,,the ,,fun ,,of ,,getting ,,thin ,how ,to ,be ,happy and ,reduce the ,waist ,line by ,,samuel ,g4 ,,blythe ,author of ,cutting ,it ,out ,chicago ,forbes ,company #aiab ,,contents ,,chapter ,i4 ,fat ,,ii4 ,the ,so-,called ,cures ,,iii4 ,facing the ,tissue ,,the ,,fun ,,of ,,getting ,,thin ,,chapter ,i ,,fat ,a fat man is a joke2 and a fat woman is two jokes--one on herself and the other on her husband4 ,half the comedy in the world is predicated on the paunch4 ,at that1 the human race is divided into but two classes--fat people who are trying to get thin and thin people who are trying to get fat4 ,fat1 the doctors say1 is fatal4 ,i move to amend by striking out the last two letters of the indictment4 ,fat is fat4 ,it isn't any more fatal to be reasonably fat than to be reasonably thin1 but it's a darned sight more uncomfortable4 ,so far as being unreasonably thin or unreasonably fat is concerned1 ,i suppose the thin person has the long end of it4 ,i never was thin1 so ,i don't know4 ,however1 ,i have been fat--notice that have been8 ,and if there is any phase of human enjoyment1 any part of life1 any occupation1 avocation1 divertisement1 pleasure or pain where the fat man has the better of it in any regard1 ,i failed to discover it in the twenty years during which ,i looked like the rear end of a hack and had all the bodily characteristics of a bale of hay4 ,when you come to examine into the actuating motives for any line of human endeavor you will find that vanity figures about ninety per cent1 directly or indirectly1 in the assay4 ,the personal equation is the ruling equation4 ,women want to be thinner because they will look better--and so do men4 ,likewise1 women want to be plumper because they will look better--and so do men4 ,this holds up to forty years4 ,after that it doesn't make much difference whether either men or women look any better than they have been looking1 so far as the great end and aim of all life is concerned4 ,consequently fat men and fat women after forty want to be thinner for reasons of health and comfort1 or quit and resign themselves to their further years of obesity4 ,now ,i am over forty4 ,hence my experiments in reduction may be taken at this time as grounded on a desire for comfort--not that ,i did not make many campaigns against my fat before ,i was forty4 ,i fought it now and then1 but always retreated before ,i won a victory4 ,this time1 instead of skirmishing valiantly for a space and then being ignominiously and fatly routed by the powerful forces of food and drink1 ,i hung stolidly to the line of my original attack1 harassed the enemy by a constant and deadly fire--and one morning discovered ,i had the foe on the run4 ,it always makes me laugh to hear people talk about losing flesh--unless1 of course1 the decrease in weight is due to illness4 ,no healthy person1 predisposed to fat1 ever lost any flesh4 ,if that person gets rid of any weight1 or girth1 or fat1 it isn't lost--it is fought off1 beaten off4 ,the victim struggles with it1 goes to the mat with it1 and does not debonairly drop it4 ,he eliminates it with stern effort and much travail of the spirit4 ,it is a job of work1 a grueling combat to the finish1 a task that appalls and usually repels4 ,the theory of taking off fat is the simplest theory in the world4 ,it is announced1 in four words3 ,stop eating and drinking4 ,the practice of fat reduction is the most difficult thing in the world4 ,its difficulties are comprehended in two words3 ,you cannot4 ,the flesh is willing1 but the spirit is weak4 ,the success of the undertaking lies in the triumph of the will over the appetite4 ,there's a lovely line of cant for you6 ,triumph of the will over the appetite4 ,it sounds like the preaching of a professional food faddist1 who tells the people they eat too much and then slips away and wolfs down four pounds of beefsteak at a sitting4 ,however1 ,i suppose it is necessary to say this once in a dissertation like this--and it is said4 ,in writing about this successful experiment of mine in reducing weight ,i have no theories to advance except one1 and no instructions to give4 ,i don't know whether my method would take an ounce off any other person in the world1 and ,i don't care4 ,i only know it took more than fifty pounds off me4 ,i am not advancing any argument1 medicinal or otherwise1 for my plan4 ,i never talked to a doctor about it1 and never shall4 ,if there are fat men and fat women who are fat for the same reasons ,i was fat ,i suppose they can get thin the way ,i got thin4 ,if they are fat for other reasons ,i suppose they cannot4 ,i don't know about either proposition4 ,i have great respect for doctors--so much respect1 in fact1 that ,i keep diligently away from them4 ,i know the preliminaries of their game and can take a dose of medicine myself as skillfully as they can administer it4 ,also1 ,i know when ,i have a fever1 and have a working knowledge of how my heart should beat and my other bodily functions be performed4 ,i have frequently found that a prescription1 unintelligibly written but looking very wise1 is highly efficacious when folded carefully and put in the pocketbook instead of being deposited with a druggist4 ,i suppose that comes from a sort of hereditary faith in amulets4 ,no doubt the method would be even more efficacious if the prescription were tied on a string and hung around the neck4 ,i shall try that some time when my wife lugs in a doctor on me4 ,still1 doctors are interesting as a class4 ,after you get beyond the let-me-feel-your-pulse-and-see-your-tong ue preliminaries they are versatile and ingenious4 ,almost always1 after you tell them what is the matter with you1 they will know--not every time1 but frequently4 ,also1 they will take any sort of a chance with you in the interest of science4 ,however1 they generally send out for a specialist when they are ill themselves4 ,when you come to think of it that is but natural4 ,almost any man1 whether professional or not1 will take a chance with somebody else that he wouldn't quite go through with on himself4 ,besides1 doctors treat comparative strangers for the most part1 and the interests of science are to be conserved4 ,almost any doctor can tell you how to get thin4 ,to be sure1 no doctor will tell you to do the same things any other doctor prescribes1 but it all simmers down to the same thing3 ,cut out the starchy foods and sweets1 and take exercise4 ,also3 ,don't drink alcohol4 ,the variations that can be played on this simple theme by a skillful doctor are endless4 ,when a real specialist in fat reduction gets hold of you--a real1 earnest reducer--he can contrive a diet that would make a living skeleton thin--and likewise put him in his little grave4 ,i have had diets handed to me that would starve a humming-bird1 and diets that would put flesh on a bronze statue2 and all to the same end--reduction4 ,science has been monkeying with nourishment for the past ten or fifteen years to the exclusion of many other branches of research2 and about all that has happened to the nourishment is the large elimination of nutriment from it4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,so-,,called ,,cures ,broadly speaking1 the methods of fat reduction most in vogue are divided into four classes--mechanical1 physical1 medicinal and dietary4 ,the first two are not worth considering by a man who has anything else to do4 ,i do not doubt that a man who could devote his whole time to the work could1 by means of some of the appliances offered--from the apparatus in a gymnasium to rubber shirts1 get off fat--nor do ,i doubt the efficacy of exercise and its accompaniments in the way of sweating and baths and all that2 but when a person has a living to make these methods are useless1 not through any demerit of their own but because the man who is fat hasn't the time or opportunity and1 more than all1 soon fails in the inclination to use them4 ,if you can tell me anything more ghastly than taking a system of canned exercises in the morning or at night in one's bedroom or bathroom1 or elsewhere1 with no other incentive than some physical gain that1 when you come to sum it up1 is largely fictitious in value--or comes inevitably to be thought so--,i would like to have you step forward and name it4 ,i have been all through that phase of it1 and ,i know2 and ,i also know by heart the patter of the persons who recommend it4 ,further1 ,i know the person round the forties doesn't live who enjoys this sort of thing--no matter what he says about it2 and without enjoyment exercise is of no use or worse than useless4 ,it can be done1 of course2 and lumps of muscle can be stuck on almost any part of the body--but what's the use to the person who has to make a living8 ,then1 too1 ,i am speaking now of methods that can be used by men and women who are no longer young4 ,a young man can and will do stunts in physical culture that an older man cannot do1 either satisfactorily or comfortably4 ,so far as the medicinal or drug method of fat reduction is concerned1 any fat man or woman who takes drugs to reduce flesh1 or to help1 deserves all that he or she will get--and that will be plenty4 ,there's no need of saying anything further on that