PART 1
all about dieting
A
common-sense approach
to
dieting: the simple statement of
just why, when and how
you
should
lose weight. Shedding pounds
is
not a grim business — not
here
at least. And this is more than
a
guaranteed diet, it's a
plan
for enjoying good food
CHAPTER ONE
why lose weight?
You II look
better, feel better,
perhaps live longer
Though there is still a great deal to be
learned on the
subject,
doctors and psychologists are pretty much in agreement that people are better off if they are not overweight.
Sometimes you hear people argue that there are civilizations in which being fat is positively chic.
Well, we don't live in one. You have to feel attractive if you're going to have
a happy life—and this means that your mind must be free for better uses than embarrassment or
anguish over being so
round that there's no way to drape the form or suck in the paunch to deceive the rest of the critical
world. Most people like their clothes to fit properly, and the battle of the bulges is apt to
make this a constant problem. That, by the way, can help you keep yourself
thin. Have your clothes taken in as you lose weight, then stay within these limits. Your clothes will
show off a figure of which you
can be progressively more proud and thus encourage you to stay that way.
Another major reason for losing weight is the sense of well-being that goes along with being slimmer. If you've
always weighed too much, you can't imagine what
it's like. But if you get yourself down to the weight that is right for you, you will love it. And you'll like yourself better.
The sense of well-being is, of course, closely tied with
health. You puff and blow
when you move fast, or even when you talk, if you're carrying enough extra pounds. It's uncomfortable—and it may
be an indication that a more serious disability than that is in the offing. There is still much
knowledge to be gained about the relationship of overweight to disease, whether it be of the heart
or some of the other organs. But medical doctors, psychologists, nutritionists
and public health people agree that until we learn more we'll do well to accept
the theory that there is some correlation between overweight and disease.
So! Lose weight because you'll look better, feel better, perhaps live
longer. These are powerful reasons. They should
be enough to get you over the hump of
inertia or constant hunger or whatever it is that has let you get too fat. But,
you'll say, losing weight is easier
said than done. Of course it is. That's the reason for this book, which is written for men and women
who want to live well and eat well all year long, and still lose weight. This
includes a great many persons. I am
one myself. I know that it's no fun to weigh too much, and I also know that cooking and eating food are two of the most
pleasant experiences man is privileged to have. I loathe rabbit and
monkey and faddist foods, and I love sauces and seasonings and butter and crisp
fat on meat.
Because I love food so much I have had to spend a good
deal of time dieting. As a writer and reporter
in the field of food I have also talked with authorities on food and nutrition and read as widely as I
could, and in 1955 I attended the first
“colloquium” on weight control ever held in the United States.
Out of these
experiences I have developed a philosophy of weight control:
1. It is not necessary to give up eating everything you like
to lose weight.
2. It is not only not necessary, but not
good, to count calories and measure
and weigh everything you eat.
3. It is absolutely necessary to change your eating habits if
you're going to
lose weight and have it stay lost.
7
CHAPTER TWO
how do you know
You can't tell
by looking at tables— weight is an individual matter
you're overweight?
Perhaps you suddenly notice, having
fought off the knowledge
as long as was humanly possible, that all your belts are so tight that you have
to undo them halfway through every meal. This just might indicate a gain in weight. Perhaps it occurs to you
that traffic lights turn from red to green so much faster than they used to that you can barely make it
across. That could be
because extra weight slows you down. It's awfully hard to admit that it is oneself and not circumstances that
have changed, but it's frequently true. Nobody really wants to be fat, but
neither do people who dearly love food want to go on diets, so a defense mechanism that
enables you not to see yourself as others see you is a pretty logical reaction. But it doesn't help
you or the situation, of course.
You may have a pretty good idea of the answer to whether
or not you're overweight,
if you've had the courage to face yourself in the mirror without clothes— in profile, too, of course! It's
pretty hard to kid yourself under such circumstances.
You cannot tell by looking at an age-height-weight table
that you are so-and-so many
pounds overweight, or that you are overweight at all, for that matter. Those
tables are generalizations, as they have to be. They give some indication, but
not positive answers.
Lots of us, if we weighed what those tables say we should for our ages and heights, would be as
round as balloons. À person's proper weight is
a highly individual matter.
