Carbohydrate
Pritikin
Diet
A high complex i.e. unrefined carbohydrate, low-protein, very low-fat diet which includes a high percentage of vegetable fibre.
Geared as much towards disease prevention as fast weight loss, the diet was devised as a part of the treatment package including exercise for cardiac patients at the Longevity Research Institute in California.
The late Nathan Pritikin was a medical maverick who firmly believed we must learn to cut out all but the smallest amounts of fat, protein and sugar from our diet. This leaves fibre rich complex carbohydrates - and the fast weight loss diet is a staggering 80% carbohydrate, 10% fat, & protein.
An increasing number of medical experts are beginning to concur with Pritikin, and theoretically the fast weight loss diet is perfectly in tune with the health-conscious trend towards vegetarianism reduced consumption of meat and dairy produce, and increased fibre intake.
10 years ago, the punishing low-fat and protein levels and high percentage of bulky carbohydrates would not have done much to inspire the taste buds of anyone still hooked on vast quantities of meat as part of their everyday diet.
Apart from cutting out some staple protein foods like milk, eggs and cheese, as well as poly-unsaturated oils and margarines and reducing salt drastically, it firmly eliminates coffee, tea and practically all alcohol. What's more, your limited weekly allowance of fish or meat amounts to a meagre 24 ounces/600 g. So it is spartan regime, to say the least.
By avoiding nearly all forms of fat and animal protein and substituting instead raw and cooked vegetables, pulses, roots, grains and fruits, Nathan Pritikin claims that, provided we begin early enough in life, we can avoid most common diseases. Heart failure, due to clocking up of the arteries with rich fatty food, is obviously one of the targeted diseases.
If you are strict vegetarian you should have a head start, says Pritikin believes in using fish and meat only as an accompaniment to your main vegetable dish, rather than the other way round. At best, however, it is an indigestible, inflexible - no matter how you try to embellish and combine it basic ingredients.
If you are a nibbler it is a great diet, as you are required to eat four pounds/2 kg of food a day in eight meals. But this is a lot of when you consider that many dieters eat roughly 4 pounds/2 kg of food per week. From this quantity you only take in 600 to 700 cal/2522 2940 kJ, as most of the food consists of vegetables.
On the spartan regime overweight patients At the Longevity Centre apparently lose an average of thirty-four pounds/15 kg in just under four weeks.
Probably the most positive aspect of the Pritikin diet is that it makes you look at fruit and vegetables in a different light.
Apart from becoming more aware of different varieties and interesting ways in which to cook them, it also teaches you to eat small amounts at frequent intervals. In this way, you overcome the habit of "pigging out" on one blockbusting meal, once-a-day.
Menus are planned to provide either
600, 850, 1000 or 1200 cal
(2520, 3570, 4220 or 5040 kJ) each day for two weeks, depending upon your needs.
Although many of the recipes included are tasty and interestingly varied, the overall impression is one of blindness for anyone who enjoys meat, dairy produce and sweet foods.
Fast weight loss potential is excellent
, especially on the 600 cal/2520 kJ, maximum weight loss diet which leads to a rapid initial reduction of up to 10 lbs a week.
The usual amount of weight loss by overweight people at the Pritikin Centre is just under fourteen pounds/6 kg in one month.


Robert Pritikin, director of the Pritikin Longevity Centre founded by his father in 1976 says the key to weight loss is cutting calorie density.
Most diet regimes are restrictive, difficult to follow, and unhealthy in the long grass, says Pritikin.
The Pritikin program is different, a simple plan that will help you peel away pounds without hunger and that will also restore or maintain your health.
Pritikin says that on his program hundreds of fat challenged people have achieved a healthy weight and maintained it with ease.
Millions more who have read previous books based on the Pritikin centre philosophy, have had the same good results.
Basic principles of the Pritikin approach.
More than half the people in the United States are overweight or obese, and the number is increasing every year.
Why? Because, says Pritikin, Americans are over indulging in calorie dense foods and exercising less than in the past.
Calorie density refers to the number of calories per weight of food. Peanuts have a high calorie density 2640 cal per pound, tomatoes have a low calorie density of 19 cal per pound.
