Part 15

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: