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Interview with Zonya Foco, R.D. |
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by Lyle Hurd, editor
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Nobody has more fun talking and writing about health, nutrition and exercise than Zonya Foco, R.D. She’s vocal and visual about helping people “get it,” giving them the information and tools to make healthy choices despite hectic lifestyles. Beans and broccoli, apples to zucchini, she’s a bit of a fanatic (in a good way) about helping people “make their good intentions come true.”
An expert on nutrition and wellness,
author and professional speaker,
Zonya earned her bachelor of science
degree in dietetics and is a registered dietitian
with the American Dietetics Association. She
is also a certified health and fitness instructor
with the American College of Sports Medicine.
Zonya’s goal is to help people achieve their
maximum energy and health potential by
providing them with the information and
resources they need to be fully successful. Her
approach is not about strict eating plans or
fanatic exercise. It is about manageable
change, substitutions and choices. It is for
people who want to be strong, vigorous and
energetic. It is for people who want to create
balance in their lives and avoid health problems
as well as those who are currently
choosing to correct or counter problems with
weight, cholesterol, blood pressure or diabetes.
Her favorite motto is “Knowledge is
power and you have choices.”
 Before founding her speaking, writing
and publishing business in 1994, Zonya
worked for eight years as a clinical
nutritionist for the Michigan Heart
and Vascular Institute of St.
Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. She led the
work-site nutrition wellness
programs, performed individual
nutrition counseling
for weight and cholesterol
control and taught
weekly weight and
cholesterol workshops.
With clients
telling her everything
they needed in order
to succeed at a
healthy lifestyle, she
created her 400-page
Lickety-Split Meals For
Health Conscious People
on the Go! It includes all the recipes and tips
people need to make lifestyle changes with
ease. After 10 years of listening to her clients
and writing and compiling all the information
for her unique book, Zonya has calculated
that those who use the book to its capacity can
save five hours and lose one to two pounds per
week and lower blood pressure and cholesterol,
all while the family enjoys delicious dinners
at home.
Zonya is also the author of The Power of
Positive Eating, an informative guide to simple
changes you can make to emphasize more positive
foods, maximizing your health and
energy. With chapters titled “Ten Steps For
Positive Eating,” “The Scoop on Sugar,” “The
Big Fat Difference,” “Carbohydrates: Friend
or Foe?,” “The Fact on Fiber,” “To Salt or Not
to Salt,” “Positive Eating Musts for Every
Women,” “Positive Eating Musts for Every
Man” and “The Top Four Nutrition Problems
Facing Our Kids Today,” The Power of Positive
Eating is a valuable asset to every nutrition
conscious family.
TH: Welcome Zonya. Our staff enjoyed the
opportunity to become familiar with Lickety-
Split Meals and The Power of Positive Eating.
Please share with us your journey to creating
Lickety-Split Meals.
ZF: Initially my passion for healthy eating and
physical fitness was inspired by my own
struggle. I’d been a trim kid keeping up with
two very active brothers and a physically fit
mom until my junior year in high school.
Then somehow over that summer I packed on
20 pounds.
As a cheerleader this was definitely a no-no
since I was in the middle of the “human
pyramid” (also known as “the mount”). In the
first practice of the season I heard my fellow
teammates loud and clear—“Go on a diet!”
I took the problem in confidence to my
mother. “Mom, I have to lose 20 pounds and I
have to lose it by Friday’s game.” Together we
concocted our own crazy weight loss combination
of fasting and liquid diet. This, we
thought like so many other people did, would
get the most weight off as fast as humanly possible
by Friday’s game. I quickly learned (as
many of us have) that this is actually a very
effective weight gain diet.
What we really needed to do was find out
what was causing the problem. Like most
teenagers I was skipping breakfast, ate junk
food for lunch then came home and ate a half
a bag of cookies or Ritz crackers and peanut
butter. After dad came home we would have
dinner and I was eating again. No fruits, no
vegetables. Starchy, fattening, greasy and
sugary foods? You bet. What I needed to do
was fix what I was eating.
I became fascinated with nutrition and
learning how to control my weight. However,
over the next few years my weight kept yo-yoing
and each time I would end up being heavier
than when I had started. Then shortly after
entering college I took my first nutrition class
and dedicated myself to mastering my weight
problem the healthy and permanent way. The
more I became involved the more I realized my
mission was greater than just conquering my
own problems but to dedicate my career to
inspiring and helping others learn about healthy
lifestyle changes that affect everything from
weight to cholesterol control, heart health and
diabetes management. Four years later I graduated
with a degree in dietetics. However I was at
my heaviest weight ever. So while the book
learning was great, I still had not found the
answer to my own problem.