That is why I
say here for the first time and I'm going to be repeating it: You must consult with your own doctor, who
knows you, before embarking on any weight-reduction scheme of any kind. Ask him if you're overweight. Ask
him how much he thinks
you need to lose. Ask him what diet he'd recommend your using. If you`re reading this book,
please take it to your doctor and see whether he'll
okay its menus and recipes for you. If he does, all is well.
To tell how much you're overweight, your doctor will
probably use skin-fold calipers.
With these he pinches your skin to see how much fatty tissue lies directly beneath. A large proportion of the fat in your
body is right there. This is now considered
a much better indication of whether you're overweight or not than weighing
yourself.
9
CHAPTER THREE
how did you get fat?
You Got Fat From Eating Too Much. Upon that
fact there is probably more general agreement among people who work in
this field than upon any
other. Of course one thing each of us would like to know is “what is too much”? The answer is
entirely individual. What is too much for me
to eat may leave you in a condition of trembling starvation.
You can get to know just by looking whether a portion of
food is bigger than is right for you. You also get to know which are the most
fattening foods, and that
if you're going to eat them at all you must eat less than you would of a non-fattening dish. You will then face
such choices as: Would I rather have quantities of some awful-tasting so-called “diet
dressing” on my salad or a tea-spoonful of real, proper French dressing, made with pure olive oil? If
you have any taste at
all you will choose the latter alternative, and you will be eating what you've
always eaten—good food, properly prepared—only less of it.
Why Do You Eat Too Much? There's a variety of reasons why
people stuff themselves.
It can be a habit started in childhood. It can be to compensate for a lack in oneself or one's life.
It can be .from lack of knowledge of proper food habits. In any case, most of
the common reasons people give for the fact that they're fat are largely fallacies, which are used as
crutches.
It is exceedingly easy to be too fat in the United
States in this century. We are, by and large, better off financially than ever before, so we can buy
all the food we want—and
if we want too much, it will make us fat. There was a time when walking was both a necessity and a
pastime. Now we spend most of our time on wings or wheels. Our games are less active. Housewives
used to get a lot of exercise on the job; now machines take over a good part of
the heavy work. Food is
presented to us on editorial and advertising pages in the most mouth-watering forms. We have been taught through
these same sources that rich, whipped-creamy things to eat are the sign of true
hospitality: we not only offer them to our guests, but also we feel it is only civilized to
consume them in other people's
10
|
|
|
If you re overweight, |
|
you got that way |
|
from eating too much |
houses. All these factors are important to us. They constitute a way of
life, and we are not ones to change our way of life easily.
Now let us look at
some of the excuses people use for eating too much.
“My Family Is Inclined to Overweight.” You know—your grandmother and grandfather, and your aunts
and uncles, and your mother and father were all
“stout.” Well, they didn't inherit being fat—and neither did you. Lots of us inherit
certain types of body structure, but not the padding. If you are a fat member of a fat family it's most likely because
the custom has always been to have
too much, too rich food all readily available at any hour of the day or night.
“Poor, Fat Thing! You Know It's Glandular.” You can bet your bottom dollar that it's not. Time
was, not long ago, that experts told us that not more than two per cent of all the cases of overweight were due to glandular
causes. The latest information is
that there may be none. There is also a very commonly held notion that people who are hypothyroid are
necessarily fat. They may appear to be fat because they store up fluid, but they
are not necessarily obese.
“Food Is Such a Comfort.” Right! But if you eat it to comfort
yourself for not getting
that promotion, for losing your beau or your best girl, for being unsuccessful in any way—that's bad.
Maybe you can spot this sort of compensatory eating in
yourself. Maybe, but don't struggle too hard.
One thing is certain: if you can do it at all, it must be with the aid of a good sense of humor. Then you
have to go on to choose for yourself some other comfort which will satisfy you
as much as food does and which will
not bring you the unattractive extras.
This may sound as though I am saying that you have
to apply will power to lose
weight. I am! I have heard and read many statements lately—from people about whose ideas on other aspects of
weight reduction I am enthusiastic—to the effect that reducing is not a question of will power at
all, but just a matter of eating the right foods. For my money, it is both.
11
CHAPTER FOUR
how can you stick with a diet?
Eat the foods you’ve
always known and
loved— but not so much of them
This,
of course, is the $64,000 question. Experts tell us
that
the only real weight reduction is maintained weight reduction—certainly anybody who wants to lose weight
wants to lose it for good. Current knowledge shows, however, that almost all
people who are overweight are people who have previously
dieted and lost weight—and gained it right back again. The pattern is as regular as clockwork, and the answer is that
most of us have quite bad food
habits. It is only within the past couple of decades that we've begun to know anything at all about what foods do to our
bodies.
