When you eat less than your maintenance diet, you are going to supply the deficiency with your own fat.

So commit yourself on your honor that you are going to reduce or perish—­no joke; you can’t tell how near you are to it if you are much overweight.  There are two general stages of fatty heart.  In the first stage the heart is surrounded by a blanket of fat, and it also penetrates between the muscles.  Later, if it goes on too long, the heart muscle itself degenerates to fat, then—­

[Sidenote:  Good-night!]

Shakespeare warns you to make thy body less, hence thy grace more; leave gormandizing, and know that the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.

Second Order

[Sidenote:  Shrink Your Stomach]

Your stomach, long used to an excess of food for your needs—­it may not be a large amount—­but still, I repeat, being used to an excess of food for your needs, your stomach must be disciplined.  It is undoubtedly distended, as it should not be.

[Sidenote:  Shrink Your Stomach]

A good way to show it that you are master is to fast for at least one day—­drink nothing but pure water, hot or cold, as you prefer.  It will protest vociferously and will tell all its friends, the different organs of your body, how you are persecuting it, and they will join the league against you and decide they will oust you from your position, and you will feel like—­but don’t mind it; it will soon know that you mean business, and, much chastened and considerably contracted, will take the next day a very small amount of food very gratefully.

[Sidenote:  Shrink Your Stomach]

If you do not want to be so severe with it you can allow it five glasses of hot or cold skim milk or buttermilk, one every three hours, say, at 10,1,4,7, and 10 o’clock.  One glass is 80 calories, five equal 400 calories, which is not so much.

[Sidenote:  Or Mashed]

The baked potato and glass of skim milk diet, three times a day one day a week, which has its devotees, depends upon its low caloric content for its results.  There is no magic in it, no yeast business which reduces.  This is most wholesome, however, for potatoes contain a large amount of the potassium salts, which tend to counteract the effects of uric acid, and thus are good for the gouty type.

[Sidenote:  Mono-Diets]

The beefsteak, the milk, and the fruit diets are also good.  One can gain as well as lose on the milk diet, all depending on number of calories consumed, and it is an excellent method for both.  The beefsteak diet is beneficial for a short time, but too much protein over a long period has been shown to be harmful.  An exclusive fruit diet is excellent for reduction.

Low calorie days can be repeated once a week if necessary in order to keep the stomach in good order.  Fruit juice, one-quarter glass, or fresh fruit, can be substituted for the skim milk, and you may prefer it.