I spent the next 10 years at St. Joseph Mercy
Hospital in the outpatient nutrition counseling
unit working with individuals who were
overweight. During that period I was also
struggling with my own weight—I was still
about 25 pounds overweight. Then I realized
that everything I had learned in college,
through my own problems, my counseling and
interaction with other counselors, really came
down to how we use our grocery cart each
week. The core issues are what is in your
kitchen and what are your snacking and exercise
styles.
TH: How did you come up with the idea
to combine the elements of your program,
recipes, grocery guides and health and
fitness advice into one concept, Lickety-
Split Meals For Healthy Conscious People
On The Go?
ZF: Actually I have had this idea for the book
since I was 16. That summer my mother
offered to assume the task of doing the dishes
and pay me $40.00 a week if I would take over
the responsibility of doing the grocery shopping
and making the family meals. I quickly
figured it would take 25 hours to bring home
that much money from my summer part-time
job and we shook hands on it right then and
there. What a great education. I had to learn
how to plan meals and buy groceries for a week
at a time so I wouldn’t run out of one or two
necessary ingredients each night. The first
week we agreed I would make dinners I could
already prepare. The second week was all new
recipes and I really struggled getting a whole
meal on the table at the same time. Why is it
that after slaving through a recipe I would
read, “serve with hot cooked noodles and a
tossed salad?” So when were you supposed to
boil those darn noodles and make that tossed
salad? I turned to books for help. Shouldn’t
there be a book out there that instructs people
on how to put an entire meal on the table? The
only one I found was too gourmet and definitely
over my head. I wanted simple, everyday
meals that my family would eat. I wanted
recipes that were fast and easy to follow. I also
needed a list of groceries to buy. And thus, the
seed for Lickety-Split Meals was planted. After
six years of college, nine years of marriage and
hundreds of ideas from clients, the seed blossomed.
The fast, easy-to-follow recipes,
including how to get a whole meal on the
table, plus a complete grocery list, would be
right there.
Then I got to thinking . . . what about all
the helpful tips I’ve collected from and for
clients along the way? All the simple nuggets of
wisdom to help win the battle with weight,
cholesterol and finding time to exercise? They,
too, are included. The reader will appreciate
these inspiring tips about nutrition, exercise,
time management and positive living, sprinkled
page by page throughout the book.
TH: Sharing dinner and family interaction are
a strong themes of your message.
ZF: I have always been committed to the
whole family experience but particularly now
that I have a three-year-old. My mission is to
encourage Americans to sit down at the table
together once again, to sit down to a healthy
meal instead of our national trend toward
dashboard dining. How do you talk to your
children about their grades when your dinner
table is a dashboard? How can you know what
is going on in their lives, talk about drugs,
share experiences or make plans when
everyone is on the go all the time?
Sharing a meal at home is a unique opportunity
to connect and grow together day by
day. It is also a great opportunity to get
everyone involved in the process. Dad or mom,
depending on who the major meal preparer is,
could take over one or two nights a week. There
are a variety of great meals in the book that
most young people over 12 can prepare for the
family. You might be surprised at how willing
other family members are to participate and
how fulfilling the experience is for them.
TH: I understand you also are involved in a
good deal of outreach as a keynote speaker,
conducting seminars and presenting cooking
demonstrations.
ZF: I appear at about 50 speaking engagements
a year in the U.S. and Canada. The audiences
vary from 200–2,000 people. It is really a
pleasure to talk to people about the power of
positive eating, eating right on the run, the
power of one good habit and other relevant
topics. My goal is to engage the audience, to
get them to laugh and become involved. For
instance, I have a gastrointestinal tract made of
stuffed cloth which starts at fake red lips going
through to the esophagus, the stomach, then
24 feet of intestines and three feet of colon.
Two members of the audience join me and as
they spread this out across the room, lip to the
other end, I explain that we eat an average of 11
grams of fiber a day and we need at least 30.
Then I ask them to consider what this deficiency
can do to our bodies over a month, year
or decade. My goal and inspiration is to motivate
people to do what they know they should
be doing to establish and maintain their health.
TH: I understand you have a new product
coming out, the Power Pack, which incorporates
The Power of Positive Eating booklet, a 90-
minute tape of presentation highlights and
eight hours of audio CDs. How can our audience
learn more about the Power Pack, Lickety-
Split Meals, other products and what’s new
with Zonya Foco?
ZF: Just visit www.zonya.com, e-mail me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call toll-free
1-888-884-LEAN.
TH: Thank you, Zonya.
ZF: You’re welcome. Stay healthy.
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