Diet and Health - Lulu Hunt Peters (great books to read .txt) 📗
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In addition, they say that animal protein is more easily digested, that 97 per cent is assimilated because it is animal, and so it is much more to be desired, especially by children and convalescents; that vegetable protein is enclosed in cellulose, and only 65 to 75 per cent is used by the system; thus the diet is apt to be too bulky if the proper amount is taken.
It has been proved, however, by several endurance tests, that the vegetarian contestants had more strength and greater endurance than their meat-eating competitors, so there is no reason why we should be worried by one or two, or even more, meatless days, especially when animal product protein, such as milk, eggs, cheese, and the vegetable proteins, as in the legumes and the nuts, are available.
I confess that for quite a while after studying vegetarian books I took a dislike to meat, but now I am in the comfortable state described by Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography. It seems that he had been converted to vegetarianism and had decided that he never again would eat the flesh of animals that had been ruthlessly slaughtered, when they so little deserved that fate.
But he was exceedingly fond of fish, and while on a fishing party, as some fish were being fried, he found they did smell most admirably well, and he was greatly torn between his desire and his principle. Finally he remembered that when the fish were opened he saw some smaller fish in their stomachs, and he decided that if they could eat each other he could eat them.
Protein Calories in 100 C Portions of Food
6 The Deluded Ones—My Thin Friends
I am going to sandwich you in between the food calories and my fat friends, and maybe you can absorb some of them. In the first chapter, you remember, I said I was not particularly interested in you, but I have changed my mind, and I will treat you tenderly and carefully. I will have to preach a little bit first, but I don't mind that; I love to reform people—Yes, you need reforming!
The first thing many of you have to do is to learn to accept the trivial annoyances and small misfits of life as a matter of course, for to give them attention beyond their deserts is to wear the web of your life to the warp.
Elbert Hubbard never said anything better than that. Have that reproduced in motto form and put it on your bureau, and repeat it fifty times daily.
Adopt my philosophy. If I have a trivial annoyance I analyze it carefully. Was I to blame? Yes? All right, I am glad, because then I can see that it will not happen again, so I stop worrying. If I am not to blame, if I could not help it in the least, well, then I don't worry about it, for that will not help it any, and I wasn't to blame! If it bobs up in my mind again, I say: "Now, look here, you annoyance, I have given you all the attention you deserve; avaunt, depart, get out!"
Now, how is this philosophy going to help you gain?
When you worry needlessly, notice how tense your muscles are. You are exercising them all of the time and using hundreds of calories of energy. You raise your blood pressure, the internal secretory glands may overact (re-read what I have said about these glands in the fat people), and thus many more calories are used. The intestinal secretions do not flow so freely, you have indigestion and do not assimilate your food, and thus hundreds more calories are lost.
It certainly is impossible to gain unless your food is assimilated.
So the first thing you have to learn is this mental control and to relax. Remember that word, relax. After you are better nourished your nervous system will not be on hair-trigger tension, and it will be easier for you.
If you are ill in mind or body, remember that it is natural to be well, and that within your body nature has stored the most wonderful forces which are always tending towards the normal, or health, if not obstructed or hindered.
Nature sometimes needs help to stimulate those forces, or to reinforce them, or to remove obstructions. This is where the physician comes in. But you yourself can aid nature the most by realizing that nature is health and it is normal to be well. By so doing, all of your organs function better and you are restored to normal more rapidly.
Second: It is very important to have enough sleep. Dr. Richard Cabot says that probably resistance is lowered as much by lack of sufficient sleep as by any other factor, and that all you can soak into your system in twenty-four hours is not too much. Don't forget the fresh air.
You generally suffer from sleeplessness, I believe. The overweights are always advised not to sleep too much. They will find while reducing that they won't want to sleep so much, anyway. They will like to stay awake—they feel so much happier.
