DIET AND HEALTH BOOK: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL - PAGE 10

Autobiographical - Diet and Health - Page 10

Chapter 9

I did not give our thin friends a sample menu for fear it would upset
them; but nothing can upset your digestion, I know. However, I will not
give you a sample menu, either, but will tell you what I eat when I go
on a reduction regime, which for me is 1200 Calories.

(Webmaster's Note:  Many valid weight reduction plans actually hit right
around this figure.  Going too far below can cause other things to happen
to the body which may actually defeat one's weight loss plans.  This is one
reason why diets don't work.)

You will notice, most of my calories I have at dinner in the evening.
You may not like this, but would rather have yours spread over the
entire day; and you can suit your fancy, for it makes no difference as
long as your total number per day stays within your reduction limit.

Make Out Several Menus if You Like

Don't think you have to follow my menu. You might gain on it! Study the
Key and select your own.

Many will lose by going on the no-breakfast plan, or the no-lunch plan.
If they do reduce, it is because they have lowered their daily
consumption of food, and not because of the no-breakfast or no-lunch
plan _per se._

(Webmaster's Note: While individuals are different and what works for
one may not work for another, research tends to show that for most of
us, breakfast is an important meal.  I wrote and published an article about
this entitled: Weight Loss: Does Breakfast Count? which you may want to
take a look at.)

Fat seems to melt faster when the chief meal is in the middle of the
day, and with only 200 or 300 calories of fruit for the evening meal. In
this way you slim while you sleep.


MY BREAKFAST

     1 slice very dry coarse bread toast
       1/4 in. thick                            50 C.
     Butter, 1/4 cu. in                         25 C.
     Hot water flavored with coffee             00 C.
                                                -----
         Total                                  75 C.

Slim While You Sleep! Clever?

You may prefer many more calories for breakfast, or none at all. This
may not look good to you, but it means an awful lot in my young life,
after my exercise and bath, to sit down to my little breakfast and read
the papers.

Recently I have found that two cups of moderately hot water with the
juice of a lemon answers just as well as the toast and watery coffee,
and is probably better. You might like some fruit.


MY LUNCHEON

     1 corn muffin--I am patriotic             125 C.
     1 pat butter                              100 C.
     1 cup coffee with 1 tbsp. cream            50 C.
                                               ------
         Total                                 275 C.

If you are patriotic and constipated, substitute one bran muffin. You
can see that this is in reality a further extension of my sumptuous
breakfast. If I get tired of this, I add a salad of

     Lettuce, large amount, practically         00 C.
     Roquefort cheese dressing                 100 C.

I am very fond of this Roquefort cheese dressing; 1-1/8in. cube of
cheese in a little vinegar, no oil, keeps it within the hundred calories.

You might prefer a baked apple or two tomatoes, or a dish of prunes, or
3 oz. of cottage cheese. The chief thing is to take what you like, not
what I like. Count your calories.


MY DINNER

I Don't Mean Your Husband's Dessert, I Mean My Husband's. My
Word! I Got Out of That Quick!

     Vegetable soup, or bouillon, no fat;
       or small oyster cocktail                 25 C.
     Lean meat, or "unthinking" lobster
       or fish, 5 or 6 oz                      300 C.
     Large serving of uncooked lettuce or
       cabbage, practically                     00 C.
     Mayonnaise or oil, 1/2 dsp                 50 C.
     1 large dish tomatoes, or cauliflower,
       or string beans, or carrots, or turnips
       (I hate turnips--just put them
       down so you can see you can have
       them if you like)                        25 C.
     1 medium slice bread, or 1 medium
       potato                                  100 C.
     1 pat butter                              100 C.
     100 calories of your husband's dessert    100 C.
     Water                                      00 C.
     1 cup cereal coffee, clear, practically    00 C.
                                             --------
     Total                                     700 C.


SUMMARY

     Breakfast 75 C.
     Luncheon including salad 375 C.
     Dinner 700 C.
                                             -------
                                              1150 C.

That leaves me 50 more calories to total 1200, to take before retiring
if I am hungry. You should leave this 50 calories to take before
retiring, because if you are hungry you will find it very difficult to
go to sleep.

