Ann Louise Gittleman

Ann Louise Gittleman
Born	(1949-06-27) 27 June 1949 Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Education	Connecticut College,Teachers College, Columbia University
Known for	The Fat Flush Diet

Ann Louise Gittleman is an American nutritionist, author, columnist, and public speaker. She is the author of thirty books on various aspects of health and healing, including the 2003 New York Times bestseller, Before the Change. Gittleman is best known, for The Fat Flush Plan a diet and exercise program which spawned a series of books by the same name.

Education

Gittleman was born June 27, 1949 in Hartford, Connecticut. She graduated from Connecticut College in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in English.

She received teaching and principal certification from Hebrew Union College in 1976 and also completed a Dietetic Technician program at New York Institute of Dietetics in the same year.

In 1977, she graduated with a Master's degree In Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

She earned a Certified Nutrition Specialist credential from the American College of Nutrition, a non-profit nutritionist organization, in 1993.

In 2002 she earned a PhD in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in Birmingham, Alabama.

Early career

From 1974 to 1976, Gittleman served in private practice as a nutritionist in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. She also conducted nutritional seminars for women’s organizations, community centers, state conventions, and church groups.

After obtaining her Master's from Columbia, she became chief nutritionist for the Pediatric Clinic at the Bellevue Hospital. She later worked as a bilingual WIC nutritionist at a Yale University satellite clinic, the Hill Health Center in New Haven, Connecticut, counseling teens and expectant young mothers.

Gittleman has served as nutrition director of the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Monica, California.

During her years as a private nutritionist, and while serving as Nutritional Director at the Pritikin Longevity Center she began to develop her own program that later became The Fat Flush Plan.

She also became a celebrity spokesperson through the 1990s for companies including BeautiControl, Balance Bar, Vitamin Shoppe, Erdic International, Spectrum Oils, Barleans, and Arkopharma.

In 1995 Gittleman was chosen as "the Rujuvex Woman", and she was a spokesperson for Rujuvex the first Menopause product on the market. Gittleman was chosen for this product specifically for her books Beyond Pritikin, Super Nutrition for Women and Super Nuturition for Menopause

The Fat Flush Plan

After leaving the Pritikin Longevity Center in 1982, Gittleman began tracking the progress of patients during her career as a private nutritionist. In her first book Beyond Pritikin, she makes note of her time at the Pritikin Longevity Center, where they adhered to the popular no-to-low-fat, high complex carbohydrate dietary model of the day. She made the case that the right kind of fat- from the Omega fatty acids - was critical to overall health, wellbeing, and weight loss whereas the unnatural trans fats from margarine, and shortening were the fats behind ill health. She states "Pritikin said fat was the problem. I was seeing fat as the solution." She further asserts "the right kind, and the right amount of fat is essential for good health and lasting weight loss." This was a bold assumption, going against the accepted nutritional practices of the day. Gittleman also cited excessive intake of processed food, grain-based carbohydrates, and sugar as major dietary culprits behind weight gain and poor health. Beyond Pritikin gave birth to the origins of Gittleman's Fat Flush Plan.

In late 2001, she released her book The Fat Flush Plan, which became a New York Times Best Seller. Gittleman appeared on numerous television programs including 20/20, Dr. Phil, Good Morning America, and FitTV and The Early Show, to promote the book and The Fat Flush Plan diet. A contest presented on The View helped to cement the effectiveness and popularity of The Fat Flush Plan. The View presented a series on healthy weight loss, and chose three contestants to spend 4 weeks dieting, with each contestant following a different diet plan. Julie Gough the contestant chosen to follow Gittleman's The Fat Flush Plan was able to lose 13 pounds which beat out the other contestants therefore winning the contest.

She followed up the The Fat Flush Plan, with a series of books including The Fat Flush Cookbook, The Fat Flush Journal and Shopping Guide, Fat Flush Foods, and The Fat Flush Fitness Plan with Joanie Greggains.

Her book Fat Flush for Life was released in 2010 and is the most recent book in the The Fat Flush Plan series.

Later career

In 2004 she began writing a column for First for Women magazine that continued until 2013, covering various nutritional topics. Her work was also presented in Time Magazine, Newsweek, US Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, Vogue, Taste for Life, and McCalls.

In 2010 Gittleman released her most recent book Zapped! which is sub-titled Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn't Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution and is intended to be a guide to making the safest use of technologies such as wireless phones, some of her conclusions are controversial, but scientists and doctors are split as to the true long-term effects of these technologies. Many notable organizations have been taking a closer look at cell phone radiation, including the World Health Organization which has labeled cell phone radiation as a class 2B carcinogen. In 2012 the American Academy of Pediatrics urged the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its radiation standards.

She sits on the medical advisory boards of the American Menopause Association, the Health Sciences Institute, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Your Future Health, and The National Institute of Whole Health.