subject4 ,then there remains the dietary method--the old familiar friend1 diet4 ,starting with ,william ,banting--maybe it didn't start with ,william1 but before him--but1 starting with ,bill for present purposes1 there have been more systems of diet invented and promulgated than there have been systems of religion--and that means about one in every hundred has evolved a system4 ,you can get them of all sorts and all sure to do the work1 ranging from an exclusive diet of beefsteak and spinach to desiccated hay and creamed alfalfa4 ,there are monodiets1 duodiets1 vegetable diets1 fruit diets1 nut diets--all kinds of diets--each guaranteed to take off flesh if you have too much or to put it on if you have too little4 ,basically1 however1 the antiflesh diets are about the same4 ,you are told to cut out everything you want to eat and exist on triply toasted bread and the white meat of a chicken1 or string beans and sawdust1 or any other combination the sharps say will not produce fat1 but will sustain life in a lingering form4 ,they surround these diet talks and presentments with a lot of frills about proteins and calories and all that sort of guff1 and make it as difficult as possible4 ,now1 mark you1 ,i am not saying diet--scientific diet--is not a good thing1 a magnificent step forward in the progress of this world2 but ,i am saying that the average fat-reducing diet is impossible to any but a man or woman of the ultimate will-power1 and is a hardship that need not be endured4 ,i have tried these diets1 and ,i know6 ,they may help reduce flesh1 but they are not easy to follow and they do not contain things that any person wants to eat or is accustomed to eat1 or will eat1 to the exclusion of things that person does want to eat and will eat4 ,it can be done4 ,one of these diets can be followed if the will-power is there1 and the flesh will come off2 but the method does not conduce to the best results--the physical force is reduced1 and there is a much easier way4 ,i have one of these diet lists before me now from the highest-priced flesh-reducing specialist in the world1 who claims to have taken mountains of flesh off mountainous men4 ,in the beginning1 for example1 it says3 ,you will understand1 of course1 that sugar is entirely debarred4 ,also1 that fats1 milk1 cheese1 cream1 eggs1 and so on1 are cut off for the time being4 ,also that bread and farinaceous foods are all cut off4 ,in place of bread or toast you must use gluten biscuits4 ,for breakfast1 in this dietary1 one or two gluten biscuits are allowed and a cup of unsweetened coffee4 ,also1 six ounces of lean grilled steak1 chops or chicken1 and any white fish--or the whites of two eggs4 ,this is about the layout for luncheon and dinner4 ,it is all about as exciting and appetizing as that4 ,the proposition is1 of course1 that you are not taking food which will make fat and you must1 therefore1 inevitably lose flesh4 ,so far so good2 but the difficulty is not in the system1 but in the hardship of carrying it out4 ,you can't have anything to eat that you want to eat4 ,you torture yourself for a space and lose some flesh2 then when you do go back to your normal method of eating the flesh comes galloping back--and there you are6 ,it is the same with exercise4 ,you can take off fat by exercise2 but1 once you begin1 you are doomed to everlasting exercise1 for the minute you stop back comes the fat--and more of it than you had before you began to reduce4 ,it is a tough game1 anyway you play it1 if you are disposed to be fat4 ,no man living1 who isn't a freak1 can persist always in one diet4 ,nor can any man who has anything else on his mind be always exercising--especially after he has reached forty years of age1 when there are so many better things to do and time is valuable1 and the real idea of how to live has just begun to percolate4 ,also1 until one is forty1 if reasonably healthy1 flesh is a joke1 and not so much of a burden as it becomes later4 ,i haven't a thing in the world against any or all of these methods4 ,i have tried most of them and know most of them are bogus2 but ,i am not trying to dissuade any person from taking off fat in any way that suits any individual fancy or the fancy of any reducer into whose hands the victim may have fallen4 ,if you have a good method go to it--and more power to you6 ,my idea is this3 ,i am setting down here a record of my own experiences1 and that is all4 ,every person who does not like what ,i have to say is cheerfully advised to lump it4 ,any person who is as fat as ,i was and who wants to get thinner is at liberty to follow my method4 ,if