Does the Low Fat Diet or Pritikin Diet to Lose Weight?

The Low Fat Diet or Pritikin Diet can be a double edged sword. While it does have several positive health benefits, I feel the negatives far outweigh the positives. Many have the common misconception that fat makes you fat. For most, carbs make you fat. Not all fats are created equal. Some have great health benefits and some clog your arteries. After doing a few hours of research, this is what I found out about the low fat diet.

Let’s start with the positives, glucose tolerance is not inhibited by otherwise ingested fatty acids; glycogen stores remain pretty full; kcal reduction is large. What does glycogen do you ask? It is main form of carbohydrate storage and it occurs primarily in the liver and muscle tissue. It is readily converted to glucose as needed by the body to satisfy its energy needs so you will have energy throughout the day with this diet.

Now onto the negatives, Low fat diets can depress Testosterone levels; all fats should not be collectively avoided ala omega-3 fatty acids which contribute to heart and vascular heath; avoiding fat is psychologically rough; limited dietary variety.

Animal proteins and eggs are avoided which makes it difficult to get your daily protein needs. There is also a potential fat + carb insulinogenic and lipogenic synergy due to the lack of protein which means basically, the fat + carb meal raises your insulin levels high and without the protein to aid it causes lipogenious response (lipogenic meaning The production of fat, either fatty degeneration or fatty infiltration; also applied to the normal deposition of fat or to the conversion of carbohydrate or protein to fat) This can actually make you gain weight.

Considering those on this low-fat diet cannot eat meat or eggs they often get their protein from soy products. This is bad because soy contains large amounts of compounds known as phytoestrogens, which are simply plant chemicals that mimic the action of animal estrogen. Now, phytoestrogens can affect mammalian cells in two ways. They can either bind to high-affinity, highly specific receptors in the cell nucleus which, in turn, attach to DNA regions of genes that lead to protein transcription, in effect acting as a real estrogen, or they can simply bind to these receptor sites and sit there, preventing real estrogen from getting its parking space and initiating transcription.

The first possible effect is highly undesirable if you're a male because estrogen, in addition to being the primary "female" hormone and responsible for a host of "feminizing" effects.

And the second possible effect is bad if you have a low level of estrogen in the first place, which would mean that the weak activity of the weak estrogen itself can exceed whatever estrogen activity is being blocked, leading to a net increase. High levels of estrogen in males can cause gynecomastia, and maybe even benign prostatic hypertrophy, or BPH. Concurrently, it can cause a rise in bodyfat in both men and women.

Woman may also need to supplement themselves with zinc or iron due to the meat restrictions. Women are naturally low in these minerals. Many women already have trouble getting enough protein in their diet and the low fat diet just makes it harder. Due to the meat restrictions the dieter will be low in essential vitamins and minerals so he or she should plan on taking a multi-vitamin each day.

It doesn't allow for snacking throughout the day and with the high carb intake it will continually spike and drop glucose levels, never letting them maintain a healthy level which will lead to a slow metabolism and high insulin levels. High fruit recommendations will make many people gain weight due to all of the sugar. Also, fruit juice is highly recommended which is an easy way to over-consume calories and increase body fat.

While the PritikinDiet claims to emphasize whole grain carbs, it does quite the contrary. When given a sample diet, foods that have both a high glycemic index and a high insulin index are given such as pancakes, English muffins, French rolls, and crackers.

At first sight the high vegetable recommendations are pleasing due to the high fiber needed when dieting, but upon further inspection they leave out foods with high fiber like spinach and instead include vegetables like corn and russet potatoes. Both of which are grains and have very high glycemic indexes. A glycemic index is a data table showing how many certain foods raise blood sugar levels.

I’ve analyzed the Low Fat Diet or Pritikin Diet extensively and did find several positive health benefits; however, I feel the negatives are too strong to overlook. Most tend to go high carb when using the low fat diet and this causes an increase in belly fat.