Lifestyle Choices

The only way to lose weight is to change your eating habits permanently so you follow a life regimen of eating moderate quantities of good, wholesome food, which provides a full complement of nutrition for lasting health and beauty. This means reeducating both your palate (to expect different tasting, lighter foods) and your appetite so that you lose weight gradually. This way you also do not have any of the diet shock that leads to going off a regimen and defeats its purpose. Two pounds a week weight loss should be your goal, not more. Then you can keep it off.

The diet you choose should be one that fits in reasonably with your daily relationship to food. For instance, it is worthwhile, if you have to cook for a family, to incorporate your own needs for raw vegetables, low calorie cheeses, low-fat yogurt, lean fish, and liver into the menus for the rest of the family, so you are not cooking two separate meals every time you go into the kitchen. It is not necessary to follow stringently a specific regimen where you eat exactly what is written for the meal and day. What is necessary is that you restrict yourself to a level of calories that will make it possible for you to continue with your daily activities without fatigue and that you make every calorie count in terms of nutrition. For many women, simply changing to the Lifestyle Diet brings about a steady, slow, consistent loss of weight without any restrictions even if they have been unable to lose weight before.

The idea that you can eat a candy bar or anything else you like a day and still lose weight, provided you don’t eat more than your calorie allowance, is foolish. Certainly it is possible for you to lose weight, but you will lose it at a cost. The candy bar will rob your system of precious vitamin B necessary for the health of the nervous system and to resist stress. It will supply you with empty calories instead of contributing to your daily intake of important minerals and trace elements. It will also go none of the way toward enlightening your palate so you develop a taste for fine fresh foods that will help keep you slim forever.

Every food you eat needs to count. Following the guidelines in the nutrition section, put together a balanced diet for yourself that adjusts itself to your lifestyle and your needs but stays within your calorie allowance.

Buy a little calorie counter and read it. Get to know the number of calories in the foods you eat. Also buy a notebook small enough to slip into your pocket or handbag and carry it with you. In the beginning, after each meal that you eat, record the number of calories you have consumed. Set yourself a limit. If you are not particularly active, 1,000 calories a day should be plenty provided they are well spent for nutritional efficiency. If you are more active, or if you have a lot of weight to lose, you are probably better off on a 1,500 calorie regimen.

Think of it as so much money in the bank. If you have 1,200 calories to spend in a day, you can spend them as you please, saving them for use at an evening meal, or spending them in the morning or at lunchtime, if you feel more energetic during the day that way. You can even work it out on a weekly basis to take in special occasions. For instance, if you know you will be out to a meal on Saturday night, you might eat only 700 calories on Thursday and Friday and only 400 during Saturday morning, in order to create a credit of 600 calories to spend in addition to your other 600 for Saturday, thus making it possible to eat a 1,200 calorie meal on Saturday night without interfering with your weight loss. But try to see that whatever you do eat at the dinner party is within the bounds of the Lifestyle principles; low in fat, no refined carbohydrates or sugars, and at least 50 percent of it taken raw.

Eating Patterns

Everyone has their own. There is no sense in forcing down a breakfast if you never feel well in the morning when you eat. On the other hand, you may be in a state like this from overeating regularly at night so your body is not ready for food when you awaken. Most authorities on weight loss advise that you eat three regular meals a day. This helps women who are unconscious pickers at food to break the habit. It also gives the digestive enzymes a rest, for if the enzymes are in constant demand as a result of continuous nibbling on high fat or sugary foods, this can lead to enzymic insufficiencies or depletions that may result in food allergies, hypoglycemia, or other mental and physical problems. There are many healthy and lean men and women who remain so by eating one nutritionally sound meal a day. Others do better on several small meals. You have to discover what works best for you. But don’t assume you know. Experiment within your calorie limit and find out. If you suffer from low blood sugar, try taking six small meals a day instead of two or three main ones. Carry around snacks with you—raw vegetables, whole-grain crackers, a hard-boiled egg, cottage cheese, sunflower seeds (all of which have been accounted for in your calorie allowance for the day) so you can munch whenever you feel the need. This will eliminate much of the impulse to overeat if you find yourself facing a restaurant meal or tempting high-calorie low-nutrient snacks. For most women a breakfast with some protein food in it, a salad for lunch, and a low- calorie dinner with another salad is ideal.

How to make it in a Restaurant

It is easy. First of all, just because you order something doesn’t mean you have to eat all of it. Also, there are lots of low-calorie and high-nutrition foods on menus provided you know what they are and provided you ask for them. If you know the calorie values of food from your calorie chart (which you will learn very quickly if you are keeping that record properly) and you occasionally order something that is high in calories, eat only part of it, then compensate by making whatever else you order low in calories. Also get away from the idea that you have to eat a three- course meal every time you sit down at a restaurant table.

Here are some of the good bargains for dieters in restaurants: oysters, crab with a twist of lemon, shrimps, tomato and fresh basil salad, grilled liver, poached fish with lemon, poulet au pot, clear soup such as turtle, chicken, or beef consomme, jellied bouillon, an artichoke with French mustard and lemon juice instead of oil and vinegar, a little caviar on celery sticks, melon, and crudites.

My favorite is a salad made from everything raw in an Italian restaurant. Italians understand fresh vegetables better even than the Chinese. They have a real feel for selecting them for their freshness and fineness and are usually most conscientious in preparing a salad for you that isn’t on the menu but which in flavor and looks far surpasses most of what is. For dressing, try some lemon juice and fresh herbs (particularly basil) or mild French mustard mixed with lemon juice. A drop or two of Tabasco juice can add zest to a lovely fresh salad.

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