circumstances are similar results will be similar4 ,if not there will be no results4 ,i am not advising or urging or putting forth any propaganda4 ,here is what happened4 ,it may suit you or it may not4 ,either way ,i am indifferent4 ,in the words of the coon song3 ,i've got mine6 ,i hope ,i make myself clear4 ,i have no mission or message or any flubdub of that kind4 ,i am not one of those boys who urge you to do this for your own good4 ,i have read a ton of literature put out by persons who found something that agreed with them and immediately started out to reform the world along that line4 ,your reformer1 anyhow1 is a person who wants all the rest of the world to do as he wants the rest of the world to do1 not as the rest of the world wants to do4 ,and the reason reformers get past so numerously is because our society is so constituted that we spend every one of our brief years doing what other people want us to do and tell us to do1 and never do anything we ourselves want to do4 ,once ,i got seventeen pounds of books telling that the only way to cure everything was to fast4 ,i knew a man who tried that4 ,the results were grand4 ,he fasted a long time and cured himself of what ailed him4 ,only1 unfortunately1 just before the last vestige of disease was removed the fasting killed him4 ,i contend that man might just as well have died of what ailed him originally as to cure that disease and die of the cure4 ,it seems to me it is as broad as it is long4 ,however1 have at this fat-reduction process of mine6 ,you must bear with a few personal reminiscences4 ,i was a big1 husky brute of a boy--thick-chested1 broad-shouldered1 country-bred and with an appetite that knew no bounds4 ,after ,i got going at my business1 when ,i was twenty-five or so1 ,i was pinned down to a desk for about ten years4 ,i worked hard in a most exacting place4 ,i was so healthy it hurt4 ,i had just as much appetite for food as ,i had ever had2 but ,i didn't get a chance to bat around as ,i had been accustomed to do and burn up that food4 ,the result was inevitable4 ,i began to get fat4 ,i had a big chest--forty-six inches--and the fat filled in underneath4 ,that big chest1 combined with my broad shoulders1 concealed the size of my paunch1 and ,i didn't realize ,i was accumulating that paunch until it was soldered1 riveted1 lashed1 glued1 nailed and otherwise fastened to me4 ,when ,i got my growth ,i weighed about one hundred and eighty-five pounds and was a pretty formidable physical proposition4 ,when ,i woke up to the fact that ,i was getting fat ,i found ,i weighed two hundred and twenty pounds4 ,that extra thirty-five pounds was mostly fat--excess baggage4 ,still1 it didn't bother me any4 ,i had the strength to tote it round and had the shoulders and the chest to conceal it4 ,i didn't show any bay window1 as most fat men do4 ,as they used to say3 ,you're big all over4 ,you carry it all right4 ,all this time ,i was eating three or four times a day and eating everything that came my way4 ,also1 ,i drank some--not excessively1 but some whisky and some beer1 and occasionally some wine and cocktails--about the average amount of drinking the average man does4 ,i thought ,i was getting too fat1 and ,i wrestled with a bicycle all one summer1 taking long rides and plugging round a good deal4 ,i did some centuries1 but continued eating like a horse--naturally because of the outdoor exercise--and drank a good deal of beer4 ,as will be seen1 all the fat ,i had was legitimate enough4 ,i put it on myself4 ,there was no hereditary nonsense about it4 ,i was responsible for every ounce of it4 ,the net result of that summer's bicycle campaign was a gain of five pounds in weight4 ,i was harder--but ,i was fatter1 too4 ,when ,i was thirty-five ,i began to experiment4 ,i then weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds4 ,i went to the canned-exercise1 the physical-torture professor1 the diet1 the salts1 and all the rest of it1 taking off a few pounds but putting it all back again--and more--as soon as ,i stopped4 ,these attempts numbered about two a year4 ,between times ,i ate as ,i wanted to and drank as ,i pleased4 ,things ran along until the first of ,january1 #aiaa4 ,i knew ,i was getting fatter1 for my tailor told me so and my belts and old clothes all proved it4 ,still1 ,i didn't bother much4 ,i thought ,i was lingering round about two hundred and thirty-five--too much1 of course2 but ,i got away with it pretty well1 except in hot weather and when ,i went up in the high mountains1 and ,i was reasonably content4 ,i was fat1 all right4 ,my waist was only two inches smaller than my chest and that meant my waist was forty-four inches in girth4 ,as a matter of fact1 being scant five feet ten and a half1 ,i was bigger than a house2 but ,i deluded myself with that stuff about my broad shoulders and my deep chest1 and thought it didn't show4 ,it did show1 of course4 ,i was a fat man--a big fat man--carrying forty pounds or more of excess weight4 ,i had dieted and quit2 exercised and quit2 gone on the waterwagon and fallen off2 had fussed round a good deal1 spending a lot of money in the attempt1 and ,i was getting fatter all the time4 ,i hated to admit that fact4 ,i tried to fool myself into the conviction that ,i wasn't getting any larger--and all the time ,i knew ,i was4 ,i even went so far as to stop getting on the scales2 and when anybody--as almost everybody did--said1 ,why1 you're getting bigger1 ain't you8 ,i always replied3 ,no1 ,i think not4 ,i stick along about two hundred and thirty-five pounds4 ,a year ago last summer ,i went up into the mountains1 where ,i usually go for my fun4 ,i had noticed a shortness of breath and a wheeziness in previous summers1 and had felt my heart pounding pretty hard2 but that summer ,i noticed these things acutely4 ,i couldn't get any air to breathe4 ,my heart pounded like a pneumatic riveter4 ,any little exercise tired me2 and when in the lowlands in hot weather ,i was the perspiring marvel and the most uncomfortable as well as the sloppiest person you ever saw4 ,it was fierce6 ,i was doing a good deal of walking in those days--had to burn up the fuel ,i was taking into my body4 ,also1 ,i noticed it was mighty hard to keep awake after dinner unless ,i got out into the air and kept moving4 ,i felt well enough and the doctors said ,i was organically all right4 ,i kept informed on those points--but ,i was fat6 ,also1 though ,i lied to myself1 ,i knew ,i was getting fatter4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,facing ,,the ,,tissue ,on ,new ,year's ,day1 #aiaa1 ,i weighed myself4 ,i don't know why1 for ,i hadn't been on a scale for two or three years4 ,i set the weight at two hundred and thirty-five and it bounded up like a rubber ball2 so ,i shoved it along to two hundred and forty and it still stayed up in the air4 ,when ,i got a balance ,i found ,i weighed two hundred and forty-seven pounds4 ,i was amazed6 ,also1 ,i was scared2 for it instantly occurred to me that if ,i had gone up to two hundred and forty-seven in two or three years from two hundred and thirty-five ,i should keep on going up if my manner of living didn't change--and that presently ,i should weigh three hundred6 ,that two hundred and forty-seven pounds was a facer4 ,i was forced to admit to myself that ,i was fat1 disgustingly fat--too fat2 and that ,i should get fatter6 ,so ,i sat down and looked the situation in the eye4 ,i recounted all my former efforts to get thin and discarded them one by one4 ,i knew myself1 and knew the ordinary diet proposition and the ordinary exercise proposition were not for me4 ,i knew ,i was wheezy and that my heart was getting choked with fat2 that there were great folds of it on me1 and that it was up to me to get rid of it or quit and wait for the inevitable end4 ,if it kept on ,i knew ,i should blow up some fine day4 ,besides1 ,i was uric-acidy1 rheumatic and stertorous and clumsy4 ,i had about fifty or sixty pounds of poisonous junk wrapped round me1 and ,i knew ,i should suffer for it in the end1 though ,i didn't feel it much and carried it with a fair assumption of lightness4 ,i was not an amateur at the game4 ,i had been through the mill4 ,i spent several days in going over the whole matter4 ,it was reasonably simple1 too1 and needn't have taken so much of my time2 but ,i was protecting myself1 you see1 gold-bricking myself--trying to find a way out that would not deprive me of things ,i liked to do1 of pleasures ,i wanted to enjoy4 ,it was pure selfishness that dominated me and made me do so much figuring on a proposition ,i knew was contained in a sentence2 but ,i did fight to hang on to the old way of living4 ,after each session of false logic and selfish hypothesis ,i invariably came back to the same proposition1 which is the only proposition--and that was3 ,what makes fat8 ,food and drink4 ,how can you reduce fat8 ,by reducing the amount of food and drink--that is all there is or was to it4 ,the only way to get rid of the effects of overeating and overdrinking is to stop overeating and overdrinking4 ,i went over my food habit4 ,i was accustomed to eating a big hired-man's breakfast--fruit1 coffee1 eggs1 waffles1 hot bread1 sausage1 anything