gets. Guys don’t diet as often so they don’t repeat the same patterns.

Another reason women lose slower? Women handle stress differently. When you are stressed, your cortisol level goes up. Cortisol is a hormone has very important role in helping your body respond to stress. This is your fight or flight response. Interesting thing is when your cortisol level goes up your weight loss pace slows down. In most families women are the ones carrying more of the worry burden. Don’t blame the guys. We do it naturally. We worry about everything from the car pool calendar to the price of gas. The mortgage, the budget and where we are going to go on vacation. We worry about everything more than most guys do.

I know for a fact this plays out. I have been on as many diets as anyone I know. Even when I’m not on a diet this worry factor plays in.

I’ve run companies for over 30 years. I know when a bad recession hits I can eat the same amount of food as I did when the economy was good and I’ll still gain weight. I eat the same, but my body gets bigger because my cortisol is up and my body reacts. So we even gain weight differently. We don’t just lose it differently.

Another reason women don’t lose as fast as men? Exercise effect. There was a study done out of Canada that said that if the average woman over 40 years old works out at a moderate pace 60 minutes a day 5 days a week, she won’t lose weight; she’ll only gain it slower than she would have if she didn’t exercise at all. Thank your hormones, women. Guys don’t deal with menopause and aging the same way.

Can women do anything to pick up the pace and lose as fast as the guys? Not that I know of, although that study I quoted up above seems to feel that if you stay on a diet where you lose 1 – 2 pounds a week and you stick with it for six months or more, the sexes will meet in the middle. Well, I’ve never met a guy who dieted consistently for six months. And I know women who have dieted ridiculously for years and never made their goal.

For this one, I don’t have a final answer but it made for interesting conversation. Didn’t it?

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Heat

Heat

By: Zola

Chief Dieter

Plan Z Diet

It’s been a hot time in the old town. Chicago.

I can’t stand this heat. Even with air conditioning I’m miserable. The few times I venture out are to go to appointments or to the grocery store. Just that ride home in a hot car is enough to make me crabby. Yesterday I walked a whopping 4 blocks in blistering heat with an index hovering about 100 degrees and a wind that felt like a blast furnace. I felt like I needed a shower when I got back to my office.

I know I am spoiled. For those of you with no air conditioning you have to be wondering how I could possibly be complaining, and for that I am sorry. I do know how good I have it. I just have another point I want to get to and this story is the vehicle for that point.

Most folks who hate heat as much as I do swell up when it gets hot. It’s not necessarily our size that matters. I swell when I am skinny or when I am fat. My rings get tight. I feel bloated and I’m sticky all over. No matter what clothes I wear or what clothing I take off it doesn’t seem to matter.

When I go to a tropical country it takes me at minimum three days to adapt. So you can probably guess that I don’t jump on a plane to go to a tropical country very often. I have friends who can’t wait to get into that sun. They want to soak up that sun and it relaxes them. I can’t wait to get OUT of the sun.

My husband convinced me that getting a tan was bad. I haven’t lain in the sun in over 25 years and I’m fully convinced that’s a good thing. Pale can be beautiful.

It’s the swelling that’s not fun. The inflammation that builds up is so uncomfortable that sometimes I don’t feel like eating. I am bloated enough that I don’t have an appetite. During my childhood I lived in a big house with no air conditioning and when it got that hot my mother would only make bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches for dinner. She was hot, uncomfortable and didn’t feel much like eating either.

When folks are on The Plan Z Diet we are constantly encouraging them to drink water. We require 70 ounces of water a day (or more) for them to be in compliance with our Plan Z Diet recommendations. We can’t make them drink the water but I do constantly, gently nag them to drink it. If they don’t, it takes longer to get foods to process in their bodies. Water is good for dieting. Our Plan Z Dieters who drink over 100 ounces of water while on the Plan Z Diet lose 30% more weight!

Water keeps you hydrated too. The funniest thing about water is when you are bloated in the summer you think it’s just water weight. You would think that drinking less would “cure” the problem and make the swelling go away; when in fact it’s just the opposite. Drinking more water will help ease the bloating. When you are feeling bloated drink 100 ounces of water (and coffee doesn’t count). Go to bed early and you are likely to wake feeling better.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Bitter Sweet

Bitter Sweet

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet




I’m going to make this short and sweet.

The clip I am about to recommend will take a bit of a time investment to watch so I want to keep my comments short.

I want to implore you to watch this video.

I really want to say that I want to beg you to watch this but that’s such an overused word I thought I’d get fancy and say implore instead. Same thing really, but I was hoping to get extra emotion in it.

As part of The Plan Z Diet we teach you what happened to cause you to gain weight (and in a lot of cases it’s not over eating). We want to help you lose the weight of course but we also dare to give you the education on the Plan Z Diet to have the tools and information to keep the weight off, once it’s gone.

There’s so much misinformation that has been spread over the course of about 60 years about diet and weight loss. I’m afraid a lot of people who say they know a lot about healthy eating are misinformed and keep spreading this bad information like mold in an unclean bathroom. It’s ugly and it won’t go away without work. It’s sad.