If your diet consists mainly of high calorie dense foods such as muffins, dry cereals, granola bars, fried chicken, bacon, and cheese (especially hard cheeses like Cheddar), you're destined to put on weight no matter how much you exercise, warns Pritikin, because high calorie dense foods tend to have a low satiety value, this means you have to eat them in large quantities to feel full.
But if you add low calorie dense foods to your diet, Pritikin claims, you'll achieve satiety more quickly and reduced total calorific intake.
This is the calorie density solution.
The explanation of the Pritikin Diet.
Our urge to eat when we're hungry is a primitive genetically programmed survival mechanism that arose in response to food shortages.
It is almost impossible to overcome this instinct Pritikin says yet that is precisely what many weight loss programs expect us to do. The trick to weight loss, asserts Pritikin, is achieving satiety on fewer calories.
By understanding what makes you feel full, as Pritikin explains, you feel satieted when your stomach contains a certain volume of food, not a particular number of calories. If you know which foods to eat and how to combine them, you can fill your stomach with the same food volume while cutting calories.
Water and fibre add bulk to food increasing its volume without pumping calories Pritikin claims that consuming foods rich in water and fibre such as fruit, vegetables, and unprocessed whole grains will lower the average calorie density of your meals in addition to encouraging weight loss, he says this approach will of usual body with vitamins, minerals, other nutrients, and fibre.
To illustrate the calorie density solution, consider a breakfast of a typical process cereal like Cheerios.
1 ounce of relatively low volume Cheerios has slightly more than 110 cal while an ounce of high-volume strawberries has slightly less than 9 cal.
Adding the two you get a total calories per ounce of 119. Divide that by two and the average calorie density per ounce is just under 60 much better Pritikin says than the hundred and 10 cal you started out with.
And in all likelihood will probably go for more strawberries than that with your cereal making the average even better.
All of the Pritikin weight loss claims have been Sara Lee tested extensively at the Pritikin longevity centre in Santa Monica, California.
In addition to being a health clinic, it is also a scientific research Centre devoted to the study of the effects of diet and exercise on health.
Pritikin offers motivational stories about clients who arrived at the Centre overweight, in poor health, and severely discouraged, then rapidly shed pounds and restore their physical and mental health by following the Pritikin program.
How the Pritikin Principle works.
On the Pritikin program, you eat three meals a day plus two or three snacks to stave off hunger.
Pritikin recommends that you keep the average calorie density of each meal below 400 cal per pound -an achievable goal if you combine foods that are low and high in calorie density and watch your portions.
Your diet should consist of primarily whole-grain products, vegetables, beans, and fruit, with additional foods that are low in fat, cholesterol, and salt. You are allowed 3 1/2 ounces of animal derived foods such as lean chicken or meat and two servings of non-fat dairy each day.
The Pritikin program includes a menu guide with suggestions for seven days of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks.
For each meal there are three choices listed -"better," "better still" and "Best," rated according to calorie density space-along with total ounces, calories, and calorie density.
He also provides 52 tried and true recipes from the Pritikin Longevity Centre, including salmon mousse, ginger shrimp stirfry, and spiced apple crisp.
When planning meals, according to the Pritikin principle, the best way to reduce calorie density is to add vegetables, since most vegetables contain less than 200 cal per pound.
Every carbohydrate such as rice or potato should be served with at least one vegetable such as a green beans or carrots (Pritikin’s "one and one rule"), and every high-protein dish should be served with two vegetables (Pritikin's "one and two rule"). You can also die loot calorie density with non-fat dairy products.
The benefits of the Pritikin Principle.
By sticking with the Pritikin principle you are promised, you lose weight and have more energy, and your health and quality-of-life will dramatically improve.
Pritikin asserts that many people with serious conditions such as heart disease, adult-onset diabetes, and high blood pressure their symptoms disappear after adopting his approach.
According to Pritikin, you're likely to sleep better, wake up alert in the morning, look and feel younger.
The Pritikin's principal calorie density solution is a modification of the classic low-fat diet regimes.
The approach is essentially a high carbohydrate low-fat diet, relying heavily on plant-based foods and less on refined carbohydrates, seafood, poultry, and meat. Pritikin dieters average 1500 cal per day with about 10% coming from fat, 65% from carbohydrates, and 25% from protein; standard nutritional guidelines recommend 30% of calories from fat.