that came along2 and ,i heaved in a lot of it--not a little--a lot6 ,i didn't eat so much at luncheon1 but ,i ate plenty2 and at night ,i simply cleaned up the table4 ,i wasn't so strong on sweets and pastry1 because ,i usually drank a few highballs during the day1 and highballs and cocktails and sweets do not go well together--that is1 the man who takes alcohol into his system usually does not care for sweets4 ,beer was one of my long suits too--,pilsner beer4 ,i did like that6 ,i looked this food habit squarely in the face4 ,i impaled the drink habit with my glittering eye4 ,i knew ,i was eating about sixty per cent more than ,i needed or could use1 and that ,i was drinking a hundred per cent more4 ,i knew that nothing makes fat but food and drink4 ,i knew excess of food will make any animal fat and ,i saw ,i had been eating freely of the most fattening kinds of food4 ,i knew beer and liquor were made of grain1 and that grain is used to fatten steers and cows and pigs4 ,i refused to adopt a diet like any of those unpalatable ones ,i had experimented with1 but the remedy was as plain as the cause4 ,it was simple enough if ,i had the nerve to go through with it4 ,inasmuch as an excess of food and drink make an excess of fat1 it follows that the reduction in the amount of food will stop that fat-forming and give the body a chance to burn up the excess fat already formed4 ,that was my conclusion4 ,mind you1 ,i reached that conclusion before ,i made any of my arguments2 but ,i didn't want to admit it as reasonable or logical1 for ,i hated to give up the pleasures of the table and the sociability that came with the sort of drinking ,i did4 ,i was trying to find a way out that would be easy and comfortable4 ,and all the time ,i was getting fatter6 ,the scales told me that4 ,this backing and filling and argument with myself lasted all through ,january and part of ,february4 ,it took me six weeks to get myself into the frame of mind where ,i admitted the truth of my conclusion4 ,i was no hero4 ,i didn't want to do it4 ,i loved it all too well4 ,i was as rank a coward in the beginning as you ever saw6 ,it appalled me to think of restricting myself in any way1 for ,i liked the pleasures that ,i knew ,i must forego4 ,however1 when ,i got up to two hundred and fifty pounds ,i sat down and had it out with myself4 ,here6 ,i said to myself4 ,you big stuff1 you now weigh two hundred and fifty pounds6 ,in another year or two you will weigh two hundred and seventy-five pounds6 ,you are uncomfortable and heavy on your feet1 and you are gouty and wheezy2 and it's a cinch you'll die in a few years if you keep on this way4 ,you know all this fat is caused by an excess of food and drink1 and you know it can be taken off by a reduction in those fatmakers4 ,are you going to stick round here so fat you are a joke1 uncomfortable1 miserable when it's hot1 in your own way and in the way of everybody else1 when1 if you've got the will-power of a chickadee1 you can get back to reasonable proportions and comfort merely by denying yourself things you do not need8 ,all the old arguments obtruded4 ,see what ,i should lose6 ,life would be a dull and dreary affair--a dun1 dismal proposition4 ,i admitted that4 ,on the other hand1 however1 life would not be a wheezy1 sweaty1 choked-heart1 uncomfortable proposition4 ,i finally decided ,i would go to it4 ,and ,i did4 ,my method may be utterly unscientific4 ,i suppose it hasn't a scientific leg to stand on4 ,still1 it did the business4 ,and ,i maintain that results are what we are looking for4 ,the end justifies the means4 ,i didn't figure out a diet4 ,i had a dozen of them at home that had cost me all the way from two dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars each4 ,i didn't buy a system of exercise4 ,i read no books and consulted no doctors4 ,what ,i did was this3 ,i cut down the amount of food ,i ate sixty per cent and ,i cut out alcohol altogether6 ,i carried out my argument to its logical conclusion so far as it concerned myself4 ,i didn't give a hoot whether it would help or hurt or concern any other person in the world4 ,it was my body ,i was experimenting on1 and ,i did what ,i dad-blamed pleased and asked no advice--nor took any4 ,instead of a hot-bread--,i have the greatest hot-bread artist in the world at my house1 bar none6--waffle1 sausage1 kidney-stew1 lamb-chop1 fried-egg and so forth sort of breakfast1 ,i cut that meal down to some fruit1 a couple of pieces of dry1 hard toast1 two boiled eggs and coffee4 ,i cut out the luncheon altogether4 ,no more luncheon for me6 ,i cut down my dinners to