She is also on the Editorial Board for Taste for Life magazine.

She also sits on the advisory board for the International Institute for Building-Biology & Ecology.

Controversy

Despite the success of the Fat Flush Plan Gittlemans suggestion to detoxify as part of the Fat Flush Plan has made her diet the subject of criticism from nutritionists and doctors that adhere to a traditional diet and weight loss philosophy. Judith Stern, Sc.D, RD, has called the Fat Flush Plan "pseudoscience" that promises everything, but is "a fantasy".

Gittleman's recent book Zapped has been met with skepticism by mainstream reviewers for incorporating non-scientific and pseudo-scientific concepts to assert the danger of electromagnetic fields, as well as presenting evidence in a biased manner. Some have stated that there is a lack of research in the area of cell phone radiation, but much of the science has been subverted by studies paid for by the cell phone industry. Dr. Henry Lai speaks out about his research and the types of studies paid for by the cell phone industry. Back in 1995 Dr. Lai and a fellow researcher, Narendra “N.P.” Singh, were looking at the effects of nonionizing microwave radiation—the same type of radiation emitted by cell phones—on the DNA of rats. They used a level of radiation considered safe by government standards and found that the DNA in the brain cells of the rats was damaged—or broken—by exposure to the radiation. Dr. Lai has been attacked in similar ways to AnLouise for raising questions regarding the safety of cell phone radiation.

Books

Gittleman is a best selling author of over 30 books about health and nutrition topics including diet, detox, cleansing and parasites, women's health, men's health, menopause, beauty, and environmental health.

• Gittleman, A.L. (2010). Zapped. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-186427-8.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2010). Fat Flush for Life. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-7382-1366-7. Top 10 Notable New Diet Books of 2010 by Time Magazine
• Gittleman, A.L. (2008). The Gut Flush Plan. Avery. ISBN 978-1-61556-812-3.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2008). Get the Sugar Out (Revised and Updated). Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-39485-9.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2005). The Fast Track Detox Diet. Morgan Road Books/Doubleday Broadway. ISBN 978-0-7679-2046-9.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2005). Hot Times (Revised and Updated). Avery. ISBN 1-58333-214-6.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2005). The Fast Track One-Day Detox Diet. Morgan Road Books/Doubleday Broadway. ISBN 978-0-7393-2020-4.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2004). The Fat Flush Foods. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-144068-4.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2004). Super Nutrition for Women (Revised and Updated). Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-38250-1.
• Gittleman, A.L. and Greggains, J. (2004). The Fat Flush Fitness Plan. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-142312-5.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2003). Before the Change (Revised and Updated). HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 978-0-06-056087-4. New York Times Bestseller
• Gittleman, A.L. (2003). The Complete Fat Flush Program. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-710413-9.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2003). The Fat Flush Cookbook. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-143367-9.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2003). The Fat Flush Journal and Shopping Guide. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-141497-5.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2002). The Fat Flush Plan. McGraw-Hill. ISBN The Fat Flush Plan (2002) ISBN 978-0-07-138383-7.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2001). Ann Louise Gittleman’s Guide to the 40/30/30 Phenomenon. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-658-01659-8.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2001). Guess What Came To Dinner? Parasites and Your Health (Revised and Updated). Avery. ISBN 978-1-58333-096-8.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2001). Eat Fat, Lose Weight Cookbook. Keats. ISBN 978-0-658-01220-4.
• Gittleman, A.L. (2000). The Living Beauty Detox Program. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 978-0-06-251628-2.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1999). Why Am I Always So Tired?. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 978-0-06-251594-0.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1999). Super Nutrition for Men. Avery. ISBN 978-0-89529-954-3.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1999). How to Stay Young and Healthy in a Toxic World. Keats. ISBN 978-0-87983-907-9.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1999). Eat Fat, Lose Weight. Keats. ISBN 978-0-87983-966-6.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1999). Overcoming Parasites. Avery. ISBN 978-0-89529-983-3.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1998). Super Nutrition for Menopause. Avery. ISBN 0-89529-877-5.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1998). Beyond Probiotics. Keats. ISBN 978-0-87983-977-2.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1998). The 40/30/30 Phenomenon. Keats. ISBN 978-0-87983-849-2.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1998). Before the Change. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 978-0-06-056087-4.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1997). Your Body Knows Best. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-87591-6
• Gittleman, A.L. (1996). Get the Salt Out. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-517-88654-0.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1996). Get the Sugar Out. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-517-88653-3.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1996). Beyond Pritikin (Revised and Updated). Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-57400-5.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1993). Guess What Came To Dinner? Parasites and Your Health. Avery. ISBN 978-0-89529-570-5.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1991). Super Nutrition for Women. Avery. ISBN 978-0-553-35328-0.
• Gittleman, A.L. (1988). Beyond Pritikin. Bantam. ISBN 978-0-553-27512-4.