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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent theory but not enough details on diet & exercise
Review: "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.
Rating:
Summary: Pritikin Died of Cancer at 66. Why?
Review: "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.
Rating: 
Summary: I think I can do this!
Review: Finally, I'm reading about a diet that makes intuitive sense! Picked up this great book at the library last week and went on the program (they don't call it a diet) immediately. The program of veggies, whole grains, fruit, low-fat proteins leaves you almost constantly hungry, but Pritikin doesn't want you to remain in that state. You're allowed to eat whenever you're hungry, as long as the food is on the list of healthy foods. You're encouraged to walk at least 30 minutes, 3-4 times a week (to reduce your craving for fatty food), something just about anyone can accomplish. My husband and I enjoyed eating this way over the weekend, and we think we've found something we can keep up. The book tends a lot toward the theoretical side, and less toward the practical side, but I enjoyed that. Many of the suggested recipes have lots of ingredients and aren't what you'd make for an average meal after a long day at work, but other than that, I really enjoyed the book! I might just have to buy my own copy, when this book becomes due at the library.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but flawed recipes
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent facts to support a non-hungry diet
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: We Oughta Know Better!
Review: 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?
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