It's not easy to change your eating habits as an adult. But you are
more likely to do it if
all the food you eat is not only good for you, but is entirely delectable. Remember this: Too much
of any food will make you fat. However, the fact that it's most of all quantity that bears
on the subject of overweight allows you to live on a diet which doesn't cut out everything you enjoy
and expect you to live like a rabbit or a
monkey or a beet-eater or a faddist! You eat the foods you've always known and
loved, only not so much of them. Perhaps at the
start you have to cut out a few items which you can take back with restraint later. But unless you have some medical problem,
you can lose weight on whatever are
perfectly “normal” foods for you, provided you are careful to keep your
diet balanced.
For
some people the first few days of sticking to a diet are grim. For others the hard part comes later, because in the beginning
their bodies are satisfied by burning up all that extra fat they've been
carrying around. But there are some things you can do to make it easier.
A diet that takes off many
pounds a week is bad for you physically, and your chances of developing and really absorbing new food
habits while you're on it will be pretty slim. The longer you take to achieve
the weight loss your doctor
recommends, the more accustomed you become to eating the right foods in the right quantities. Your doctor
will probably confirm the fact that a pound or two a week, and never more than three—even at the
start—is plenty of weight loss
for one who wants to keep it lost.
You had better realize, too, that the first pounds come
off relatively easily, though
nobody can tell you how many pounds will be the easy ones. As is usual in this reducing business, that is an
entirely individual matter. However, everyone finds that weight loss is likely
to have peaks and valleys and plateaus. And the
last pounds you're supposed to lose will be the hardest to do away with, without fail or question.
All that is a good reason for not weighing every
day. You may vary a pound or
two—up or down—in any 24-hour period. This can be the cause of too much despair or too much celebration. Once
a week is enough for weighing. Do it on the same day, at the same hour, on the same scales and in
the same condition of
dress or undress. If you're faithful to your diet you're bound to see encouraging improvement in that length of time.
13
CHAPTER FIVE
how about dieting aids?
You diet to lose weight
for good—fads and
magic potions won't help
Do you know what we mean by dieting
“aids”? They are pills and
other magic potions that will help you lose weight painlessly— it says so right here in the advertisement. A few doctors
will prescribe them. And though most of
these “aids” will do you no harm, all of them are crutches which will, in the end, destroy your basic purpose
in dieting—to lose weight for good.
On the whole, their method is to kill appetite. What could be more effective?
When you're not hungry it isn't hard to cut down on food.
However, these pills, or crutches, interfere completely
with your achieving new
eating habits. You form such habits, good or bad, through liking what you eat. If you haven't any appetite,
you won't like anything you eat. So, in your attempt to lose pounds, you are
denying yourself one of the greatest pleasures of mankind—enjoying good food.
I
have talked to and observed plenty of
people who used such crutches to help remove
pounds. None of them were on diets that made sense. For instance, they ate practically no foods which provided them
with vitamins. They went on eating fattening desserts because, I
suppose, even though they didn't feel much
like eating anything, desserts had always been irresistible to them and the habit carried over. Without exception these
people have told me that the minute they gave up the crutches (and I
think no one would recommend their use
indefinitely) they just went back to eating more of the same bad diet—and they
got fat again.
Also in the department of magic are the faddist diets.
Their great common recognizable
characteristic is that they are never well-balanced in terms of the sound nutritional knowledge we so far have gained. They
make it impossible for you to eat in a
restaurant or in a friend's house without being embarrassingly conspicuous. If
you don't like being that way, you become a hermit while you subsist on food that's weird, frequently
unpalatable and almost inevitably boring. Delightful as it is to be slim and full of healthy vigor (a condition
these faddist diets always promise) it isn't worth paying the penalties they
impose upon you.
The “selling” bases of faddist diets are apt to be misleading, rather than false. It says here in rather large
print that a diet is “scientifically balanced,” but fails to tell you by what science the balancing was
done. They purport, sometimes,
to be “developed by a famous scientist” whose name is conspicuously absent. They are said to have
been “medically tested” and perhaps some of
them have been. If such statements made about any diet are honest, it will not be hard for you to find out what science,
scientist or medical man is responsible
and then check with your doctor on the reliability of the source. There are some perfectly honest people who are fad-diet
minded. Unfortunately, their honesty doesn't make the diets they concoct or
adopt any better for the general health
of the public.
