Get Rid of All Diseases With Pritikin Diet

Be slim and Fit

The Pritikin diet – A Cure-all for Present Day Chronic Diseases

Pritikin Diet is a very popular weight loss program,which was originally created by Nathan Pritikin.

The Pritikin Diet ,basically consists of natural foods like vegetables,fruits,whole grains,vegetables containing starch like potato etc.Apart from these nutritious natural unprocessed foods,another component of the Pritikin Diet is a routine of daily exercise,specially aerobic exercise.

Several studies have shown the benefits of Pritikin Diet ,in preventing the lifestyle diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and obesity etc.This diet also improve the blood lipid profile and normalizes blood pressure.

In the late 1950s, Nathan Pritikin was diagnosed with heart disease. Soon after, he adopted a low-fat, high-fiber diet and began a moderate exercise program. Subsequent medical examinations revealed dramatic improvements in his health. Mr. Pritikin developed the Pritikin Diet Program based on his experience and opened the first Pritikin Longevity Center in 1976 so that he could help other people with similar medical problems restore their health.

The Pritikin Diet is almost completely vegetarian, and encourages the consumption of large amounts of whole grains and vegetables. It is high in fiber, low in cholesterol, and extremely low in saturated fat and total fat, containing less than 10 percent of total daily calories from fat. Individuals following the diet are encouraged to eat six or seven meals each day, and are not required to restrict portion sizes. The diet excludes nearly all processed grains and sources of animal protein. In addition to these dietary recommendations, the Pritikin Diet Program includes regular exercise. Program participants are required to walk for at least 45 minutes each day.

Why do people follow this diet?

Many individuals follow this diet to help prevent the onset or progression of various medical conditions, most notably heart disease. Although not principally a weight loss diet, many people follow the Pritikin Diet Program to shed unwanted pounds.

The Pritikin Principle

What Is The Pritikin Principle

Definition

The Pritikin diet is a low-fat regimen that promotes eating whole grains, vegetables, and fruit over animal protein, eggs, processed grains, and sugar.

Everyone who’s ever thought about going on a diet has at least heard of The Pritikin Principle: a low-fat diet, not vegetarian, but largely based on vegetables, grains, and fruits. Fat in the diet accounts for a mere 10%. Since 1976, more than 70,000 people have spent time at the Pritikin Longevity Centers learning how to eat healthy, prepare low-fat meals and snacks, and incorporate exercise and stress-reduction techniques into their lives. Several books by Nathan Pritikin carried the message of the Pritikin approach to the masses. It was an approach designed largely to promote well-being by lowering cholesterol and helping diabetics normalize their blood sugar without taking insulin. That people lost weight was an added plus.

Nathan Pritikin developed the diet in the 1970s. He was diagnosed with heart disease in the late 1950s but was not satisfied with his medical care. Although he did not have a medical background, he spent the next 20 years researching diet and nutrition , experimenting with a variety of diets , such as eating only meats or only lentils. He recorded the information and his reactions to the various diets along with blood and other medical tests. He finally concluded that a program combining moderate exercise with a diet low in fat and high in fiber was most beneficial, and credits it with reversing his own heart disease.

In 1976, he opened the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Barbara, California, which moved a few years later to Santa Monica, California. Pritikin detailed his program of diet and exercise in his 1979 book, The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise, which quickly became a bestseller. He and his son, Robert Pritikin, have published eight additional books on diet and exercise. Robert Pritikin took over management of the longevity center following the death of his father in 1985.

Now his son, Robert Pritikin, has taken over and tweaked the concept. The same plant-based foods of the original are the staples of his diet, and the fat content of the regimen is still about as low as you can go. But Robert’s latest books focuses on something he calls The Calorie Density Solution.

