change. I find that dry lemon or orange peel, or those little aromatic
breath sweeteners, just a tiny bit, seem to stop the hunger pangs; or
you may have a cup of fat-free bouillon or half an apple, or other low
calorie food. (Count the calories here.)
One thousand calories less food per day equals four ounces of fat lost
daily--approximately 8 pounds per month. If you do not want to lose so
fast, do not cut down so much.
_Fourth Order_
[Sidenote: _You Register Joy_]
You may eat just what you like--candy, pie, cake, fat meat, butter,
cream--but--_count your calories!_ You can't have many nor large
helpings, you see; but isn't it comforting to know that you can eat
these things? Maybe some meal you would rather have a 350-calorie piece
of luscious pie, with a delicious 150-calorie tablespoonful of whipped
cream on it, than all the succulent vegetables Luther Burbank could
grow in California.
My idea of heaven is a place with me and mine on a cloud of whipped
cream.
[Sidenote: _You Registered Too High_]
Now that you know you can have the things you like, proceed to make your
menus containing very little of them.
_Fifth Order_
This is going to be your chief business and pursuit in life for the next
few months, this reducing of your weight. However, keep up your Red
Cross and all other activities, fast and furiously, so that you won't be
thinking about yourself.
[Sidenote: _More Warnings_]
Don't reduce more than two or three pounds a week; two or less is
better. If you are too cannibalistic, your heart, kidneys and nervous
system are liable to suffer--you yourself are supplying too much fat in
your dietary, and there are other scientific reasons against reducing
too rapidly.
However, you may find that the first week or so you may reduce five or
seven pounds; but don't worry about this, for that is a slushy, watery
fat that goes easily.
If a claim like a cold should attack you, and after spraying nose and
throat frequently with an antiseptic, and then denying the claim
vigorously, it persists in running a severe course, better go back to
maintenance diet for a few days.
[Sidenote: _Not Even While Cooking_]
_Don't "taste"!_ You will find the second taste much harder to resist
than the first. If you have allowed in your daily program something
between meals (a good plan), take it, but not otherwise.
Try not to overeat at any time, and thus undo the work that perhaps has
taken you two or three days to accomplish. It will be all right
occasionally, possibly one day a week, to eat up to your maintenance
diet, but don't, I beg of you, go over it so that you will gain.
You will be tempted quite frequently, and you will have to choose
whether you will enjoy yourself hugely in the twenty minutes or so that
you will be consuming the excess calories, or whether you will dislike
yourself cordially for the two or three days you lose by your lack of
will power.
[Sidenote: _I Ought Not to Do This_]
I am afraid I am going to tell a story. I feel as though I were, and I
don't want to. It is one I heard years ago at a teachers' convention at
Riverside, when I was a tender, unsuspecting young school teacher, so
it is perfectly good, albeit senile--and it illustrates my point so
well--so well--well, you have to put yourself in the place of the little
chaps, Billie and Johnnie, of the kindergarten.
[Sidenote: _A Little Anatomical Story_]
It seems it was customary to bring a lunch, and Little-new-boy had come
without one. Teacher asked Billie would he share? No, sturdily; not he.
But little Johnnie, he would. Some time later, Johnnie, with a frantic
waving of his hand, and with just pride in his generosity, informed the
class that he had shared his lunch with Little-new-boy and he felt good
is his little heart.
Billie stood his ground and stoutly declared that he ate his and he felt
good in his little belly.
9
Autobiographical
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.
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.
[Sidenote: _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._
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.
[Sidenote: _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
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _For Both Sexes_]
_If there is one thing more important than another, it is thorough
mastication._
[Sidenote: _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.
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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _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._
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.
[Sidenote: _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?
10
Testimonials
[Sidenote: _From the Field_]
After you have reduced or gained, let me share your joys. Write me a
little note. You need not sign your name if you don't want to. I
anticipate the following:
DEAR DOCTOR:
I am so grateful to you, Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters, for what you have done
for me. After reading your book, "Diet and Health, with Key to the
Calories" my chronic case of meanness--I mean leanness--was absolutely
cured. My weight, which was ... now is ... and I am on my way to normal.
I am fond of you.
* * * * *
DEAREST DOCTOR:
I cannot be too grateful to you, dear Doctor Lulu Hunt Peters, for your
book "Diet and Health, with Key to the Calories," for I have lost ...
pounds! My weight was ... and now is ... and I am on my way to normal.
I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not mention that while reading
the book a chronic case of dammdruff which I had had for years, and
which had been given up by six specialists, was absolutely cured. I
adore you!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _A Wonderful Demonstration_]
DEAR DOCTOR:
For your book, "Diet and Health, with Key to the Calories," words are
inadequate to express my thanks. For I have been delivered from a
chronic affliction of many years' duration, for which I had tried all
known methods of cure. I refer to the smoking of cheap cigars by my
husband. He suddenly found he had no desire for the noxious weed! Your
arm and leg exercises are wonderful.