If you keep in mind that any diet should be edible,
that it should have staying qualities so that
you are not hungry all the time, and that it should not be so queer as to make you feel anti-social at home or
abroad, you will be able to spot the
bad ones with ease and avoid them.
15
CHAPTER SIX
you have to exercise
It doesn’t have
to be violent, but
some exercise is essential
You
may be one of the
many people who say happily,
“Of course exercise has nothing to do with reducing. Take enough
exercise and you just get
hungry and eat more than ever.” If you are—take back those words. There is a lot of support for your
theory in the often quoted statistics about the actual
number of miles you have to walk or mountains you have to climb to burn up one pound of fat. These statistics might
better have not been written. Although
they are not false., they manage to add still another excuse to the large number the reluctant dieter has already
found to throw him off the straight and
narrow.
Experts usually agree that exercise is a must when you're reducing. To put all the emphasis on intake of
energy (the food you eat) and none on the outgo (the ways you burn it up) is telling only half the
story. A calorie is a unit of energy which you take into your body. If that
unit of energy is not burned
up, it is stored by the body in fat. You will realize that it's difficult for your body to do the necessary burning if you just sit
still, though it will do a little even if
you merely stay alive! If you were entirely passive, to prevent gaining weight you'd have to eat so little that you'd
be hungry all the time.
If you’re to lose weight and be healthy at the same time, you
must take some exercise.
It doesn't have to be violent. In fact, often it's better for you to take only mild exercise. Your doctor should, again, be
the judge of that. However, remember that
for a lot of us who are middle-aged, it is not only excess fat that
makes us look unattractive. Some of our unattractive looks can be caused by the
plain flabbiness of almost-unused muscles. Exercise, even if it doesn't lose you a pound, can tone up those
muscles and make you look slimmer. Add that to actual weight lost
and you can visualize the results you will
achieve if you both diet and exercise!
In passing, I’d like to mention passive exercise, a form
of which has been a boon
to me and might be to you. It's taken with an electric exercising machine called the Relaxicisor, which tightens
your muscles, makes you feel wonderful and reduces your measurements where you want them
reduced in the most delightful way. While all this is going on you simply lie
still on your bed and relax. The machine is expensive, but if you stick with it
as I have done, in the long
run it doesn't cost more than body massage administered by one of your fellow
men (or women). And having tried both, I think the machine is more effective. It does not remove a single pound from an
overweight frame, and makes no claim of
doing so. But it offers positive proof that, used with diet, exercise makes you look and feel slimmer and better.
17
CHAPTER SEVEN
what to eat
A
dieter can eat the
same food as anyone else, if he does it wisely
T here is no difference, except in the
amount of food
consumed,
between a proper diet for losing weight and a proper diet for maintaining correct weight. Any good diet
must be well-balanced and must give you all the essential food elements.
Every
day you should eat: milk (whole or skim) ; vegetables (green or yellow) ; fruits (at least two kinds, one a citrus
fruit or tomato) ; an egg (or at least
three to five a week) ; meat, fish, poultry or cheese (one or more servings) ; cereal or bread; fat (as much as your doctor
allows—part may be in your whole milk). These foods give you needed protein,
vitamins and minerals. Your doctor will
tell you the amount of each you need.
Those are the foods you must include in your diet. There are also some others which may be added, provided
it doesn't mean cutting out the essential ones, and provided their inclusion
does not get you into a daily calorie intake which is too high to allow your losing weight. Fats of
all kinds are very high in
calories. For instance, one tablespoonful of butter contains 100 calories. For
approximately the same calorie expenditure you could have two cups of spinach or a whole pound of green beans or a
pound of asparagus or one egg, scrambled. Yet it is not considered sound to
completely eliminate fats from any diet. Other high-calorie foods are sugar, alcohol and starch. At the
start, at least, of a reducing
diet your doctor may decide to have you cut out starches and sugars altogether, though you will note that
we allow some in our menus, largely in the interests of palatability and variety, which are
important. He will, without question, suggest that you cut out alcohol
entirely. You'll lose faster if you do, though
you can drink moderately and still lose weight. Carbonated beverages are pretty expensive calorie-wise, too, and are
hardly worth including in a good reducing diet at the expense of foods which
have vitamin, mineral and protein content
to nourish your body. Happily, the new low-calorie bottled drinks are a big help to dieters who must have something to
wet their whistles and yet wish to be
faithful to the eating programs outlined for them.
