Product Description

For over 20 years, THE PRITIKIN PROGRAM FOR DIET AND EXERCISE by Nathan Pritikin has set the standard for people wanting to eat healthier, citing the healthy intake of grains, vegetables, and fruits, while avoiding foods full of fat and cholesterol. Now, through research at the Pritikin Longevity Center, his son Robert Pritikin has discovered the genetic key that unlocks the secret to why people crave the "wrong" kinds of food. With THE PRITIKIN WEIGHT LOSS BREAKTHROUGH, Robert Pritikin demonstrates how people can live longer, healthier lives, without the fat.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #641508 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-15
• Released on: 1998-12-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Amazon.com
Pity poor Robert Pritikin: his father Nathan, who almost died of heart disease in the 1950s but saved himself with his famous low-fat diet, was extraordinarily disciplined. He could eat a dinner of brown rice and then go for a run. Robert, on the other hand, craved cheeseburgers and just wanted to hang out on the couch. It turns out that Robert had the "fat instinct," a natural, evolution-favored tendency to eat calorically dense foods and conserve energy. How he beats that instinct--and how you can, too--is the heart of his Breakthrough. The book shows how to eat until you're full several times a day; enjoy the food you're eating; use exercise to create cravings for nutrient-rich, carbohydrate-based foods; and stay on the program even if you're traveling or out with friends at a restaurant. The Pritikin Weight Loss Breakthrough is the answer to all the anticarbohydrate, pro-protein and pro-fat books out there, citing legitimate research to defend its positions and offering dozens of recipes to help facilitate the plan.

From Library Journal
Pritikin, son of the founder of the Pritikin Longevity CenterR, explains why diet programs fail. Working with the center's scientists and doctors, he found that humans have a genetic predisposition?a fat instinct?that kicks in any time we diet, deciding that we are going through a famine and thereby causing our metabolic rate to slow down. We therefore conserve calories and crave fat. To counter this instinct, Pritikin offers menus that are divided into three categories: better, better still, and best. Unfortunately, the recipes are not up to the appetizing standards of previous Pritikin books, and some of the directions are confusing to follow. Purchase only if Pritikin books have a large following in your library.
-?Connie Weaver, Bosler Free Lib., Carlisle, Pa.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
For over 20 years, "The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise" by Nathan Pritikin has set the standard for people wanting to eat healthier, citing the healthy intake of grains, vegetables, and fruits, while avoiding foods full of fat and cholesterol. Now, through research at the Pritikin Longevity Center, his son has discovered the genetic key that unlocks the secret to why people crave the "wrong" kinds of food.

Customer Reviews

We Oughta Know Better!
We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic which more than coincides with all of this strangely American puritanical advice about food-which boils down to low fat/high carb politically correct eating. (Interestingly enough too, it also coincides w/the fitness/gymn crazes of the '70s and beyond.) In fact, the Pritikin benighted second half of this century, along with the relentless advertising of the easily profitable cereal and bread companies, has been shadowed by a relentless, misleading fear of saturated fat and cholesterol-coupled with an insatiable, obssessive drive to consume bran. In the fifties-before diet gurus like Pritikin cursed us with fat phobia, Americans downing cheeseburgers and real butter had a stable minority obesity rate!! Just as much of the rest of the world today-which finds our self-punishing need to cut fat an utter aberration.
WE HAVE A RECORD OBESITY RATE (See many related health problems as well.)CAUSED BY PRITIKIN AND THOSE BRAINWASHED BY PRITIKIN-BEING ADDRESSED BY SUCH RECOMMENDATIONS THAT CAUSED (AND INSIDIOUSLY WORSEN AND SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL) THESE PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Nathan Pritikin died young (for a man in the 1st world) of cancer and suicide. Those working with Pritikin (SEE Lillian Gillman's works if you really are interested in saving your health, well-being and joy.) are starting to link his extreme carbohydrate and joyless diet to the rampant rate of these symptoms in his followers (and then some! WE'RE TALKING ABOUT UNPRECEDENTED DIABESITY RATES AND NOT TO MENTION MYSTERIOUS SUDDEN NEW AND SUPPOSEDLY INCURABLE DISEASES LIKE CFS, IBS AND ADD! [Hello designer drug industry of the 90s and new Millenium.] THERE'S NOT EVEN TIME TO MENTION THE TRANS FATS [New frontier for cheap food and its profits] WE WERE TOLD TO SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL FAT AND THEIR LINK TO NEW CANCERS!)
MY POINT IS THIS, IN THIS DAY AND AGE (for all the factors I've mentioned) it is morally reprehensible to recommend more high carb (CUT the ESSENTIAL fats which prevent cancer and depression.) dieting in the name of politics and politically correctness. (Consider the food pyramid I witnessed drilled into my daughter's kindergarten brain back in the seventies).
If this were my family member, I'd wanna know why his sacrifice to live as a monk in a prison labor camp didn't actually pay off in "longevity"-not to mention at least freedom from something so relentlessly unbearable as depression! I'd wanna challenge conventional wisdom-because I would not want the guilt for others people's health and well being on my hands. Does anyone care about the harm this insidiuos ignorance is doing?