* * * * *
11
An Apology and Some Amendments
On re-reading this literary gem, humorous classic, and scientific
treatise on weight reduction and gaining, I see that I have a very
intimate mixture of the thins and the fats. But that is as it should be
for balance. I had intended to keep you strictly separate, but the
preaching, the exercises, the dry definitions, the Key to the Calories,
and so forth, was matter that was applicable to both, so it could not be
done.
[Sidenote: _Watch Your Weight_]
I have just got to bring this to a close now, if I have it ready as I
promised, for the lecture, "Watch Your Weight!" I am glad of it, too. I
am getting so ... funny it is painful. I will close with the next
chapter. It will be beautifully scientific, but not funny, I promise.
_Some Amendments_
[Sidenote: _No. 1_]
You perhaps have noticed that my first chapter is called "Preliminary
Bout," and then I have gone on to describe a club meeting. I am aware
that P.B. is a prize fighting term, and I meant it for the picture of me
fighting myself, not for the club meeting. I have attended many club
meetings, and in none of them have I ever seen any fighting that would
have taken any prize anywhere, although I will say I have seen and have
myself personally conducted some very classy stuff.
[Sidenote: _No. 2_]
I do not use slang. I use only the purest, most refined, and cultured
English. I leave slang to those who can get by with it and put it over.
So where I have used dashes you may use your favorite slang words. Mine
were deleted by the censors.
[Sidenote: _No. 3 (a)_]
Mrs. Ima Gobbler is not really fat enough to be called a fat--! She is
only 40 or 50 pounds overweight, but she is fond of me and I took
liberties with her. She is a darling.
[Sidenote: _No. 3 (b)_]
She is a purist, too. I called her up after I put her in my book, and I
said, "You are fond of me, aren't you, Mrs. Gobbler?" And she said,
"Youbetcha." "And you are a good sport, aren't you?" "Surest thing you
know!" "That's good, for I have said a horrid thing to you. I had to,
in order to stop the club discussion." And she responded soulfully, "Go
to it, Kid!"
[Sidenote: _No. 4_]
Mrs. Sheesasite's husband did not really have to buy her a pair of
freight scales; that is just a gentle josh. The ordinary scales will
weigh 300 pounds, I believe. She is also a dear.
[Sidenote: _No. 5_]
My husband's eyes are not really green, nor is he cross-eyed. They are
the loveliest, softest brown. The green eyes belong on the maternal side
of this house.
[Sidenote: _No. 6_]
My artist is not really noted. He is just an ordinary adorable
ten-year-old boy kiddie. Aren't his little figures the dearest ever?
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Doing My Bit_]
All the characters in my book are friends of mine. Perhaps you had
better substitute _were_ for _are_. There was one woman mentioned in my
original manuscript and my husband said what have you put her in for
Pattie? (a corruption of Pettie, a H.moon hangover) she is no friend of
yours: she knocks you. And I said loftily like, I want you to know Ijit
(corruption of Idiot, also a H.moon hangover) I am above personalities
she is prominent and besides she is fat especially in the feet and head
and she doesn't know it and he said that doesn't make any difference you
do not have to immortalize her and I said I would look up the
authorities on the subject and he said he was authority enough and I
said I would see what the other authorities said anyway and I did and I
found one most eminent that said you should love your enemies but none
that said you should immortalize them so I said I'd drop her and he said
he should say so and so I did.
[Illustration: Dear Enemy Unimmortalised]
--All the characters in my book are friends of mine. Perhaps you had
better substitute _were_ for _are_.
12
Maintenance Diet and Conclusions
[Illustration: Maintenance Diet 1000 C. over 1000 C. under]
[Sidenote: _1st Circle_]
THE HEAVY circle represents the amount of daily food (number of
calories) which will maintain you at present weight. It may be your
weight is too much or too little, but this is your maintenance diet for
that weight.
[Sidenote: _2nd Circle_]
THE SECOND circle represents a daily diet containing more than necessary
for maintenance; for example, let us say 1000 calories more. This 1000
calories of food is equivalent to approximately 4 ounces of fat
[1000/255 (1 oz. fat = 255 C.)]; 4 ounces of fat daily equals 8 pounds a
month which will be added to your weight, and, if not needed by the
system, will deposit itself as excess fat.
Or the toxins arising from the unnecessary food will irritate the blood
vessels, causing arterio-sclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which in
turn may cause kidney disease, heart disease, or apoplexy (rupture of
artery in the brain), and maybe death before your time.
On the other hand, if you are underweight and the added nourishment is
gradually worked up to, it will improve the health and cause a gain of
so much (theoretically, and in reality if kept up long enough).
[Sidenote: _3d Circle_]
THE THIRD circle represents a diet containing less than the maintenance;
again, for example, say 1000 calories less. Here the 1000 calories must
be taken from the body tissue, and fat is the first to go, for fat is
virtually dead tissue.
This 4 ounces of fat daily which will be supplied by your body equals in
six months 48 pounds.
There are in America hundreds of thousands of overweight individuals;
not all so much overweight as this, but some considerably more so. If
these individuals will save 1000 calories of food daily by using their
stored fat, think what it would mean at this time.
[Sidenote: _Savings_]
Not only an immense saving of food to be sent to our soldiers and allies
and the starving civilians, and of money which could be used for Liberty
Bonds, the Red Cross, and other war relief work, but a great saving and
a great increase in power; for there is no doubt that by reducing as
slowly and scientifically as I have directed, efficiency and health will
be increased one hundred fold.
