Part 3

The answer is,--Yes! You will always have to keep up dieting, just as you always have to keep up other things in life that make it worth living--being neat, being kind, being tender; reading, studying, loving.

You will not have to be nearly so strenuous after you get to normal; but you might as well recognize now, and accept it as a fact, that neither you nor anybody else will be able to eat beyond your needs without accumulating fat or disease, or both.

I love Billy Sunday's classical answer to the objection that his conversions were not permanent. He responded: "Neither is a bath!"

WHEN YOU START TO REDUCE you will have the following to combat:

First: Your husband, who tells you that he does not like thin women. I almost hate my husband when I think how long he kept me under that delusion. Now, of course, I know all about his jealous disposition, and how he did not want me to be attractive.

Second: Your sister, who says, "Goodness, Lou, but you look old today; you looked lots better as you were."

Third: Your friends, who tell you that you are just right now; don't lose another pound! And other friends who tell you cheerful tales of people they have known who reduced, and who went into a decline, and finally died.

But you must not mind them. Smile, and tell them that you know all about it, and don't worry. Go serenely on your way, confident in your heart that you will look fully ten years younger when you get down to normal, no matter how you look in the interim. I don't see why women, and men, too, (secretly) worry so much about wrinkles. If the increased wrinkles on the face are accompanied by increased wrinkles in the gray matter, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. I'm sure I am much more interesting with wrinkles than I was without. I am to myself, anyway.

However, you will not be any more wrinkled if you reduce gradually, as I advise, and keep up your exercises at least fifteen minutes daily.

Take care of your face, alternate hot and cold water, glycerine one-quarter, rose water three-quarters, cold cream packs, massage gently, a little ice--you know what to do--you need not fear. You will not only look ten years younger and live twenty years longer--I assert it boldly--but your complexion and efficiency will be one hundred per cent better.

If there is anything comparable to the joy of taking in your clothes, I have not experienced it. And when you find your corset coming closer and closer together (I advise a front lace, so this can be watched), and then the day you realize that you will have to stitch in a tuck or get a new one!

But don't be in a hurry to make your clothes smaller now. If they are loose they will show to the world that you are reducing. A fat person in a tight suit, unless it is perfectly new, should be interned.

I have said that food, and food only, causes fat. That gives you the cue to what you must do to get rid of it. No anti-fat medicines unless under the supervision of your scientific, educated physician. They are dangerous; most of them contain thyroid extract, arsenic, or mercury. Even the vendors of these harmful compounds in their advertisements are now saying to "stop harmful drugging," but urge you to adopt their particular delightful product, and, "without dieting or exercises, you will positively reduce," and so forth.

No drastic purges, no violent exercises, especially at first, and not too frequent nor prolonged Turkish baths. Epsom salts baths have little effect. If salts are used habitually internally, they are harmful. All of these are unscientific and unsuccessful, and the things they bring on are worse than the fat.

Now, if food is the only source of body substance, you see that you must study that question, and that is what I will give you--some lessons on foods and their values.

Heretofore you have known only in a dumb, despairing sort of way that all the foods you like are fattening, and all the advice you read and hear is that you must avoid them as a pestilence. And you settle down to your joyless fatness, realizing that it is beyond human strength to do that forever, and that you would rather die young and fat, anyway, than to have nothing to eat all your life but a little meat, fish, and sloshy vegetables. Study on, and you will find the reason your favorite foods are fattening.

But cast off your dejection. You don't have to avoid them!

Eat what you like and grow thin? Yes; follow me. I know it will be an exertion, but you must persist and go through with it. Nothing in life worth while is attained without some effort. So begin now; it is the price of liberty.

Review

1. Give rule for normal weight.

2. How much excess food have you stored away?

3. Why more important than ever to reduce?

4. Why are fat individuals fireless cookers?

5. Give causes of excess fat.

NOTE: The Reviews which follow the chapters are important and the questions should be answered. To get the full benefit, Little Book must be studied, for it is the only authorized textbook of the "Watch Your Weights."

Key to the Calories

Some one page the thin? They come back here.

Definition to learn: