Diet and Health Part 16

12

Maintenance Diet and Conclusions

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 [1000255 (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 ill.u.s.trated 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 succ.u.mb. 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 b.u.t.ter), 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.

Then came our withdrawal from Albania and release from duty. After months of canned goods came Paris with its famous dishes; Creme d'Isigny avec creme! Artichauts an beurre! Patisseries francaises! Oo lala! Again I said calories be _dashed_! I can reduce when I get home. I had no delusions now, you see.