Introduction
TO SLENDERNESS

Not skinniness! It’s no light matter, Hortense, this question of figures. You can figure on that. Even the new styles won’t hide the awful fact that you bulge where you shouldn’t, OR that you own no curves where you should.

Yes, it’s a tough racket melting the too, too solid flesh. Figure how much you have crept up on the scale, let your doctor figure how fast you dare go down without landing—flop—farther than you ever intended. This little book? It’s encouragement, blandishment, a little judicious enragement—but it isn’t medicament.

How about reducing tricks? Well, Dumpling, let’s take a look. Glands? A 3 slick trick for a few, probably not you. Bath salts? They dissolve the budget, nothing more. Laxatives? Money in the promoter’s pocket. Thyroid and other drugs? No, no, NO!

Suppose you want to go up the scale? Put some curves in place of angles? Improve the pep and disposition? Reverse what the fat gal does. Where she envies, you eat. Where she hustles, you rest. When she refuses a snack, you snatch it.

Either way you go on the scale—up or down—it comes back largely to how much you eat, when, and most important, what. Either way you go, don’t neglect—milk, cheese, eggs, meat, and fish—fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain cereals. Emphasize salt and water to gain, cut down on both to lose.

Cheerio, whichever way you’re bound. The diet does it. You can figure on that, lady!

DESIRABLE WEIGHTS FOR WOMEN
Ages 25 and Over

After thirty it is better to be weighed in the balance and found wanting.

COMES THE DAY!

There comes a day in many a woman’s life when she has a THOUGHT. Namely: “I MUST start on a diet.”

A mere trifle may bring on this thought. Such as:

a) a saleswoman murmurs, “Well, dear, perhaps a size 38 would be just a wee bit more comfy.”

b) a taxi driver asks, “Where to, Madam?” (they’ve always called you “Miss”).

c) a husbandly voice commands, “Sit in front with me, Sonnie, and give 6 mother the back seat where she can spread.”

d) walking down Main Street you catch a quick, dreadfully candid glimpse of yourself in a plate glass window. “Heavens!”

If the THOUGHT has come to you, it is likely, alas, to be followed swiftly by second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. Thus:

2) “Oh well, I’m not so very fat.”

3) “As it is, I don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.”

4) “Anyhow, I come by it naturally—look at my own mother!”

5) “Besides, diets are dreadful.”

We won’t argue with you about thoughts 2, 3 or 4, assuming that you know more about your weight, your intake, and your mother than we do. But when you get to thought 5, we rise up, thus:

DIETS NEED NOT BE DREADFUL

(If this booklet doesn’t prove it, then you go right on eating food and we’ll have to eat the booklet.)

DON’T FALL FOR FALLACIES!

You can easily talk yourself out of dieting by falling for one of those old fallacies that women hug to their (ample) bosoms, namely:

“What I really need is a new girdle.”

“To be slim and svelte, all you need to do is to ooze yourself into our Streamliner Stretch.” Sez the ad. “Pooh!” sez we. Common courtesy should tell you that you have to meet a two-way stretch half-way. No sixteen-ounce trifle of satin and elastic is 8 going to cope with 160 pounds of womanhood, and stay svelte. Science is wonderful, my dear, but it’s not that good!

“I really need my extra weight for reserve.”

We freely admit that camels are said to store up extra fat for reserve in their humps. Camels lead hard lives. But when were you last in the Sahara Desert?

“I haven’t the will power to go on a reducing diet.”

It isn’t will power so much as choice power that’s needed. We complimented a girl recently for sticking so faithfully to a diet. “Honestly, it isn’t a bit hard now,” she said. “I simply looked myself in the eye one day and asked, ‘Well, which do you choose—to step into a nifty 36 without alterations? Or fudge cake?’ After I really set my 9 mind on the 36, the fudge cake just bored me.” (There must be a moral here somewhere.)

“Oh, well, I’ll start on a diet ... next week.”

All we can say to this is that statistics (and human nature) prove that you won’t.

THE CASE OF MRS. PLENTEOUS

So far we’ve been appealing to your good looks. Here goes for a try at your good sense. (You must have some, or you wouldn’t still be reading.) We refer to good sense about health.

Some women are beautiful, some are healthy, some are both, and some are neither. And into the last class fall (or roll) the definitely overweight.

Now you’re going to cry, “Nonsense! Look at Mrs. Plenteous; she’s enormous, and as healthy as a horse.”

Well, we don’t know Mrs. Plenteous personally, but we’ll take your word that she’s a human being, and as such she was never intended to be enormous. She was made according to a careful pattern that hasn’t varied in thousands of years, by an expert designer who put strength and usefulness and beauty into his designs. Mrs. Plenteous has the regulation number of bones, muscles, and vital organs (barring operations). None of them is enormous. Each was built to carry around a certain weight without undue strain. If Mrs. Plenteous is enormous, her organs are carrying around an enormous strain. They can take it—for a while—and they will—for a while. But Mrs. Plenteous is not really healthy, she’s just lucky—so far.

DON’T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT

Ask your doctor. Ask your insurance agent (if you can edge in a word). They will tell you, we think, that excessive waistlines tend to go along with shorter lifelines. Medical records warn us that the overweight (or underweight, see page 21) person is much more susceptible to illness than the person whose weight is normal. And how surgeons loathe operating through layers of fat! And by the way, look around you at a roomful of elderly people. Aren’t most of them rather willowy? The “enormous” ones left early.

SAFETY FIRST!

There are so many tricky health questions involved in reducing that we are not going to take the responsibility of advising you specifically how to do it. We do suggest, however, that you:

1) See your doctor. If you haven’t a doctor of your own, see somebody else’s. He’ll be glad to become yours for the asking. He knows much more about you than you do, having spent a great deal of time and money to learn it, which you never did. Perhaps an ordinary reducing diet is not for you. Perhaps you have funny glands or a messy metabolism, which he will discover by careful tests and experiments. Perhaps you are not as overweight as you think you are.

2) Do what your doctor tells you. This will surprise him very much, but will also please and flatter him, and will cause him to work like mad on your case.

3) Don’t take any advice from your friends. You know very well that you don’t agree with their politics, approve of their hats, or care much for their children. Why should you trust them on a matter much more intimate and vital?

4) Don’t try short cuts. It took time to put on those extra pounds, and it will take time to get them off. Don’t be beguiled by success stories of fad diets or slimming salts. You want to reduce your weight only—not your chances of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These magic potions may be harmless in nine cases out of ten, but it’s maybe just your luck to draw number ten!

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE, GIRLS?

... into the pantry! To hear us talk about diets you might be thinking that we disapprove of food in general. Not so; we love it! Both kinds, the Protective Foods and the Energy Foods.

LIVE—AND ENJOY LIFE

The Protective Foods keep you alive. The Energy Foods keep you enjoying life. Energy foods are like the gas in your car; they give you the quick start, the power to go places, the speed to get there fast. If you’ve ever run out of gas on a country road, you know how important energy is.

Energy foods are delicious. And fattening. Let’s boldly mention a few:

Chocolate eclairs, pies, French pastries, griddle cakes, shortcake, rich salad dressings—yummy!

If you would reduce yourself, reduce them first! Of course, there are other Energy Foods without so much glamor but with more honest goodness (and less fat). We refer to such friends of humanity as bread and potatoes. Don’t see too much of them, but don’t snub them entirely. And whenever you reduce any of the Energy Foods, be sure to put in their places more of the Protective Foods.

For the Protective Foods are like the brakes on your car. They keep you out of trouble. They build up your blood by bringing it minerals and vitamins. They help you repel colds and other worse things (if there are any worse things).

We can conceal from you no longer the fact that these good, reliable, tasty and health building foods include:

MILK—VEGETABLES—FRUITS—EGGS—MEAT—CHEESE

Whatever you weigh, you need both kinds of food. So don’t go cutting out all energy foods and then, when you get to feeling droopy, say we told you to do it. WE NEVER DID.

DID SOMEBODY SAY “MILK”?

At this point some pupil is sure to raise her hand and ask, “Oh, but isn’t milk terribly fattening?”

No, Gwendolyn, it isn’t. Milk gets its chief fame from calcium. Calcium may sound like a pretty dull mineral, but believe us, it’s worth its weight in gold. In fact, if you have plenty of calcium in your teeth, you won’t need so much gold. As for bones, they 17 are full of calcium, or should be. Milk also contains several vitamins and a dozen or so other minerals. In fact, milk is a mineral mine (and yours, too, since there’s plenty for both of us).

Moreover, milk is rich in proteins. And proteins are the material from which your muscles are made. If you have no muscles to speak of, please consider that we are speaking of your husband’s muscles. (If he has none, we have just been wasting our time.)

BABY TALK

Some people seem to think that milk is for babies only. You might just as well say that baths are for babies only. Or love, or petting. No one ever outgrows the need for milk (or baths or love or petting). No other food will do as much to maintain health throughout life.

Why, THIS Isn’t Bad!

To prove that you can diet and like it, here is a sample of a delicious—but discreet—menu. Be guided in quantities by your calorie needs. See page 20. (For the not-very-active, reducing diets average 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day.)

Breakfast

Sliced Orange

Poached Egg

Buttered Toast

Milk

Coffee or Tea

Luncheon

Open-face Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Tomato

Cabbage Slaw

Fruit Cup

Milk

Dinner

Broiled Fish or Steak

Green Beans

Combination Salad, Lemon Juice

Bread and Butter

Ice Cream

Average servings. See pages 30 to 35.

Calories for the day—1,450 to 1,500.

CONCERNING CALORIES

You probably know about calories. There’s been a lot of talk about them. In case, however, you still confuse them with vitamins, we point out that a calorie is simply a rather nice word for a measurement of energy. If you weigh too much, you aren’t using up calories as fast as you are taking them in.

In case you have vowed to carry this booklet around with you until you have lost such and such a number of pounds—and it might be a good idea—we have gone to considerable pains to make lists of foods with the number of calories in each. We have not counted these calories personally, but somebody with better eyes than ours has, and you may rely on his count. (See pages 30 to 35.)

WORDS TO LADIES OF WILL POWER

If you need to reduce, take your excess weight off gradually (no more than 1 to 2 pounds weekly) by cutting your calories every day. Try eating 500 to 1,000 calories less daily until you discover what it takes to lose the desired amount. Pick your calories to reduce your weight, not your disposition.

When you reach the weight at which you feel best and look best, don’t get wobbly in will power or careless in eating.

This may take some figuring, but remember, this booklet is all about figures anyhow.

THANK YOU for going all this way with us. We hope that you’ll find it was well worth the time. If we ever meet you face to face we’ll probably exclaim, “Darling, how WELL you look! Haven’t you lost some weight?”

UP THE SCALE

The next few pages are written on an ascending scale for those who want to go up, up, UP to Par:

We spoke pretty sternly to a certain Mrs. Plenteous. Now let us give thought to Mrs. Plenteous’ sister-under-the-skin-and-bones, Miss Gaunt.

For months Miss Gaunt’s overstuffed friends may have fawned on her figure:

“You’re so slender, my dear!” Now “slender” is indeed a flattering word. But any good dictionary will list some sinister synonyms: spare, lank, skinny, scrawny, scraggly, and spindly, to name a few. Some day the remark will be: “You’re so skin—er—slender, my dear!”—and Miss Gaunt will feel flattened—not flattered.

And perhaps she’ll take a good long look at herself, noting certain hollows in the cheek, certain knobs in the elbows, a certain chronic weariness, (not to mention crossness) and she’ll think: “Maybe I should try to build up a little.” When that time comes, we do hope that Mrs. Plenteous lends her this booklet.

FIGURE IT OUT

Many over or underweight people love to blame their figures on their ancestors. (If they’re perfect 36’s, of course, they take all the credit themselves.) “My 23 dear grandmother weighed 200 pounds, so there’s not a thing I can do about it,” beams Mrs. Plenteous, splashing the third lump of sugar in her coffee. “My family tree was a beanpole,” sighs Miss Gaunt. “No thanks—no sugar or cream.”

The truth is that, according to anthropologists, there are in general three types of body build: the stout, the medium, and the lean. You may possibly have inherited your grandmother’s type of figure, just as you may also have inherited her house. But there’s no law against remodeling the house—or the figure. Surely the smart thing is to make the house the best possible house of its type, one which you’ll enjoy living in; and the figure the best possible figure of its type—one you’ll enjoy living with.

IT SHOULD BE DONE

Perhaps we’ve dwelt overmuch on the good looks angle. But surely the right angle on good looks is good health. To be under par is to be caught short on the reserves which, if you have them, do so much to cushion the bumps of hectic modern living, and ward off the illnesses that pounce so gleefully on the tired, the rundown, the undernourished human frame.

IT CAN BE DONE

A wise nutritionist has said, “There are two ways of building up, just as there are two ways of getting rich. One is to cut down on your expenses, the other is to increase your income.”

The “expenses” are energy, and you can decrease them by taking more rest, less violent exercise, more sleep, and by 25 keeping calm. The “income” is food. And the thing to do with it is to eat more of it—and more choosily of it! For though music may be the food of love, the food of growth is groceries!

Too often have we heard languid creatures wail, “But I’m not hungry—I can’t swallow a thing!” To them from us goes a simple but hearty “Nonsense!”

Swallowing is an ordinary mechanical act which almost anybody can perform, providing there is no foreign body in the throat (in which case hang by your heels or call your doctor). The hitch is that most people who claim that they can’t eat are waiting for appetite to say when. Now your appetite is a fickle counselor and often does not have your best interest 26 at heart. Just look what it does to Mrs. Plenteous! Our advice is this: Ignore it and eat anyhow. Chances are that appetite, surprised and stimulated by regular shipments of body-building food, will come to life and get back on the job.

Other non-eaters insist that their stomachs are too small. Well, stomachs are timid creatures. If they don’t get much they quit expecting much. And they shrink. But they are flexible organs and adapt well to inflation. Start feeding them more, and they’ll take it—and like it. Start gradually, though, and give them time to adjust. Eat oftener and less at a time. And at regular times! Increase your calories by 500 to 1,000 a day (see pages 30 to 35). But don’t just pile them on. Team them up with their right partners—the PROTEINS, VITAMINS, MINERALS. And of course don’t take our word for anything without checking with your doctor!

MRS. PLENTEOUS SHOULDN’T PEEK

The next few pages may be a little hard on Mrs. Plenteous, so we hope she left us on page 20. For from here on in we get just voracious about food. “Help yourself,” Miss Gaunt—

NOT to a cup of bouillon—BUT to a brimming bowl of cream soup

NOT to lettuce leaves and lemon juice—BUT to a salad bowl, tangy with cheese and dressing

NOT to a dry rye crisp—BUT to those warm rolls and butter

NOT to just wafers of lean meat—BUT to a thick pork chop sometimes—with gravy

NOT to a modest glass of milk twice a day—BUT to an extra glass or a double chocolate malted maybe.

WHO SAID MILK

Milk? Ah, now there’s a beverage both Mrs. P. and Miss G. can sip with sociability. For milk is the menu’s best builder-upper and is essential whether you’re headed UP or DOWN. But while Mrs. Plenteous should stick to plain, whole milk, (with such companions as cottage cheese, American cheese, plain ice cream, and some butter) Miss Gaunt may let herself go on parts of milk that will stick to her—cream, butter, and cream cheeses.

Milk has many virtues: It adds to the food income without cramming bulk into those small stomachs previously noted. And it is the world’s best mixer, combining graciously with hundreds of other foods, enhancing and enriching them.

Consider a few of the forms milk can assume. Every one is a boost for Miss Gaunt as she goes up, up, UP that scale:

Indeed, anything à la mode is the right mode for Miss Gaunt!

Whee! Merely setting down such a list makes us feel as though we’d put on ten pounds. Pardon us while we unhook our stays!

And may you, Miss Gaunt, soon be doing the same! BUT—don’t overdo it! Mrs. Plenteous knows it is hard to melt. Set your goals to look and feel your best.

TABLE OF CALORIES

Take your calories in good, reliable, tasty, and health-building foods first. Expand cautiously.

TO LADIES IN WEIGHTING

Keep a regular record, using the same scales, if possible.

Transcriber’s Notes

• Silently corrected a few typos, including listed errata.
• Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
• In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.