Good news is there are some breakthroughs (like the Plan Z Diet!). Bad news is the tide isn’t turning fast enough. People need to know what is really causing the obesity epidemic. Everyone needs to know. I bet you know someone who needs this information besides yourself. Someone who deserves to see this video. Just to get the truth.

This one video doesn’t fix it all. This video DOES give out some vital information.

Dr. Lustig is an entertaining speaker but he’s also a researcher so you have to be ready for some bit of a science lecture. He’s entertaining so give it a go. Watch it in segments if you can’t bear to do it all at once.

At one point in the speech he’s going to tell you that he’s about to get complicated in his descriptions. I thought about telling you to skip that part. Then I thought better of it.

He’s going to be telling you what happens to your body if you drink a Coke, a beer or a glass of orange juice. The information is startling and downright scary. It’s intriguing too and very eye opening.

This man is a top pediatrician. He’s a researcher. He’s passionate about his work.

If you want to learn about the worst parts of our food processing system and the ingredients involved, please listen to this lecture. This information will help guide you to keep the weight off. It’s a vital part of your education as part of The Plan Z Diet.

If you have children or grandkids my plea is even greater. If we can’t fix our own generation let’s at least save the next one. Watch this yourself. Then watch it with your family. Then pass the link on to others.

Watch and Learn and let me know what you think.


Cheers,


To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Jamie and School

Jamie and School

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet



Some of you will cry as you watch what I am offering up today.

But first, let me take a step back and give you some of my perspective.

I have always admired Jamie Oliver. Jamie is a chef. Jamie is an entrepreneur. You might remember back in January I wrote a column about one of his restaurants in London where they take on the disadvantaged and teach them how to become restaurant workers so they are better skilled and prepared for employment. Jamie has had a variety of cooking shows broadcast first in England and then in America and around the world. He’s very successful. He’s also modest, funny, dedicated and no less than doggedly determined. He has been tirelessly trying to fix school lunches. They are terribly broken. Our nation’s children are being abused by their own government, being forced to eat a less than ideal food supply. And that’s saying it nicely. Our kids are being forced to eat cheap, processed, and unhealthy food. No wonder too many of them are getting fat.

You are about to take your children out of school for the summer. They are about to be let out and let into your care for the full day, each day.

If you don’t have school-aged children, maybe you have nieces or nephews or even grandchildren who will be visiting you over the summer. They might be on vacation. You might want to give them treats and treat them special because they are so special to you. Be careful what you feed them. They don’t have long before they have to go back to school and eat what they are offered in the cafeteria. It’s not their fault they are, in so very many cases, gaining weight. They are too young to know. They trust us. We are failing them.

I was giving a speech the other day. I was talking about my plans going forward. I was talking about how in the near future I hope to start a foundation. I want that foundation to fund the cooking arts for kids. Bring home ec back. I want after school programs set up so we can teach kids, starting at 11 years old, how to cook. I want to do that so when they go off to college or go off to their busy lives they know how to feed themselves and not depend on fast food. I want them to know what’s good for them so when they make their choices they make them wisely. I think if we do this right we can make our kids healthy again before it’s too late.

Right now our children are not expected to live as long as we will. They are too unhealthy to live long, fruitful lives. We all want our children to do better than we did. Well, we have done this to them. We are all responsible. We need to fix this.

Jamie Oliver is making an impassioned plea. Please see what you can learn from this and transfer it to your children, your grandchildren or even your neighbor’s kids.

Have a good summer of eating healthy. Make yourself and your kids a priority.

Wanna feed your kids a healthy treat this summer? Gather them and their friends around the kitchen and whip up a quick, frozen treat of my Plan Z Diet Raspberry “Ice Cream”. You’ll love the simplicity of this treat and they’ll love the novelty. This is the kind of treat my mother would let me make myself as a child. Once you teach them how, I bet they’ll be able to do it too.

Plan Z Diet Raspberry "Ice Cream"

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Bitter Truth About Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup

The Bitter Truth About Sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet




If you think Gary Taubes is hard to read or watch, Dr. Robert H. Lustig may not be your cup of tea. But if you are tempted to put sugar in your tea or want to find out what causes sugar cravings, you’ve got to watch this video and share it with your family. As I write this 334,952 people have clicked on this lecture. Whether they watched all 1-hour 29-minutes and 28 seconds of it is another thing.

This is mission critical information for all Plan Z Diet Insiders. It amplifies Taubes’ work and adds powerful new information to fat proof your life. The food companies know what they are doing to us, but they are addicted to profits and not creating healthy foods.

Plan Z Diet Insider Dr. Steve brought this lecture to my attention. I am bringing it to your attention. Watch the first 20-minutes to get his take on “The Coca-Cola Conspiracy.” The middle is filled with a very scientific look at how sugar (glucose and fructose) is metabolized and how your body deals with fructose.

Dr. Lustig’s lecture will help you understand why you never want to go back to eating processed foods again. I suggest you watch the first half hour and then fast forward to his conclusions. Then, if you want to get all of the science, watch the middle.

Watch this and share the video with everyone you care about.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/