Diet and Health Part 12

This for a few minutes, followed by this, the hot preferably at night.

8

At Last! How to Reduce

The t.i.tle of this chapter indicates to whom it is addressed. All others please refrain from reading, for it is strictly private and confidential, and is intended only for those who need it.

You thin and you normal had better save it, though, for you may qualify later. You are keeping right on reading now! I'm surprised. I wanted to tell my fat friends that the first thing they have to do is to get control of their will power, and now I can't do it.

Somehow, will power with a layer of fat on it gets feeble. Don't laugh, you too thin! It gets worse than feeble, if there is no fat at all and the nervous system is starved, it--well, I won't say what it does, for I don't want to worry you.

[Sidenote: _Now That Order Is Restored I Will Resume_]

Will power, being feeble to a greater or less degree, must be bolstered and aided a bit, to begin with, so--

_First Order_

[Sidenote: _Watch Your Weight!_]

[Sidenote: _Nature Always Counts_]

Tell loudly and frequently to all your friends that you realize that it is unpatriotic to be fat while many thousands are starving, that you are going to reduce to normal, and will be there in the allotted time. If you belong to a club, round up the overweights and form a section. Call it the "Watch Your Weight--Anti-Kaiser Cla.s.s." Tax the members sufficiently to buy a good, accurate pair of scales. Meet once a week to weigh. Wear approximately the same weight clothes, and weigh at the same time in relation to eating. Do this whether or not you belong to a club.

Once or twice a week is often enough to weigh. Scales vary, so try to use the same ones.

Don't be discouraged if some day after you have dieted well you seem to have gained. Nature sometimes seems fiendish that way. The excess weight is probably due to a retention of water, and will not be permanent.

However, don't depend upon this too often! Usually, if you have gained when you think you ought not to, it is because Nature has been counting calories and you haven't.

Have the members listed on a weight chart conspicuously placed near the scales, and record accurately the weight weekly.

+-------------------------------------------------------+ | WATCH YOUR WEIGHT ANTI-KAISER CLa.s.s | +-------------------------------------------------------+ | |Normal| Weight on | +------------------+------+-----------------------------+ | Members' Names |Weight|Date|Date|Date|Date|Date|Date| +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | +------------------+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+

[Sidenote: _No Funds for the Red Cross_]

Those not reducing at least one pound per week to be fined soundly and the proceeds given to the Red Cross. That won't be a good way to raise funds for the chapter, though, for there will be no fines after the first week or so, when the members find what their maintenance diet should be and are consuming less than that.

I will explain this maintenance diet business. You shameless thin ones, call back your more polite comrades--this is important for all of you.

(I shall also tell you more fully about this in the last chapter.)

[Sidenote: _Maintenance Diet_]

The maintenance diet is one which maintains you at your present weight, _i.e.,_ you are not gaining or losing. You may be over or under normal, but are staying there. The intake equals the outgo.

When you eat less than your maintenance diet, you are going to supply the deficiency with your own fat.

So commit yourself on your honor that you are going to reduce or perish--no joke; you can't tell how near you are to it if you are much overweight. There are two general stages of fatty heart. In the first stage the heart is surrounded by a blanket of fat, and it also penetrates between the muscles. Later, if it goes on too long, the heart muscle itself degenerates to fat, then--

[Sidenote: _Good-night!_]

Shakespeare warns you to make thy body less, hence thy grace more; leave gormandizing, and know that the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.

_Second Order_

[Sidenote: _Shrink Your Stomach_]

Your stomach, long used to an excess of food for your needs--it may not be a large amount--but still, I repeat, being used to an excess of food for your needs, your stomach must be disciplined. It is undoubtedly distended, as it should not be.

[Sidenote: _Shrink Your Stomach_]

A good way to show it that you are master is to fast for at least one day--drink nothing but pure water, hot or cold, as you prefer. It will protest vociferously and will tell all its friends, the different organs of your body, how you are persecuting it, and they will join the league against you and decide they will oust you from your position, and you will feel like--but don't mind it; it will soon know that you mean business, and, much chastened and considerably contracted, will take the next day a very small amount of food very gratefully.

[Sidenote: _Shrink Your Stomach_]

If you do not want to be so severe with it you can allow it five gla.s.ses of hot or cold skim milk or b.u.t.termilk, one every three hours, say, at 10,1,4,7, and 10 o'clock. One gla.s.s is 80 calories, five equal 400 calories, which is not so much.

[Sidenote: _Or Mashed_]

The baked potato and gla.s.s of skim milk diet, three times a day one day a week, which has its devotees, depends upon its low caloric content for its results. There is no magic in it, no yeast business which reduces.

This is most wholesome, however, for potatoes contain a large amount of the pota.s.sium salts, which tend to counteract the effects of uric acid, and thus are good for the gouty type.

[Sidenote: _Mono-Diets_]

The beefsteak, the milk, and the fruit diets are also good. One can gain as well as lose on the milk diet, all depending on number of calories consumed, and it is an excellent method for both. The beefsteak diet is beneficial for a short time, but too much protein over a long period has been shown to be harmful. An exclusive fruit diet is excellent for reduction.

Low calorie days can be repeated once a week if necessary in order to keep the stomach in good order. Fruit juice, one-quarter gla.s.s, or fresh fruit, can be subst.i.tuted for the skim milk, and you may prefer it.

[Sidenote: _But You Do Not Have To_]

You could keep on this for some time, or fast for some time, and probably be much benefited. I fasted five days once, or rather fruit-juiced five days. I lost about ten pounds, I think, and my heart, which had begun to carry on, was relieved.

[Sidenote: _Sob Stuff_]

It was during that period of which I have spoken, and of which I am ashamed; for I had my M.D. degree then and should have known better. But you know we have good authority that it is easier to teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of twenty to follow our own teaching.

_Third Order_

[Sidenote: _You Are Down to Business_]

[Sidenote: _And Maybe Diabetes_]

Now you will have to reckon on the amount of food or number of calories you need per day. Review the rule I have given. You find for your age and _normal weight_ that you will need, let us say for example, 2200 calories. You have probably been consuming twice that amount and either storing it away as fat or as disease. (It is surprising how small an excess will gradually add up pounds of fat. For instance, three pats of b.u.t.ter or three medium chocolate creams a day, if over the maintenance limit, would add approximately _27 pounds a year_ to your weight!)

Now you are to reduce your maintenance diet--the 2200 calories we are taking for example--to 1200 calories--quite a comfortable lot, you will find.