about forty per cent of what ,i had been eating4 ,i diminished the quantity1 but not the variety4 ,i ate everything that came along1 but ,i didn't eat so much or half so much4 ,instead of two slices of roast beef1 for example1 ,i ate only one small slice4 ,instead of two baked or browned potatoes1 ,i ate only half of one4 ,instead of three or four slices of bread1 ,i ate only one4 ,i didn't deprive myself of a single thing ,i liked1 but ,i cut the quantity away down4 ,and ,i quit drinking alcohol absolutely4 ,what happened8 ,this is what happened3 ,eating food is just as much a habit as breathing or any other physical function4 ,i had got myself into the habit of eating large quantities of food4 ,also1 ,i had accustomed my system to certain amounts of alcohol4 ,i was organized on that basis--fatly and flabbily organized1 to be sure1 but organized just the same4 ,now1 then1 when ,i arbitrarily cut down the amount of food and drink for which my system was organized that entire system rose up in active revolt and yelled for what it had been accustomed to get4 ,there wasn't a minute for more than three months when ,i wasn't hungry1 actually hungry for food2 when the sight of food did not excite me and when ,i did not have a physical longing and appetite for food2 when my stomach did not seem to demand it and my palate howl for it4 ,it was different with the drinking4 ,i got over that desire rather promptly1 but with a struggle1 at that2 but the food-yearn was there for weeks and weeks1 and it was a fight--a bitter1 bitter fight6 ,when ,i went to the table and saw the good things on it1 and knew ,i intended only to eat small portions of them1 especially of my favorite desserts and my beloved hot-bread1 ,i simply had to grip the sides of my chair and use all the will-power ,i had to keep from reaching out and grabbing something and stuffing it into my mouth6 ,my friends used to think it was all a joke4 ,it was farther from being a joke than anything you ever heard about4 ,it was a tragedy--a grim1 relentless tragedy6 ,it was acute physical suffering4 ,my body cried out for that same amount of food ,i had been giving it all those years4 ,i wanted to give it that same amount4 ,i have had to leave the table time and time again to get hold of myself and go back to the smaller portions ,i had allotted to myself4 ,i liked to eat1 you know4 ,nothing much happened for a few weeks1 though the waistband of my trousers grew looser4 ,then a lot of excess baggage seemed to drop away all at once4 ,i weighed myself and found ,i had taken off twenty-five pounds4 ,friends told me to quit--that ,i should overdo it4 ,i laughed at them4 ,i knew ,i was still twenty-five pounds too heavy and ,i was just getting into my stride4 ,it is strange how men1 and especially fat men1 who haven't the nerve to reduce themselves1 think a man must be sick if he takes off flesh4 ,i knew ,i wasn't sick4 ,indeed1 ,i was just beginning to get well4 ,by the end of three months ,i had taken off thirty-five pounds4 ,it was coming off well1 too4 ,my face wasn't haggard or wrinkled4 ,i looked fit4 ,my eye was clear and my double chin had disappeared4 ,also1 ,i had conquered my fight with my appetite4 ,i had won out4 ,i was satisfied with the smaller quantities of food and ,i felt better than ,i had in twenty years--stronger1 fitter--and was better1 mentally and physically4 ,after that it was a cinch4 ,i kept along1 eating everything on the bill-of-fare1 but in small quantities4 ,i didn't vary my diet a bit1 except for the eggs at breakfast4 ,if ,i wanted pie ,i ate a small piece4 ,if ,i wanted ice cream ,i ate a small dish4 ,if ,i wanted pudding ,i ate some of that4 ,i ate fat meat and lean meat and spaghetti1 and everything else interdicted by the reduction dietists--only in small quantities6 ,and ,i kept on getting smaller and smaller4 ,the fat came off from everywhere4 ,i had been incased with it apparently4 ,my waist decreased seven inches4 ,a big layer of fat came off my chest and abdomen4 ,my legs and arms grew smaller but harder4 ,even my fingers grew smaller4 ,my excess of chin evaporated4 ,and at the end of the fifth month ,i had taken off fifty-five pounds4 ,i weighed then one hundred and ninety-five pounds1 which is what ,i weigh today4 ,every person1 ,i take it1 has a normal weight2 and if that person gives his body a chance1 and ill health does not intervene1 the body will find that normal and stay there4 ,i take it that my normal weight1 on account of my big frame and bones1 is about one hundred and ninety-five pounds1 at the age of forty-three4 ,at any rate1 it has stayed at