// <![CDATA[// What You Can Eat

Not surprisingly, the more processed the food, the more likely they are packed full of calories. Corn, for instance, starts out at a somewhat reasonable 490 calories per pound. By the time it ends up in a tortilla chip at your favorite Mexican restaurant, it’s skyrocketed to 2,450 calories per pound. However, eat it with guacamole, and the combination (avocado dip with the chips) drops the number to 1,450 calories per pound.

The plan is to eat food with a large volume of fiber and water to fill up your stomach — vegetables, fruits, beans, and natural, unprocessed grains. These foods, he claims, “create tremendous feelings of fullness, or satiety, in your stomach.” In addition to eating three meals a day, the program incorporates two “calorically light” snacks as well. While Pritikin doesn’t have you counting calories, you do have to possess a basic understanding of how to calculate the “average caloric density of your meal,” and then keep that average below a certain number.

Exercise is strongly recommended, and walking is his favorite. How much is just right to maintain weight loss? Based on observations of obese people who lost weight and kept it off, Pritikin suggests “All of us should use … 30 miles a week as a goal.” For the rest of us, however, he suggests one 30-minute walk a day. Going at a good clip, you might average 12 to 15 miles a week.

The Pritikin Program took on new credibility in 1984 when the National Institutes of Health published its landmark lipid study that said lowering cholesterol reduced the risk of heart disease. Robert Pritikin believes the diet is based on basic properties of human biology that go back hundreds of thousands of years. The diet of early man is called the Paleolithic diet and is believed to have consisted of whole grains, plant foods, and occasional lean meat and fish. Proponents of Pritikin suggest that this diet echoes the same types of foods.

How The Pritikin Principle Works

To lose weight, most of us will need to keep the average caloric density of each meal below 400 calories per pound. Since most vegetables fall below 200 calories per pound, when they are eaten with meat and starches, they bring down the calorie average of each meal. High-carbohydrate food, along with pasta and hot cereals, range between 230 to 630 calories per pound. Animal protein goes from 400 calories per pound (some fish) to 1,400 (that juicy porterhouse steak) to 2,170 (bacon). By combining the leanest portions of animal protein with plenty of vegetables, you can get the caloric density down to a level where you will lose weight, according to Pritikin’s plan.

The general guidelines are:

• one to three pieces of fruit a day, including one citrus fruit
• a serving of orange or yellow vegetables two or three times a week
• several large servings a day of green vegetables, either raw or cooked
• two small servings a day of whole-grain products, such as bread, cereal, rice, or pasta
• three servings a day of protein-concentrated foods, such as fish, poultry, and non-fat milk, yogurt, or cottage cheese

An important component of the Pritikin program is exercise. Pritikin encourages many types of exercise routines, but aerobic exercises like walking, jogging, swimming, and indoor machines that simulate these activities are recommended for optimum weight loss. The suggested routine should include 5-10 minutes of warm-up, 20-30 minutes of workout, and 5-10 minutes of cool-down.

To keep within the suggested guidelines, Pritikin suggests we eat whole, unprocessed, and natural carbohydrate-rich foods, such as grains, vegetables, and fruit. Those preferred are:

• Brown rice
• Millet
• Barley
• Oats
• A wide assortment of dark green lettuces
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Squash
• Beans (black turtle beans, chickpeas, lentils, lima and pinto beans)
• Apples
• Pears
• Strawberries
• Bananas

Some processed whole-grain foods, such as oatmeal, are acceptable. Even white-flour pasta is okay, as long as it is combined with vegetables to bring down the caloric density of the whole meal.

Other guidelines: Eat small portions of lean beef, chicken, and low-fat dairy products. Fish is fine, preferably three servings per week of omega-3 rich seafood. Avoid fried foods, dressing with fat, and fatty sauces. Eat frequently. Have three meals a day plus two snacks. Stay active and avoid salty foods. Artificial sweeteners such as Splenda are okay. And decaf tea, once frowned upon, is fine.

