Diet and Health Part 10

[Sidenote: _Lost Calories_]

When you worry needlessly, notice how tense your muscles are. You are exercising them all of the time and using hundreds of calories of energy. You raise your blood pressure, the internal secretory glands may overact (re-read what I have said about these glands in the fat people), and thus many more calories are used. The intestinal secretions do not flow so freely, you have indigestion and do not a.s.similate your food, and thus hundreds more calories are lost.

It certainly is impossible to gain unless your food is a.s.similated.

[Sidenote: _Develop Poise_]

So the first thing you have to learn is this mental control and to relax. Remember that word, relax. After you are better nourished your nervous system will not be on hair-trigger tension, and it will be easier for you.

[Sidenote: _No Pain In Matter; No Matter In Pain Why Worry?_]

If you are ill in mind or body, remember that it is natural to be well, and that within your body nature has stored the most wonderful forces which are always tending towards the normal, or health, if not obstructed or hindered.

Nature sometimes needs help to stimulate those forces, or to reinforce them, or to remove obstructions. This is where the physician comes in.

But you yourself can aid nature the most by realizing that _nature is health and it is normal to be well_. By so doing, all of your organs function better and you are restored to normal more rapidly.

[Sidenote: _Sleep_]

[Sidenote: _Fresh Air_]

Second: It is very important to have enough sleep. Dr. Richard Cabot says that probably resistance is lowered as much by lack of sufficient sleep as by any other factor, and that all you can soak into your system in twenty-four hours is not too much. Don't forget the fresh air.

You generally suffer from sleeplessness, I believe. The overweights are always advised not to sleep too much. They will find while reducing that they won't want to sleep so much, anyway. They will like to stay awake--they feel so much happier.

[Sidenote: _Sometimes_]

Now, when you retire and try to sleep but cannot, try this--it works with me. You know when you are pa.s.sing over your mental images become distorted and grotesque. I artificially induce that state. If I find myself rehearsing about two hundred times, with appropriate gestures, the keen, witty, logical remarks which I could have made in favor of my pet legislation in the club discussion, but didn't, then I begin after this fashion:

Pink elephants with green ribbons on their tails--red rhinoceri (is that right, or should it be rhinoceroses?)--smiling peanuts--Woman's City Club--Social Health Insurance--why didn't I say--I wish I had said--(here get out, you annoyance!)--pink elephants--and so forth and so forth.

[Sidenote: _Picture of Pink Elephant Adorned_]

[Sidenote: _Woe Is Me_]

Now I realize I have ruined myself. I am my own worst enemy. I have exposed my whole life before those modern vivisectionists, the army of amateur psycho-a.n.a.lysts.

[Sidenote: _Exercise_]

Third: Exercise. Great muscular exertion should be avoided, but the setting-up exercises that I advise, if begun with moderation and increased gradually, will undoubtedly stimulate the appet.i.te and help the body functions to be better performed.

[Sidenote: _Food_]

Fourth: Since food is the only source of body substance, you must gradually train your stomach so that it can care for enough food to not only supply your bodily energy, but to leave a little excess to be stored as fat.

[Sidenote: _Your Stomach_]

If you have a small appet.i.te--and many of you have--your stomach is undoubtedly contracted, and you must gradually add to the amount you have been eating, even though it may cause some distress, until you have disciplined it so that it can handle what you need without distress. The stomach is a muscular organ and can be trained and exercised somewhat as other organs can. You will not have much appet.i.te at first, but it will develop. Sometimes a short fast for a day or two, drinking nothing but pure water, seems to be beneficial in the beginning.

Do not drink much with your meals, unless the drink has food value by the addition of lots of cream or sugar, or both.

[Sidenote: _Eat More_]

Decide how many calories you need for your activities, gradually add to your dietary until you have reached that number, and then some more, and you will gain as surely as the overweight individual will lose by doing the opposite. It may take a long time, or you may get results very rapidly, depending somewhat upon the individual characteristics.

Gradually increase your b.u.t.ter, cream, sugar, chocolate, and so forth, as they are very high in food value.

Study the Key to the Calories and reckon your calories every day for a while. You have already noticed that the foods that you like are low in food value.

Here are some of the things you can take to add to your fuel:

[Sidenote: _Try Some of These_]

A gla.s.s of milk, hot or cold, taken between meals and before retiring, will add about 500 calories.

Cream sauce on your vegetables will add to their value.

Cod liver oil, or olive oil, or cream, begun in small doses and gradually increased.

One malted milk, made with milk, syrup, egg, ice cream, whipped cream, and the malted milk, will add about 500 calories.

[Sidenote: _Learned Phraseology_]

You remember the painful time that I spoke of when there was so much more of me than there ought to be? Well, the aforesaid concoction, made with milk, syrup, egg, ice cream, whipped cream, and the malted milk, was accessory before the fact, and also particeps criminis before the law.

I absorbed this phraseology by being president of the Professional Woman's Club, with its high-cla.s.s women attorneys, ministers, dentists, Ph.D.'s, and "Medical Trust" doctors.

[Sidenote: _Explanatory Note 1_]

"Medical Trust."--The American Medical a.s.sociation (A.M.A.), a powerful trust you can't get into unless you have a high preliminary education and are a graduate of a high-cla.s.s medical college. Eleven years'

training after the grammar school is their minimum standard now.

[Sidenote: _Explanatory Note 2_]

"League for Medical Ignorance."--The so-called "League for Medical Freedom"; the opponent of the above mentioned trust. Their standard--any old kind of a medical or religious training, two weeks or longer, engrafted on anyone who has the money to pay for the course. No education, no barrier; in fact, those of limited education make the loudest boosters for the league. In justice, I must say that many splendid, estimable persons belong to this league, not knowing these facts.

[Sidenote: _Thorough Mastication_]

Fifth: See page 92 in my advice to the fat. It is as important for you as for them. (It always makes me mildly furious when I look up a word and am directed to seek some other locality. If it affects you that way--seek page 60 in my advice to you.)

Also have your teeth X-rayed. Blind abscesses at the roots will cause all sorts of aches and pains, as well as underweight.

[Sidenote: _Especially About Your Ailments_]

[Sidenote: _Organ Recitals Wednesday Evenings Only_]

Sixth: _Don't talk so much_. See if you can't leave out two-thirds of the totally unimportant, uninteresting details. A tremendous amount of energy is used in talking. This habit I would not say was confined to you, by any means; it is another one of those pretty nearly universal errors.

I will not give you a sample fattening menu, for it might be all out of proportion to what you could handle, and it would upset you. Make out your own menus, realizing that you must work gradually to the desired amount.

I am taking it for granted that you are organically sound, that your scientific, educated physician has said there is nothing the matter with you, except perhaps your "nervous" disposition.