Diet and Health | Page 3

If you did, you wouldn't."
"Is there anyone else who would like to be recognized? No?"
[Sidenote: Nothing That I Don't Know]
It is well. I will probably answer more as I go along, for there is
nothing that I don't know or haven't studied or tried in the reducing line.
I know everything you have to contend with--how you no sooner
congratulate yourself on your will power, after you have dragged

yourself by the window with an exposure of luscious fat chocolates
with curlicues on their tummies, than another comes into view, and you
have it all to go through with again, and how you finally succumb.
I hope sometime it will be a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment,
to display candy as shamelessly as it is done.
Many fond parents think that candy causes worms. It doesn't, of course,
unless it is contaminated with worm eggs, but, personally, I wish every
time I ate a chocolate I would get a worm, then I would escape them.
The chocolates, I mean. I will tell you more about worms when I
discuss meat.
[Sidenote: Vampires]
[Sidenote: Malicious Animal Magnetism?]
I know how you go down to destruction for peanuts, with their awful
fat content. It is terrible, the lure a peanut has for me. Do you suppose
Mr. Darwin could explain that?
Perhaps I was a little too delicate like in my answer to Mrs. Gobbler's
question,--What's the use of dieting, she only gets fatter after she stops?
So many ask me that question, with the further pathetic addition,--Will
they always have to keep it up? And it ever irritates me.
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:
[Sidenote: A 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.
[Illustration: Green!]
Second: Your sister, who says, "Goodness, Lou, but you look old today;
you looked lots better as you were."
[Illustration: Sweet Peace]
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.
[Sidenote: To Avoid Slack in Your Neck, Double and Triple Chins,
Massage Vigorously Up and Down, Not Crossways]
[Sidenote: I Am Interesting]
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.
[Sidenote: I Have a Beautiful Complexion]
[Sidenote: I Attended an Art School Six Months Once]
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.
[Sidenote: Joy!]
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