Pritikin Died of Cancer at 66. Why?
Pritikin died of leukemia at 66. Or 65? Anyway, even though he called his centers "Longevity Centers," he fell far short of the average U.S. life expectancy.

No question about it. Pritikin is far superior to Atkins. And it can have a good effect on heart disease and hypertension. But Pritikin shows that it has no significant effect on longevity. It cannot extend your lifespan. And it does not retard your aging.

So it is deceptive advertising to call Pritkin Centers "Longevity Centers."

The Pritikin Diet is unnecessarily strict. It is extremely phobic about fat, salt and sugar. And if I remember right, no alcohol. So many don'ts.

Does an extremely low-fat diet like Pritikin make one susceptible to depression? As Pritikin suffered when he had a relapse of his cancer, he immediately slashed his wrist and killed himself.

If you wish to lose weight and prevent cancer and heart disease, and also retard your aging and extend your lifespan, then I recommend you read The ImmorTalist Manifesto by Elixxir. It will tell you all about The Elixxir Program. And Elixxir, "the only anti-aging guru who has actually stayed young." Investor's Business Daily

Even if you choose to experiment with Pritikin, you need The ImmorTalist Manifesto as your companion book. It will give you the inspiration and power you need to stay on a demanding diet.

Yes, I'm biased. I've been on The Elixxir Program. And it's worked wonders for me. Lost over 35 pounds and kept it off for more than two years. And in the most healthy and sustainable way!

Probably the best book of its kind
This is probably the best book of its kind because it is the one of the only books I've seen out there that is scientific, practical and non-gimmicky. In an industry where there are more weight loss gimmicks coming out everyday this book rises to the top.
Here are just some of the great ideas Pritikin proposes:
-Don't just cut back on calories, the metabolism slows down and our willpower gives out eventually when we feel deprived, better to eat in a high fiber/low fat filling manner that satisifies you completely without any starving
-Once we cut back on alot of fatty foods and excessive meat and substitute it with high fiber and complex carb eating we lose the craving for those bad foods
-Excercise helps keep up our desire for these healthy foods
Those are the main ideas of his system. They are very practical and don't mislead people into some silly way of eating. For example Pritikin explains some of the low-carb myths in this book.
One other great thing about this "diet" is that it's very economical. You can eat a healthy meal for .70 cents if you wanted to. Weigh that up against these low carb diets that have you spending $2.50 just for a low carb bar that you practically need to keep those diets going. Not to mention all these otherlow carb products out now (has anyone wondered how absurd it is to think that the low carb people think man can create better foods than nature has provided for us!) and meat etc. It's about 3-4X the cost of eating the Pritikin way.
This system works and you can maintain it for life.
One tip I would add: Even though as Pritikin proposes in his book you will lose weight, if you really want to see quicker results in weight loss I would suggest doing more exercise than this system recommends. 3-5 days of vigorous exercise will make a HUGE difference in your results.