A small cup of hot skimmed milk tends to be a sedative. Hunger, like
cold feet, is hard to go to sleep on.

For Both Sexes

_If there is one thing more important than another, it is thorough
mastication._

Sometimes I Take More Than 100 Calories of My Husband's
Dessert. I Love Fat Men, But I Don't Want to Be Married to 'Em

This applies to the thin as well as to the fat, and to the child as well
as to the adult. Take a moderate mouthful and rassel with it until it is
automatically swallowed. Chew until it is all gone before you put any
more in your mouth. There is no better way of jollying yourself into
thinking that you have had all you want than this Fletcherizing habit,
and it takes the same time to consume one-half the amount of food you
have been in the habit of eating.

(Webmaster's Note:  Horace Fletcher (1849 - 1919) advocated thorough
chewing, i.e. mastication, of one's food.)

I will allow you all the water you want, in reason; in fact, I advise it
while you are reducing, both at the meals and between meals. The only
precaution is that at the meals it should not be drunk while food is in
the mouth, for this would tend to lessen thorough mastication.

(Webmaster's Note:  This part about the water is good, even if you are NOT
"on a diet"..You might want to read my article Water, Your Metabolism, and
Weight Loss.)

Now, Madam and Madam's husband, when are you going to begin this
important business of reducing? After the holidays? Tomorrow? _No!
Right now._ The sooner you get started, the better. The chief thing to
do, and the hardest, is to get started and to get the habit. After the
first three days you will not dread it; in fact; you will feel so much
better that you will not be willing to go back to your old habits of
overeating.

Now let's review a bit what you are to do.

Plan the Day Before

First: Pledge yourself to yourself, and to someone else, so you will be
ashamed to fail. There is a great deal of psychology to reducing. Use
strong auto-suggestion. Decide just how much you are going to eat in
advance of the meal--so many calories, _no more!_ This sounds foolish,
but it helps wonderfully.

Second: Begin with a fast or a low caloric diet for the first day; keep
it, if necessary, one day weekly.

Low Bridge on Fats and Pastries

Third: Study food list and make out menus the caloric totals of which
_are less_ than your maintenance diet. Have a fairly balanced diet, some
fat, some carbohydrates, some protein, and a good amount of green
vegetables and fruit. _Have 200-300 C's of protein._

(Webmaster Note:  Meal planning is another recommended weight loss
technique.  In our modern era when so few meals are actually "planned"
many companies such as Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, and Diet to Go have
emerged which provide not only planned meals, but prepared meals.)

Fourth: Masticate every morsel with such thoroughness that it is
automatically swallowed.

Fifth: Keep up your activities--Red Cross and other relief work.

Sixth: Remember that you will feel good in your little heart when you
resist temptation to overeat, and when you don't, you won't feel good
anywhere.

Seventh: Some vigorous exercise every day.

There Is Life Substance and Intelligence in Chocolate
Creams!

NOTE: If there comes a time when you think you will die unless you have
some chocolate creams, go on a c.c. debauch. I do, occasionally, and
will eat as many as ten or so; but I take them before dinner, then me
for the balance of my dinner--

     1 bowl of clear soup                       25 C.
     1 cracker                                  25 C.
                                               ------
     Total                                      50 C.

And thus, you see, every supposed pleasure in sin (eating) will furnish
more than its equivalent of pain (dieting) until belief in material life
(chocolate creams) is destroyed.


Review

1. Describe your stomach.

2. If there is one thing more important than another, what is it?

3. Repeat the five orders in chapter 8.

4. Repeat the warnings.

5. Work the following example:

     X gains 25 pounds during the year.
     How many calories has he averaged
     daily over his maintenance diet?

KEY:

       25 lbs. fat = 400 oz. fat.
       1 oz. fat represents 275 C. food consumed.
       400 oz. = 400 x 275, or 110,000 C.
       110,000 ÷ 365 = 301 C.
     _Answer_. X has eaten 301 C. per day more
         than necessary.

6. How many calories have you averaged daily over your maintenance diet?
And what could you have left off your menu and kept from gaining all
that weight?

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P. S. If you want to learn more about why Diets Don't Work, please click here.

If you want to learn how to burn fat, a great book to read is Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto