Part 2

breakfast Fresh fruit of juice 1 serving—½ cup Egg—cooked without fat 1 Bread or cereal 1 slice of bread or a serving of cereal (1 cup prepared or ½ cup cooked) Butter or margarine 1 level teaspoon Milk 1 glass—8 ounces Coffee or tea Cream 1 tablespoon dinner Lean meat, fish, or poultry 3 ounces (average serving) Vegetables[3] ½ cup Group I and ½ cup Group II Potato 1 small Butter or margarine 1 level teaspoon Milk 1 glass—8 ounces Fruit—raw, or cooked or 1 serving—½ cup canned without sugar lunch or supper Cottage cheese, meat, or ½ cup of cheese, 2 ounces of eggs meat, or 2 eggs Vegetables[3] ½ cup Group I and ½ cup Group II Bread 1 slice Butter or margarine 1 level teaspoon Milk 1 glass—8 ounces Fruit, plain custard, or ½ cup of fruit or custard, or plain cookies 2 cookies

Vegetables are listed below in two groups, according to their carbohydrate content. Those in Group I have no more than 3 percent carbohydrate, and those in Group II have no more than 9 percent. It is simpler to choose the vegetables according to the listings than to count the calories for each vegetable in the day’s meals.

Where the diets on pages 16-17 call for fruits, these may be chosen from the lower-calorie fruits listed below.

_vegetables_

GROUP I Asparagus Beet greens Broccoli Cabbage Cauliflower Celery Chard Chicory Chinese Cabbage Cucumber Endive Escarole Lettuce Mushrooms Mustard greens Radishes Sauerkraut Spinach Summer squash Tomato Juice Tomatoes Turnip tops Watercress

GROUP II Artichokes Beans, green Beans, wax Beets Brussels sprouts Carrots Collards Dandelion greens Eggplant Kale Kohlrabi Lambsquarters Okra Onions Peppers Pumpkin Rutabagas Squash, winter Turnips

_fruit_

Apples Apricots Blackberries Blueberries Cherries Cranberries Currants Gooseberries Grapefruit Grapefruit juice Lemons Limes Loganberries Melons Cantaloupe Casaba Honeydew Spanish Watermelon Oranges Orange juice Peaches Pears Pineapple Pineapple juice Plums Raspberries Rhubarb Strawberries Tangerines

_On Keeping a Record_

Most people find it helpful to keep a record of their progress. Weight should be recorded once a week only. To show progress accurately, the same scales should be used at the same time of the day.

It is also helpful to make weekly notes of body measurements. Sometimes a person gets discouraged because, after a period of satisfactory loss, the scales show no drop for a week or more. But during these periods body measurements often continue to decrease. To know that another half inch has melted off the waistline is encouraging at such times. It stiffens resistance to the common temptation of saying, “Oh, what’s the use?” and stopping when success is in sight. Weight loss begins again if the diet is faithfully followed.

The most important record to keep carefully is a list of the foods eaten each day, and the quantity. Such a list serves several purposes. It can be checked against the essential foods to make sure there are no omissions. It will help the doctor in adjusting a diet to slower or faster weight loss, as the need may be. It is useful as a reminder of slips and indiscretions in eating or drinking which must be checked. It helps to keep a person convinced about the number of calories he is really taking in.

_Special Problems_

On a reducing diet many people find themselves eating more vegetables, raw fruits, and salads than they did before. Most of them benefit from the change. However, anyone who has previously had signs of ulcers, colitis, or other digestive disturbances should tell his physician. A person susceptible to such conditions may need to use raw fruits and vegetables sparingly, substituting fruits stewed without sugar, or perhaps using pureed vegetables.

Constipation sometimes occurs when eating habits are changed suddenly. It can often be corrected by drinking more water and by using green, leafy vegetables more generously. The substitution of stewed, dried fruits for some fresh fruits may also help. The amount must be watched, because dried fruits are richer in calories than fresh fruits. They are often eaten in greater quantity and cooked with sugar.

People who are on a diet and who eat in restaurants a great deal have a problem. Unless their budget runs to a daily steak diet, a good cafeteria is often a better choice than other types of restaurants. The foods are usually plainly cooked, without much fat, and can be chosen individually. The chief problem is to develop the habit of passing by all the display of foods which must not be eaten. The temptation to add something extra is sometimes greater than it is at home.

If lunch is the only meal which must be eaten out, and there is no suitable eating place available, the problem may be solved by taking lunch from home. Some suggestions for a day’s menus, including low-calorie lunches which can be carried to work or school, are given on the opposite page.

PACKED LUNCH for 1200 Calorie Diet BREAKFAST

½ cup fruit 1 egg 1 slice toast 1 teaspoon butter 1 glass milk Clear coffee or tea

LUNCH

Sandwich: 1 slice bread 1 teaspoon butter 1 ounce lean meat 1 hard cooked egg wedge of raw cabbage whole raw carrot fresh fruit 1 glass milk

LUNCH

Sandwich: 2 _thin_ slices bread 1 ounce lean meat 1 hard cooked egg 1 teaspoon mayonnaise lettuce 2 stalks celery 1 small cucumber fresh fruit 1 glass milk

LUNCH

Sandwich: 2 _thin_ slices bread 2 ounces chicken or meat chopped and mixed with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1 tablespoon chopped celery and a little chopped onion large fresh tomato ½ green pepper fruit 1 glass skim milk

DINNER

3 ounces meat, fish, or poultry ½ cup vegetables from Group I and Group II 1 glass skim milk ½ cup fruit—fresh, or cooked or canned without sugar

UNDERWEIGHT AND ITS DANGERS

Anyone 20 percent or more below his best weight is considered underweight. Definite underweight is not desirable in young people who are still growing. It may be a symptom of disease. The glandular disorders so often erroneously blamed for overweight are much more likely to show themselves in loss of weight or inability to gain. Even when there is nothing wrong, people whose weight is too far below normal are more likely to suffer from fatigue and poor physical endurance. Resistance to infection is often lowered. Tuberculosis strikes more often among adolescents and young people who are underweight than it does among those whose weight is closer to what it should be.

_What Causes Underweight?_

Certain diseases and glandular disorders can cause underweight. In healthy people, however, underweight comes from eating too little, from poor eating habits, from over-activity or too little rest, and from worry or prolonged tension.

Many people eat too little for much the same reasons which make others eat too much. Habit frequently plays a part. Meals are irregular in some families, sometimes poorly prepared, and eating is considered the least important of the day’s activities. It is not surprising if the children from such families grow up with an indifferent attitude toward food.

Emotions may also play a part. The feeling of being unloved, dissatisfaction with personal relationships, discontent over job, money, or social restrictions, and other reasons of this kind cause some people to react with indifference to eating just as they cause others to overeat. Keen rivalry, a wish to take part in everything, or too great an absorption in school or social activities sometimes cause over-activity and underweight among adolescents.

_How to Gain Weight_

As in overweight, the first step is to see a physician and have a thorough physical examination. It is important to find and correct anything which may be wrong. Efforts to gain may be useless unless this is done.

The same principles apply to gaining weight as to losing it, but in reverse. Underweight people must take in _more_ calories than they use, so that there will be some left over to store as fat.

Will power can be as great a factor in gaining weight successfully as it is in losing, particularly for people who do not like many of the essential foods. They must learn to say “yes” to enough of the right foods, regardless of their wishes, just as firmly as their fat friends need to say “no” to forbidden extras.

As in overweight, it is important first to include the essential foods in the day’s meals. These foods are necessary for maximum health, whether a person’s weight is too high, too low, or just right. Some underweight individuals whose food choices have been poor may find that they are able to gain merely by making sure that they include these foods in their diet. Others need to study ways to add extra calories.

_Adding Extra Calories_

The simplest way is to eat more at each meal—extra bread and butter, and second helpings of everything.

Often, however, underweight people seem to have a small stomach capacity. Therefore, additions of high-calorie foods which add little or no bulk are probably easier to take at first than trying to eat larger quantities. Such additions as cream on cereals and in beverages; extra eggs in puddings, salad dressings, and drinks; and butter or other fat used generously in salad dressings, cooking and seasoning should add enough calories to enable most people to gain weight. Also, provided they are added to regular meals and not used to replace them, the high-calorie foods listed on page 14 should be used freely by anyone trying to gain weight. If they do not interfere with eating enough at regular meals, between-meal snacks also help. So do extra milk and something to eat before going to bed.

_Saving Energy_

The body uses fewer calories at rest than when active, and least of all during sleep. Therefore, any extra sleep or rest which an underweight person gets will help him to gain. Whatever energy can be saved during waking hours by riding instead of walking, sitting instead of standing, and relaxing as often as possible will add to the calories saved.

A healthy person who decides to gain weight, and who sticks to his program of taking in more calories than he needs, and of spending as few as possible in needless physical activity, can be sure that sooner or later his efforts will meet with success.

CALORIE TABLES

FOOD MEASURES[4] CALORIES