Now, when you retire and try to sleep but cannot, try this—it works with me. You know when you are passing over your mental images become distorted and grotesque. I artificially induce that state. If I find myself rehearsing about two hundred times, with appropriate gestures, the keen, witty, logical remarks which I could have made in favor of my pet legislation in the club discussion, but didn't, then I begin after this fashion:
Pink elephants with green ribbons on their tails—red rhinoceri (is that right, or should it be rhinoceroses?)—smiling peanuts—Woman's City Club—Social Health Insurance—why didn't I say—I wish I had said—(here get out, you annoyance!)—pink elephants—and so forth and so forth.
Now I realize I have ruined myself. I am my own worst enemy. I have exposed my whole life before those modern vivisectionists, the army of amateur psycho-analysts.
Third: Exercise. Great muscular exertion should be avoided, but the setting-up exercises that I advise, if begun with moderation and increased gradually, will undoubtedly stimulate the appetite and help the body functions to be better performed.
Fourth: Since food is the only source of body substance, you must gradually train your stomach so that it can care for enough food to not only supply your bodily energy, but to leave a little excess to be stored as fat.
If you have a small appetite—and many of you have—your stomach is undoubtedly contracted, and you must gradually add to the amount you have been eating, even though it may cause some distress, until you have disciplined it so that it can handle what you need without distress. The stomach is a muscular organ and can be trained and exercised somewhat as other organs can. You will not have much appetite at first, but it will develop. Sometimes a short fast for a day or two, drinking nothing but pure water, seems to be beneficial in the beginning.
Do not drink much with your meals, unless the drink has food value by the addition of lots of cream or sugar, or both.
Decide how many calories you need for your activities, gradually add to your dietary until you have reached that number, and then some more, and you will gain as surely as the overweight individual will lose by doing the opposite. It may take a long time, or you may get results very rapidly, depending somewhat upon the individual characteristics. Gradually increase your butter, cream, sugar, chocolate, and so forth, as they are very high in food value.
Study the Key to the Calories and reckon your calories every day for a while. You have already noticed that the foods that you like are low in food value.
Here are some of the things you can take to add to your fuel:
A glass of milk, hot or cold, taken between meals and before retiring, will add about 500 calories.
Cream sauce on your vegetables will add to their value.
Cod liver oil, or olive oil, or cream, begun in small doses and gradually increased.
One malted milk, made with milk, syrup, egg, ice cream, whipped cream, and the malted milk, will add about 500 calories.
You remember the painful time that I spoke of when there was so much more of me than there ought to be? Well, the aforesaid concoction, made with milk, syrup, egg, ice cream, whipped cream, and the malted milk, was accessory before the fact, and also particeps criminis before the law.
I absorbed this phraseology by being president of the Professional Woman's Club, with its high-class women attorneys, ministers, dentists, Ph.D.'s, and "Medical Trust" doctors.
"Medical Trust."—The American Medical Association (A.M.A.), a powerful trust you can't get into unless you have a high preliminary education and are a graduate of a high-class medical college. Eleven years' training after the grammar school is their minimum standard now.
"League for Medical Ignorance."—The so-called "League for Medical Freedom"; the opponent of the above mentioned trust. Their standard—any old kind of a medical or religious training, two weeks or longer, engrafted on anyone who has the money to pay for the course. No education, no barrier; in fact, those of limited education make the loudest boosters for the league. In justice, I must say that many splendid, estimable persons belong to this league, not knowing these facts.
Fifth: See page 92 in my advice to the fat. It is as important for you as for them. (It always makes me mildly furious when I look up a word and am directed to seek some other locality. If it affects you that way—seek page 60 in my advice to you.)
Also have your teeth X-rayed. Blind abscesses at the roots will cause all sorts of aches and pains, as well as underweight.
Sixth: Don't talk so much. See if you can't leave out two-thirds of the totally unimportant, uninteresting details. A tremendous amount of energy is used in talking. This habit I would not say was confined to you, by any means; it is another one of those pretty nearly universal errors.
I will not give you a sample fattening menu, for it might be all out of proportion to what you could handle, and it would upset you. Make out your own menus, realizing that you must work gradually to the desired amount.
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