The Pritikin diet was developed in the 1970s to fight cardiovascular disease and is also recommended as a healthy weight loss plan. It was invented by the nutritionist and researcher, Nathan Pritikin. It’s a low-fat diet which requires no special products and is easy to stick to. You can still dine out without breaking the regime, and cooking for the whole family shouldn’t be a problem.
The diet excludes all red meat, poultry, eggs, and processed food. The original version also excluded fish, but the updated dietary regime encourages moderate consumption of oily fish high in Omega-3 fatty acids. If you follow this diet, you will mainly eat whole grains, vegetables, and fruit.
The eating regime outlined in Pritikin’s book recommends three main meals a day and allows healthy snacks as required. There are no guidelines on portion size or calorie counting. If you only eat the foods allowed and take sensible exercise, your body will burn enough energy to lose weight.
The system categorizes foods into groups according to caloric density. So long as you avoid meat, poultry, eggs, any added fat, and choose from the low to mid caloric range, you can eat whatever you want. Because most of your food is plant-based and unprocessed, your calorie intake will still be low.
The focus of the plan is on a healthy, balanced, and natural diet with an emphasis on positive nutrition and exercise. The diet encourages using low-fat carbohydrates. It eliminates refined flour and sugar in favor of whole wheat, brown rice, and fruit.
It’s a high fiber diet with reduced cholesterol and extremely low in fat. Fat consumption is less than 10% of daily caloric intake. The diet recommends consuming only 15% of calories as protein and making up the remaining 75% by eating natural, vegetable-based carbohydrates.
A potential problem with any low-fat diet is managing hunger pangs between meals. It’s the most common cause of failure to follow a diet plan. The Pritikin diet is easy to keep because it doesn’t entirely exclude any food groups, and allows a wide range of fruit, vegetables and whole grains, together with the consumption of oily fish, with no limits on the size of meals or number of snacks.
Because this diet plan is high in nutritional value, balances weight loss with the demands of work and family, and allows a wide range of tasty meals, it’s one of the easiest and most effective weight control systems available. Unlike several “fad diets” which may cause short-term fat loss but offer no long-term, sustainable results, the Pritikin diet can help you lose weight for good. Most doctors and nutritional experts agree that it’s a healthy, nutritional, and effective diet suitable for the whole family.
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