The New Pritikin Program contains several pages of suggested meals and tips on how they might be improved with substitutions, as well as a restaurant guide for everything from a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger at Wendy’s to buttered noodles in a French restaurant to a serving of almond chicken in a Chinese establishment. More than 50 recipes are also included.

What the Experts Say About The Pritikin Principle

There seems to be little dispute that you will lose weight on the Pritikin diet or that it is generally a nutritionally rich diet low in calories. But there are caveats: “Because fat makes one feel full, the extremely low fat content of this diet will make those following it often feel hungry,” says Teryl L. Tanaka, RD, the clinical nutrition manager at the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. Consequently, she adds, the likelihood is high of the weight returning after one stops strictly adhering to the diet.

James Hill, PhD, the director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, agrees that the diet is not practical for many people. While observing that people staying at the Pritikin Centers do really well losing weight, he asks: “How realistic is the diet once they get away from the centers and into the real world?”

Both the Pritikin diet and the nutritionally similar Ornish diet are extremely low in fat, Hill notes, down to 10% of total calories. “Yes, if we could do that we would all be healthier, but it is very hard to follow that formula in our environment,” he cautions. “It’s difficult to maintain such a low-fat content of our diets if you eat out often, and it takes time to prepare good,-tasting low-fat food. Most people do not have the time to spend hours each day preparing food.”

Another problem, adds Tanaka, is that the low-fat content may actually be harmful to our health, “Pritikin also inhibits the intake and absorption of fat soluble vitamins, and can even limit the amount of essential fatty acids provided by the diet needed for normal cell function, healthy skin and tissue, growth, and development.”

Food For Thought

What do most nutritionists and health authorities like about the diet? Its strict limit of animal products — often associated with a variety of major diseases — and that it incorporates exercise and stress reduction, along with overall low calorie intake. But this is qualified with a concern that the extremely low-fat regimen is difficult to stick with over the long haul.

One man was diagnosed with incurable heart disease but he didn’t want to accept the fatal consequences, so he elaborated his nutritional plan and exercise program and started following it. Soon afterwards he achieved significant improvements in his health. It happened in the late 1950s and this man was Nathan Pritikin.

 

Having seen the positive results of his plan Nathan Pritikin spent almost 20 years studying nutritional approaches of other cultures, conducting some scientific research and making experiments with different diets. He found out that the combination of some exercises with a low in fat and high in fiber diet produced the most significant effect. So, the Pritikin Program appeared.

 

It became a sensation in 1977 after appearance of Nathan Pritikin on the CBS television declaring his new approach to health improvement, heart attacks prevention and weight loss. His first book The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise that was published in 1979 quickly became a bestseller.

 

The key idea behind the Pritikin Diet is a consumption of as little fat and as much fiber as possible. This plan nearly excludes all processed grains and animal protein and focuses on eating of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, see foods and non-fat dairy products. But apart from the healthy diet one should increase the amount of daily exercises and physical activity.

 

The Pritikin Program was originally developed to conquer the heart diseases but its impact on the weight loss results is also undisputable. Though there are no specific statements as to how many pounds will be lost during a week or two, people doing this program do lose weight. It is usually 10-13 pounds within the first month.

 

The critics state that the Pritikin Diet is too low in fat and not everyone can be satisfied with this amount and not to feel deprived of something. Moreover low fat intake can affect the consumption of essential fat-soluble vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids.

 

The diet professionals claim that the Pritikin Diet is a sound, scientifically based approach to losing weight. There is a bulk of scientific literature proving that the regimen low in fat and high in fiber helps to prevent many diseases. The diet plan doesn’t make you count calories or think out complicated meals with the right percentage of micro-nutrients. More important than that the program teaches how to ensure maintaining of achieved weight loss.

 

After bringing necessary changes in your eating habits and lifestyle in general you will not have to wait long for good results. They’ll become apparent not only in lost pounds but in improved health as well. So, let us not waste our time and start improving with Pritikin diet system.