At risk of being repetitious, let's underline again an
important fact. You cannot
decide that you'll take a couple of cocktails, subtract the equivalent in calories from your day's food intake,
and wind up with anything but a nutritionally
unsound diet.
You
can't skip breakfast and be properly
nourished, whether you're on a diet or not.
First, if you eat no breakfast you leave out a meal which follows the longest stretch you've gone through without
food in any 24-hour period. Whether you know it or not, you're hungry.
If you really think you can't stand
19
the
sight of food in the morning, let alone the taste, try to ease yourself gently into a more sense-making schedule. If
you can't eat anything, drink your breakfast. Soup or an eggnog should go down easily, and
gradually you will accustom your stomach to the unexpected treat of not having
to go without food for 18 hours straight. And
believe me, you will also find it so much easier not to eat too much at lunch, that you will be pleasantly amazed. When you skip
breakfast you are literally
starving by lunch time and staying on the diet is well-nigh impossible. When you've had morning food, you can
more easily resist the temptation to stuff yourself at lunch.
Nutritionists tell us that the day's food should be divided in this way: ¼ of
the day's calorie intake at breakfast—the rest
divided fairly evenly between lunch and dinner. That is the way the menus in this book are planned.
If you like the looks of these menus—if they taste good in your mind as you read them and you don't think
they'd bore you (which was the entire objective
in planning them)—show them to your doctor and see whether he agrees that you may use them. I have found that
many doctors are delighted to have
menus which are soundly counted, calorie-wise (from the best available material) and yet planned by someone who loves to
eat and to cook. When you're after a
medical degree, there's hardly time to squeeze in courses in gourmet cooking! Yet doctors know that the food
you eat when you're on a reducing diet
must be palatable or you're being asked to put yourself into a state of mind which is impossible to maintain. If
your diet is dull, all you'll think
about is that happy day when you can quit this grim and boring business.
Whereas, your thoughts should be on how fine you feel and look and how
good the food is that gets you that way.
In this connection it is particularly worthwhile for anyone who is
buying foods which appear
in a diet to become an expert on judging quality. There are many words written on the subject,
and, if you make friends with your green grocer
and butcher, they will help you learn as you go. Since so much of the food consumed by dieters is, and should be, eaten
unadorned, quality is of prime importance.
The fact that you are interested in buying only top quality does not necessarily
mean that you pay top prices. There are bargains to be had if you have the time, knowledge and patience to search
for them. And the time you spend learning where to buy the best quality at a
good price will pay off a hundred-fold
in the health and pleasure derived from your purchases when they appear on your table.
20
|
|
|
If you
feel on the edge |
|
of starvation and
must eat between meals, do your nibbling on raw vegetables
and fruits |
In the menus which follow you will note that there are some foods of which
you are allowed very
little. They are included because they liven up the rest of the meal and because it's
occasionally worth spending a good many calories for something honestly
delicious, which also carries nutriment. These treats are not offered to you in nutritionless foods, you may be sure!
Milk suggested in these menus is whole milk, unless
otherwise specified. You can
save a lot in calories (79 calories to a cup, to be exact) if you substitute skim milk, but some people dislike it
so that they can't drink it. It is certainly good to use skim milk in cooking, where the flavor is
not noticeable. The new instant dry skim milk
is marvelously easy to mix and use.
Eating between meals is out when you're on a diet. If, at
the beginning, you feel
on the edge of starvation all the time, do your nibbling on raw vegetables and fruits of the lowest
calorie count possible. And you may have coffee or tea (without cream or sugar) with any of these meals or
between meals. They have
no calorie bill for you to pay.
21
When You Eat Out. Lots of people who are on reducing
diets make much more of a
problem out of eating in restaurants or other people's houses than is at all necessary. If you accept the
premise of this book that the important thing is for you to eat less food in order to lose weight,
rather than special kinds
of food, you will find it perfectly simple to be polite and well-fed and still
not gain an ounce.
If the food presented to you at a dinner party or
buffet is swimming in rich sauces,
it's badly planned in the first place. But if in one meal; as is not only permissible but interesting, there is
one dish involving a sauce full of calories (which you can spot very easily), take a small portion
with as little of the sauce
as you can manage and then fill yourself up with normal (for you) helpings of the other, lighter and less fattening foods which
make up the meal. It isn't really a bit
hard to eat your food slowly, and it's good for you, too. If you do this, no one will notice that you started with
less than anybody else—that is unless you've done the unforgivable and
announced the fact that you are on a diet at
the start.
