Yeh Valerie has touched upon the two. The BFL diet and the zone diet are very similar in the way they are done. You select a fist sized portion of protein for the BFL diet and then protein portion no larger than the size or depth of your fist and you have 5-6 meals like that per day. The idea it to eat 2-3 hourly so that you keep your blood sugar stable and you don’t let your body go into starvation mode. This also help you to feed the muscle and grow it--which in turn enhances fat loss because more muscle = more fat burning capabilities. I discovered the Zone diet quite by accident after completing the Induction phase of the Atkins diet which I did for two weeks only in December to initiate fat loss in the tummy and bust myself off a plateau. The zone works very much the same as the BFL diet where portion sizes are concerned but you use a technique called the eyeball method. This means you judge visually the size of your portions looking at your hands. Since everyone has a different sized hand and the hand is in proportion to your height and frame size everyones portion sizes differ. So if I wanted to know the size of portion I eat for protein, I look at my palm. If I wanted to judge the size of carb I use either a tightly clenched fist if it is a high glycaemic carb such as potato. If it is something like brown rice, I take a lose fist sized portion. If it is a fibrous vegie such a cauliflower and broccoli, I can have up to two lose fist sized portions of that where carbs are concerned. The macronutirent percentages on the zone are different to BFL though. On BFL you take in 40:40:20 (protein/carb/fat). On the zone they feel we need more of the healthy fats because fats increase prostaglandins and help yopur body to burn stored body fat. So the percentages are 40:30:30 (protein/carb/fat)
The web site for the zone is here:
http://www.zoneperfect.com/Site/Content/index.asp
The official BFL diet site is here:
Both diets are a way of life but the exercise and weights program in BFL enhances fat loss. I just switched to the zone since I became more interested in Body Building because most body builders recognize the fact that they need a higher fat intake to produce the healthy levels of hormones needed for muscle growth and for fat loss. Both those sites will give you good info on how to get started. It is really good because you don’t even have to buy the books to get started, you can read it all on line basically or print it off. The Challenge is a period of 12 weeks were you follow BFL religiously. You can see before and after pictures on the site above as an example of what can be achieved in such a short space of time. I’m now on my second challenge. I have a pic her of a lady that completed 3 challenges and this is what she achieved in that 36 weeks:
If you do it, good luck to you! I am going to do it to the above level and beyond.