While low-fat diets do have a proven record in reversing heart disease, there are certain risks associated with them.
When people go on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet and they fail to lose weight, their triglycerides go up and their HDL go down -both of which are risk factors for heart disease.
Carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are your body is number one fuel source.
This group of foods includes sugars, starches, and cellulose. All carbohydrates must be broken down into glucose (blood sugar) to supply your body with energy.
Simple sugars (fruit, honey) and doubles sugars (table sugar, milk) our digestive quickly and give your body and energy surge.
Complex carbohydrates (starchy and fibrous foods) are digested more slowly.
The glucose that all these different carbohydrate types supply is your fuel, which you either use right away for energy, store in your muscle cells as potential energy (glycogen) or, if there is no capacity left in the muscles, then the body converts it to fact and stores it in your fat cells.
Of all the body sources, complex carbohydrates supply the highest value for the fewest calories.
Many contain nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and complex carbohydrates also tend to pack lots of fibre, which is good news for dieters.
High fibre, low grain carbohydrates are far better for you than a low fibre carbohydrates made from refined flour and sugar, the main ingredients contained in many fast foods.
Fibre passes out of your body and leaves behind very few calories.
Moreover, it changes and prolongs a feeling of fullness by slowing the absorption of foods.
In delaying the absorption of glucose, fibre helps control blood sugar levels -a particularly important factor for people suffering from diabetes.
Finally, soluble fibre -the sort that oats, beans, and many types of produce -has been proven to decrease LDL levels (Low Density Lipoprotein, the "bad" cholesterol) and triglycerides (fatty particles in the blood that can damage arteries), thereby reducing the risk of heart disease.
Carbohydrates are the main source of energy for your muscles when you exercise, and since exercise is crucial to healthy living, your body needs carbohydrates.
Are Low Carbohydrate Diets effective?.
Many people are reassured by experts who expound radically low carbohydrate diets.
Apart from lowering your energy and possibly making exercise difficult (remember, carbohydrates are your body is number one fuel), such low carbohydrate regimes may deprive you of essential nutrients.
The prevailing atmosphere of carbohydrate phobia has fostered some misconceptions.
One of these misconceptions is that insulin and carbohydrates make you fat. In a normal person the rise in blood sugar, or glucose, after eating carbohydrates stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin.
Insulin is the hormone that converts glucose into energy for your body cells. Also insulin converts excess glucose not needed for energy into fat.
In some people, however, the cell receptors for insulin perform less effectively, and the conversion of glucose into energy goes awry. One result of this is the pancreas secrete more and more insulin.
These people are called insulin resistant. Because insulin resistant people experience an abnormal insolent surge after eating carbohydrates, and because insulin can indeed turn glucose into fat, some diet "experts" have described carbohydrates as "glucose bombs" and insulin as a "fat-packing hormone".
If you eat carbohydrates, they say, you'll get fatter than if you eat an equivalent number of calories in the form of fat or protein. Moreover, they contend, if you are insulin resistant you're more likely to accumulate fat.
Do Carbohydrates make you fat?
According to renounce endocrinologist Dr Gerald Reaven of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
"Carbohydrates do not make you fat, and insulin does not make you fat. Calories make you fat."
Evidence shows not that insulin resistant people tend to be come overweight, but rather that overweight people tend to become insulin resistant.
If you lose weight and start exercising, your risk of insulin resistance goes down.
Do High-Protein Diets Work?.
The low carbohydrate craze goes hand-in-hand with high-protein mania. It is generally accepted in popular imagination, that dietary protein is "lean", while carbohydrates are squishy and chunky space-and your body is what you eat.
This notion is reinforced by quasi-scientific theories put forth by diet "experts" to convince you that you can lose weight fast or more easily on a high protein diet.
There is no evidence to support this studies suggest that when people reduce carbohydrates drastically and consume as much meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and cream as they want, they do lose weight-but only because their total calorific intake goes down.
They are not inclined to make up the calorie deficit caused by eliminating carbohydrates - about half the calories in the standard balanced diet- high-protein low carbohydrate diets are really low calorie diets in disguise.