Whether you are eating in a restaurant or in a home in the
company of others, you
should remember that your diet is of interest and concern to nobody else but you. It's a good
ambition to have a slim waistline and the achievement enormously satisfying. Almost inevitably your friends
will compliment you if you've accomplished
such a feat. But if you then give a long, detailed explanation of how you did
it, you quickly lose your audience. Perhaps occasionally an overweight friend, because he at least thinks he
wants to know, will ask how you managed to lose weight. Tell him in
private. You can't go wrong in assuming that
most people don't care a bit!
When
you eat in restaurants or at lunch counters your choice is of course limited, but it is far from impossible to find
good, well-balanced things to eat which
will fit the number of calories (about 1/3 of your day's intake) which you may allow yourself for lunch or dinner. First,
if you have any choice in the matter, find out which places generally
offer the kind of food which your diet
allows—broiled meats, eggs, salads and fruits. And do not feel self-conscious when your companion orders vichyssoise,
duck à l'orange with potatoes and other calorie-packed accompaniments,
topped by a rich dessert and you order consommé,
a chop or ground steak, a salad and half a grapefruit. Remember, there are people who prefer the kind of
food you're eating. If you stick with
it long enough you probably will yourself! If you become convinced that this is true you can even become a little smug,
which is quite all right, because you know that simple foods, well
prepared, are the best delicacies of all!
If you live in a town or city which contains “health food” shops,
many of which have lunch counters, they are a
very good possibility for low-calorie lunches,
since they are likely to offer lots of salads, cottage cheese, raw vegetables,
either whole or juiced, and fruits. You could scarcely ask for anything
22
more than this. And with such a menu you can vary your lunches nicely
from day to day without a bit of trouble.
Of course, if you live and work and cook at home
or have a wife who does, it's easier to follow
a menu pattern such as this book presents. But it is not necessary to be a recluse in order to stay within
the bounds of your calorie requirements.
They're Not on a Diet. There will be, inevitably, in your
family, or among the
friends you entertain, slim, attractive, enviable people who can eat anything without gaining an ounce. It is definitely your place
as a dieter to see to it that such people
are not starved or bored at your table. It is really very simple to
accomplish this. Since you are not turning yourself into a peculiar eater, just give unrestricted diners more of the
good food than you allow yourself.
For instance, if you're one of our 1200-calorie-a-day dieters and want to have guests for dinner, you could provide ½ to ½
pound of meat per person for your guests, while you consume ¾ pound. You could
keep out your own serving of
vegetable and put a bit of melted butter on that which you will serve to the rest. You could have fruit, say, for dessert.
Simply put a pitcher of heavy cream
and a bowl of powdered sugar on the table for your guests and stick to just
plain fruit yourself. Cake or cookies may accompany the berries, but not for you!
As you can see at a glance you will have added many
calories to the dinner of the
others at the table without changing the basic cooking in any way.
At breakfast, you can
provide others with cereal and eggs while you have one or the other. You can give them cream, light
or heavy, for their cereal while you
have milk. They may have jam with their toast. Or sometimes they will have the treat of hot muffins for breakfast. But do not
make the mistake of thinking that
you can substitute a muffin for a piece of toast “and no harm done.” There are about twice as many calories in the muffin!
While it's quite true that the thin people of your
acquaintance can eat whipped cream and sauces with abandon whenever they want to, if you watch them closely, you are likely to find that
they don't. It's the ones who share your tendency to be fat and are, at the
moment, in a mood of no self-discipline who pile on the Béarnaise or the chocolate sauce. And
that's exactly how you acquired an overweight problem yourself! Keep this in mind.
You have two contributions to make to non-dieters,
whether they should be on diets or not. Give
them the added delicacies (or riches) they crave, and don't talk about your diet at home, or make it
conspicuous in any way. Maybe your nearest
and dearest will be absolutely delighted to see you slim and beautiful, but even they can be bored beyond bearing with the
details of how you did it. And this
restraint can be helpful to you. If you don't talk about your diet all the
time, you won't think about it every minute and this may save you from falling
victim to the martyr complex—an
unhealthy state of mind for any dieter.
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