a hundred and ninety-five since the first of last ,july1 and in that time ,i have loafed for two months and ridden on ,pullman cars for two other months1 and have not taken any exercise to speak of2 but ,i have maintained my schedule of eating and ,i have not taken any alcohol4 ,i figure ,i can stay where ,i am indefinitely on that program--and that is my program indefinitely4 ,there are certain economic phases of a campaign of this kind that should be mentioned4 ,it is expensive4 ,not one item of clothing1 save my hat1 socks and shoes1 which fitted me last ,january is of the slightest use to me now4 ,i didn't get to cutting down clothes until ,i was sure ,i would stick4 ,since that time the tailors have had a picnic at my expense4 ,my shirts were too big4 ,instead of wearing a seventeen-and-three-quarters collar1 ,i now wear a sixteen-and-three-quarters4 ,my waist is seven inches smaller4 ,i even had to have a seal ring ,i wear cut down so it would not slip off my finger4 ,while in the transition stage ,i looked like a scarecrow4 ,my clothes hung on me like bags4 ,since ,i have had my clothes re-made and new ones constructed ,i am an object of continual comment among my friends4 ,they all marvel at my changed appearance4 ,they are all solicitous about my health4 ,they do not see how a man can take off more than fifty pounds and not hurt himself4 ,i do not see how he can keep it on and not kill himself4 ,they tell me ,i look like a boy--and ,i feel like one4 ,i'm as active as ,i was twenty years ago4 ,when ,i was in the mountains this summer1 at an altitude of seventy-five hundred feet1 ,i could climb slopes with no exhaustion that ,i couldn't have gone fifteen feet up the year before4 ,my mind is clearer2 my body is better4 ,i figure ,i have added a good many years to my life4 ,and all this time ,i have had everything ,i wanted to eat1 but not all ,i wanted to eat until ,i got myself readjusted to the new system4 ,i missed the alcohol at first1 but that is all over now4 ,it was a part of the game and ,i used to think a necessary part4 ,i have cured myself of that delusion4 ,if there is a thing on earth the matter with me the ablest doctors in this country can't find out what it is4 ,i am a rejuvenated1 reconstructed person1 no longer fat1 aged forty-three--and the ,white ,man's ,hope6 ,as to the exercise end of it1 there wasn't any exercise end4 ,it happened that ,i met a man last ,march1 when ,i was in the first throes of this campaign1 who had made some study of the human body4 ,i liked him because he was modest about what he knew1 and not a faddist4 ,we talked about exercise4 ,he told me one thing that stuck4 ,he said3 ,walk a little every day4 ,if you have half an hour walk a mile4 ,if you have an hour walk two miles4 ,don't try to see how many miles you can walk in the half-hour or the hour1 but take your time4 ,look at things as you go along4 ,be leisurely about it4 ,when a man goes out for a walk and walks as hard as he can or does anything else in the shape of exercise as hard as he can he is subjecting himself to just as much nerve strain as he can subject himself to in any other way4 ,be calm about your walking1 or whatever else you do4 ,formerly it had been my custom to plug out after breakfast and gallop three or four miles as hard as ,i could and then go to work4 ,i cut that out4 ,i walked an easy1 leisurely mile or two miles1 looking at the trees and flowers and watching the people and looking into shop windows1 and ,i got a lot of good out of it4 ,then it grew hot1 and ,i cut my walking to half a mile or so down to my office in the morning and back at night4 ,occasionally1 after dinner1 ,i would walk a couple of miles4 ,this summer ,i went fishing and tramped about some1 but not much4 ,in reality1 ,i had no scheme of exercise1 and ,i took little4 ,i didn't need it4 ,i didn't have masses of food and drink in me to be burned up4 ,i was normal4 ,as ,i said1 ,i suppose all this is absurdly unscientific--and ,i don't give a hoot if it is4 ,it worked for me4 ,i don't know whether it will work for any other person on this earth4 ,nor do ,i care4 ,if you want to try it on1 provided you are fat1 here are the specifications3 ,i assume it is an axiom that we all eat too much4 ,i know ,i did--about sixty per cent too much4 ,still1 ,i guarantee nothing4 ,i make no claims4 ,i have set down the facts2 and the only warning1 advice or admonition ,i have to give is that any person who makes up his mind to try this method and thinks he isn't in for the hardest struggle of his life would do well not to try4 ,this isn't a frolic4 ,it's a fight4