Gut Buster Diet

"Gut Busters" is a diet and exercise program book created by bodybuilder Joyce L. Vedral that speaks mostly to men. You can do the exercises in this book without any special equipment or a gym membership and can shop at the grocery store for the low-fat foods recommended. Always consult a health care provider before trying any new diet or exercise plan.

History

Vedral is a former English professor who became so overweight that she felt embarrassed to stand in front of her students. She attempted a variety of workout plans and diets before discovering bodybuilding. She became a certified personal trainer after that and began penning books and creating DVDs meant to bring bodybuilding techniques to "real people," according to Vedral's website. Vedral released "Gut Busters" in 1992. At the time the book was written, low-fat diets were en vogue. In fact, the low-fat approach was an overarching ideology that was promoted by the federal government, doctors, the popular health media and the food industry.

Time Frame

This book focuses mainly on the exercise component and does not provide a large amount of information on the diet. You are supposed to do the workout Vedral outlines four to six days a week. She says you only need to commit to 15 minutes of stomach exercises on each of these days, and gives you seven exercises to perform. You do three sets of 15 to 25 repetitions of each exercise. When you've created the stomach you want, you can move on to other body parts, the author advises. That will bump your workout time up to about 40 minutes. Though the book touts this as a 12-week plan, Vedral says you really need to make exercise and eating low-fat foods a priority for the rest of your life if you want to succeed in keeping the blubber off your midsection.

Considerations

The theory behind the low-fat diets of the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as the one Vedral advocates, has been disproven. In the early 1990s dietary fat was considered "evil" and consuming a low-fat diet was believed to be the best way to lose weight or keep pounds off and to prevent heart disease and some cancers, according to Harvard Medical School. However, research has since disproved the low-fat hypothesis, showing it does not bring about such benefits, say the experts at Harvard, noting that newer scientific evidence shows the type of fat you consume is more important than the amount of fat you consume. For example, if you replace trans and saturated fats with natural vegetable oil you can cut your risk for diabetes and heart disease.

Theories/Speculation

At the time "Gut Busters" was written Vedral subscribed to the theory that, when dieting for bodybuilding or weight loss, you should get less than 10 percent of your calories from fat. In a later book, the "Bone-Building, Body-Shaping Workout," penned in 1998, Vedral recants cutting fat intake to below 10 percent a day, saying it leaves you too hungry to succeed with the diet, and advocates cutting fat intake to 15 percent of calories instead. In general, the low-fat diets of the early 1990s limited to less than 20 percent.of your caloric intake. The theory behind this was that by eating fat, you get fat. Part of the reason this theory evolved is that fat has more calories per gram than carbs or proteins, which each have four calories per gram. Fat has nine calories per gram. Vedral also believed that consuming fat would slow your metabolism.

Features

While abdominal exercises will strengthen your midsection, performing them without dieting will not eliminate your gut, Vedral tells dieters. In lieu of calculating what percent of calories in your diet comes from fat, in the early 1990s Vedral advised keeping fat intake to no more than 30g but that limiting fat intake to 20g is better when dieting. Also, she suggested avoiding any food that is more than 25 percent fat. This automatically keeps your calorie count low and helps you achieve a low-fat diet, the author says. Vedral does not advise dieters to count calories either, though she notes you should not starve yourself or go below the 1,000 calorie a day mark.