Customer Reviews

The Pritikin Weight Loss Breakthrough: 5 Easy Steps to Outsmart Your Fat Instinct

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"Breakthrough" contains a new rationale for the Pritikin program called the "fat instinct". Pritikin explains what that concept means, then shows how his theory explains why the modern (western) diet causes illnesses which people who eat "traditional" diets do not have, why other weight-loss plans fail, and why the Pritikin program works. Pritikin then spends some time defending his position on carbohydrates. The practical result of all this is a chapter on behaviors which can be used to "outsmart the fat instinct". This is followed by a too-short explanation of how to follow the Pritikin program, and then a recipe section.

This book does a great job of motivating the reader, explaining why the Pritikin program is necessary, and it gives new information about the behaviors necessary for dieting. However, "Breakthrough" does not give a detailed explanation of what the Pritikin diet and exercise program is. The Program is explained in one short chapter with a brief description of exercise methods earlier in the book.

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in the Pritikin program also purchase the book "The New Pritikin Program", which spends over 400 pages discussing things which "Breakthrough" just mentions in passing. Even though "Breakthrough" is the newer book, "The New Pritikin Program" remains the definitive explanation of what the Pritikin Program is.

My husband and I read this book prior to attending the Pritikin Center in Santa Monica on the advice of his endocrinologist. We served three dinner parties entirely from this book and did not tell the participants they were actually dieting - in each case the dinners received rave reviews. Not only that after attending the Pritikin Center my husband has lost over 10lb and I have lost over 8lb using recipes similar to the ones in this book.

The tricks to eating are explained - first you must never go hungry - so its not a difficult thing to be on the Pritikin Program. Then you should try to eat 5 little meals a day. Then you should always start the meal with veggies - soup or salad - and put veggies on the plate first - before the meat.

This book is for rational people that believe in studies and supporting evidence for a healthy diet and exercise-based lifestyle. It helps if you have a buddy to read it with and put it into practice. Its even better if you can afford the time and the money to go to the Pritikin program and see what a plate of veggies really looks like.

This is a book that can be read and reread. It is particularly appropriate for diabetics and heart attack victims. Pritikin has helped lots of people get off their medications and avoid bypass surgery, although in our case it came too late for my husband to avoid surgery. Its best to try the program when you have a family history of heart disease or diabetes and you are not yet very ill - maybe your symptoms are just that you like to eat all the bread in the bread basket. This book also helps chocoholics and other fat eaters understand why they like their food and how with exercise they can start to prefer carbohydrates over fatty morsels.

I have been through the 2-week Pritikin program in Santa Monica, so I'm pretty familiar with this lifestyle and have followed it for years. So I haven't read the text part of this book, but bought it for some new recipes. I have made two of them so far, and while I think they are (or can be) good, they are badly written. The quantities are huge and instructions confusing or incomplete. It's a shame because the chefs at the centers are very good and have some unbelievable recipes.

I bought this book, read it, followed the directions and 7 months later I'm 50 pounds lighter. And I have no doubt that I can live with this diet for the rest of my life.

Let's cut to the bottom line -- there is one thing I can say about the Pritikin diet that I can't say about all the others: It works!

Could'nt put the book down. It really facinated me. Made a lot of things that were happening to my body plain to understand. Dr Pritikin really knows how to talk to a lay person. I started implementing Dr Pritikin's program even before I finished reading the book because it made so much sense. The program really works, and I'm never hungry. I love it!!!

This is probably the best book of its kind because it is 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 and is a great relief in a world of silly weight loss gimmicks.

Here are just some of the great and practical 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 a lot 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. One of the absolutely outstanding things about this system is that the hardest part is getting yourself used to eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. Believe it or not, that is the hardest part of this system. Once you get past that and develop a taste for fruits & vegetables, this "diet" just pretty easily flows from there. It's hard to believe, but this "diet" really does legitamately eliminate the need for calorie counting because if you really just watch the fat/sugar intake and keep your fiber intake high, your calories can't help but stay quite low (except perhaps for those that have compulsive eating disorders)because vegetables/fruits/fiber really do fill you up much more than the average high fat manner of eating. With this sytem, you can very EASILY trim 300-400 calories a day with just minor changes and no starving at all.

One other great bonus 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 other low 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 the cost of large quantities of 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 of the criticisms that this "diet" receives is that the low fat recommedations are excessive and impractical, what I've learned is that you can actually slighly exceed the low fat recommendations Pritikin makes and you will still be able to maintain an extremely reasonable calorie intake. So I would ignore that criticism because even if you only follow 85% of the strictest recommendations, you will get outstanding results! Even only following the Pritikin recommendations about 80-85% of the time, I still lost weight!

One tip I would add: Even though as Pritikin proposes in his book, you will lose weight if you follow his moderate excercise instructions, if you really want to see quicker results in weight loss, I would suggest doing more exercise than this book recommends. 3-5 days of vigorous exercise will make a HUGE difference in your results.

This book reads like a fast paced novel, and you just can't wait to get through it and begin implementing the many life-altering changes recommended and proven by the Pritikin Longevity Center's program. I experienced it firsthand recently, and reading the book made it possible for me to continue the program on the 'outside' at home. It truly saved my life!

This book is a great source of information on improving your health and fitness. It gives an excellent example of a diet to follow that will work and the explanation why. It also explains why the other fad diets don't work. It's one of the best diet and nutrition books that I've ever read. There's also a bunch of great recipes in the back. It's worth checking out.

This book sheds a lot of light on the reasons why we as human animals crave and gorge on fats and gives simple, easy answers to how to overcome them. Easy exercise, easy food choices that are healthy and not fad.

This book is a terrific, logical, makes-sense antidote to the waves of fad diets that appear each year. With strong medical evidence backed up by the many studies done on participants in the Pritikin Longevity Center, this program is clearly one of the only balanced, sustainable, health-improving programs out there. Keep up the good work!