If, as illustrated in the third circle, the 1000 calories or less is
eaten and the individual already is underweight, with no excess fat,
then this amount will be taken from the muscles and the more vital
tissues, and the organism will finally succumb. Before this time is
reached there will be a great lowering of resistance, and the individual
will be a prey to the infectious diseases.
It must be remembered that in children the growth of the whole body is
tremendously active, and especially that of the heart and nervous
system.
If the nervous system is undernourished, it becomes disorganized and
undeveloped. This is apt to be expressed in uncertain emotional states,
quick tempers, and a predisposition to convulsions. The heart, if
undernourished, lays its foundation for future heart disease, and the
whole system will be injured for life.
Anything that impairs the vigor and vitality of children strikes at the
basis of national welfare.
[Sidenote: _The Food Administration Emphasizes This_]
You can see from this how extremely important it is that, in our need
for the conservation of food, only those who can deny themselves and at
the same time improve their health and efficiently should do it. It will
be no help in our crisis if the health and resistance of our people be
lowered and the growth and development of our children be stunted.
We, the hundreds of thousands of overweight citizens, combined with the
hundreds of thousands of the normal who are overeating to their ill, can
save all the food that is necessary. We are anxious, willing, eager to
do this. Now we know how, and we will.
_Food Will Win the War_
WATCH OUR WEIGHT!
13
Three Years Later
_February, 1, 1921_
An Added Chapter in Which Are Offered Twenty-one Suggestive Menus
After nearly two years with the American Red Cross in the Balkans I
return to find the little book has been carrying on in my absence--I
write this for the fifth edition--and my publishers insisting that I
must furnish some more menus. They affirm that there are many who do not
care to or cannot figure out their own.
After being so long under military discipline I obey now instinctively,
although I do not want to do this. But you know publishers. They say
that if there are menus for those who do not have the desire to compute
them, the usefulness of the book will be increased. Publishers are so
altruistic.
Now far be it from me to scorn the possibility of increased sales
myself. So I comply, and after you are reduced you will have the energy
and the increased keenness to scout around in the calories and make out
your own.
* * * * *
A little of my Balkan experience in the reducing line may not be amiss.
In Albania, where I was stationed most of the time, life is very
strenuous. We all had to work hard and expend a great deal of nervous
energy. Medical calls on foot in the scorching sun over unkind
cobblestones, long distance calls on unkinder mules, long hours in
nerve-racking clinics, ferocious man-eating mosquitos, scorpions,
centipedes, sandflies, and fleas, and other unspeakable animals kept us
hopping and slapping and scratching.
But there was one consolation to me. With this work, more intensive and
more strenuous than I had ever done before, I would not have to diet--I
would not have to watch my weight--I would not have to count my
calories! Oh, joy!
We lived a community life, we Red Crossers. We had plain blunt food,
American canned mostly, supplemented with the fare that could be eked
out of Albania, and cooked by an Albanese who could not be taught that
we Americans were not Esquimos and did not like food swimming in fat.
However, it tasted good to famished Red Crossers, and I ate three meals
a day, confident that I would retain my girlish middle-aged slenderness
and not have to diet. We had no scales and no mirrors larger than our
hand mirrors. Our uniforms were big and comfortable.
* * * * *
The French who are in charge of Scutari depart, the officers leaving to
us some of their furniture, including a full length French plate mirror.
Ordinarily when I look in a full-length mirror I don't hate myself so
much--so it is with some degree of anticipated pleasure that I
complacently approach, to get a life-size reflection of myself after
many months of deprivation of that pleasure.
"_Mon Dieu!_" I exclaim. "_Bogomi_!" (Serbian--'For the love of Allah!')
"This is no mirror," I mutter. "This is one of those musee things that
make you look like a Tony Sarg picture of Irvin Cobb."
"What's irritating you, Dockie?" asks one of the girls, coming up and
standing back of me. I look at her reflection. She does not look like
Irvin Cobb!
"Peggy," I say tragically, "Peggy, do I look like my reflection?"
"Yes, dear, we have all noticed how stout you have been getting. Aren't
you supposed to be some shark on the subject of ideal weight?"
And the bitter truth is borne in upon me--no matter how hard I work--no
matter how much I exercise, no matter what I suffer, I will always have
to watch my weight, I will always have to count my calories.
This is what I did then:
I stopped going to the breakfast table. I kept some canned milk and
coffee in my room, and made me two cups of coffee. For lunch I ate
practically what I wanted, limiting myself to one slice of bread or one
potato (we had no butter), with fruit for dessert. For dinner I came
down only when the dessert was being served, and had a share of that
with some coffee. I was jeered and derided. You know how in community
life we all are as disagreeable as we like, and still love each other.
Did not I know the desserts were the most fattening part of the meal? I
was some authority on how to reduce, I was!
In vain I told them that it did not matter so long as my total caloric
intake did not equal the number that I needed. It was not until some
months after, when they saw that I was normal weight again, that they
began to realize I knew whereof I spoke.