[ "But my most spectacular feat of the season is reducing. You know how fat I was in 1923, and how bitterly I resented the circumstance. In 1924 I grew even worse, till finally I had to adopt a #16 collar! Dur¬ ing the combined period of my wife's hospital sojourn and my Philadel¬ phia trip, I had the opportunity of regulating my own diet for the first time in my entire career—eating just as much as I wanted, rather than as much as someone else thought I ought to have. Upon the close of this
period I had thinned perceptibly, returning to a 15% collar.I
don't know how much I lost, for after passing the one hundred ninetythree mark on the upward course a year before, I had refused to mount a pair of scales! During the winter I kept a sterner guard of my diet, and managed not to regain the tonnage I had lost—and then, when in January I became absolute autocrat of my breakfast, dinner, and supper table, I flung my hat in the air—or ring—and started reducing in ear¬ nest!! And I didn't even need to be fat at all! It was all the result of acquiescing spinelessly in the dicta of one's solicitous family! How the pounds flew! I helped the course along by exercise and outdoor walks, and every time my friends saw me they were either pleased or fright¬ ened at the startling shrinkage. Fortunately I had not been fat for so many years that the skin must needs suffer radical distension. Instead, it shrunk neatly along with the tissue beneath, leaving a firm surface and simply restoring the lost outlines of 1915 and before. And what a story the scales and my clothing told! The latter had to be thoroughly re-tai¬ lored, whilst every week I bought smaller and smaller collars. It was dramatic—breathless—sensational—this reclamation of a decade-lost statue from the vile mud which had so long encrusted it. As you may imagine, my wife protested fearfully at what seemed an alarming de¬ cline. I received long scolding letters from my aunts, and was lectured severely by Mrs. Long every time I went up to see Little Belknap. But I knew what I was doing, and kept on like grim death. I had simply changed my dietetic standard to the normal, and—as I hope—perma¬ nently broken the fat-accumulating tendency. When I had condensed to my old pre-war figure, I ceased to apply the extremes of my method— yet not only did I escape a subsequent increase, but have even lost nine additional pounds—this last year without even trying."]
period I had thinned perceptibly, returning to a 15% collar.I
don't know how much I lost, for after passing the one hundred ninetythree mark on the upward course a year before, I had refused to mount a pair of scales! During the winter I kept a sterner guard of my diet, and managed not to regain the tonnage I had lost—and then, when in January I became absolute autocrat of my breakfast, dinner, and supper table, I flung my hat in the air—or ring—and started reducing in ear¬ nest!! And I didn't even need to be fat at all! It was all the result of acquiescing spinelessly in the dicta of one's solicitous family! How the pounds flew! I helped the course along by exercise and outdoor walks, and every time my friends saw me they were either pleased or fright¬ ened at the startling shrinkage. Fortunately I had not been fat for so many years that the skin must needs suffer radical distension. Instead, it shrunk neatly along with the tissue beneath, leaving a firm surface and simply restoring the lost outlines of 1915 and before. And what a story the scales and my clothing told! The latter had to be thoroughly re-tai¬ lored, whilst every week I bought smaller and smaller collars. It was dramatic—breathless—sensational—this reclamation of a decade-lost statue from the vile mud which had so long encrusted it. As you may imagine, my wife protested fearfully at what seemed an alarming de¬ cline. I received long scolding letters from my aunts, and was lectured severely by Mrs. Long every time I went up to see Little Belknap. But I knew what I was doing, and kept on like grim death. I had simply changed my dietetic standard to the normal, and—as I hope—perma¬ nently broken the fat-accumulating tendency. When I had condensed to my old pre-war figure, I ceased to apply the extremes of my method— yet not only did I escape a subsequent increase, but have even lost nine additional pounds—this last year without even trying."]
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