One day, Phil Baker, the well-known comedian of theater and radio, was heard to remark from his perch in a radiant-heat cabinet, “That Reilly lives off the fat of the land.”
There was a lot of truth in what he said. The Reilly Health Institute was always filled with professional performers who were motivated by the demands of their careers to keep slim, vigorous, and energetic. They had a public to please.
Today, in our youth-conscious society, everyone has to be a “star”—has to please, not only the public, but also one’s own ego, in order to maintain self-respect. Fat in modern America is not funny. Fat is frustrated and rejected, and is very unhealthy.
In my fifty-five years of active practice, I have observed that the same people always seem to be reducing. I often wonder how they and thousands of others manage to remain overweight, in view of all the “miracle” diet books and the thousands of magazine articles published on the subject, reducing salons and spas, clothing and belts that reduce you while you sleep, and other home gadgets, reducing doctors, pills, and diet clubs that abound.
The answer is that they don’t. They are eternally taking it off and putting it back on—off and on, off and on—in what Dr. Neil Solomon, secretary of health and hygiene for the state of Maryland and a respected endocrinologist, has labeled aptly the “yo-yo syndrome.”
Despite our national preoccupation with youth and slimness, Americans are constantly getting fatter. According to public health reports, we now have 79,000,000 overweight Americans who have generated a $10-billion industry to fight fat. An article in Esquire magazine by Grace Lichtenstein1 reports that Weight Watchers, now an international conglomerate, weighs in at $14.9 million; the various networks of health spas and reducing salons at $220 million; the exercise-equipment market at $1 million; the legal diet-pill market at $54 million; the diet-food market at $1 billion.
I have before me a collection of a few of the bestselling books of recent times, such as Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, which has sold millions of copies in hardcover and paperback editions, despite the fact that the American Medical Association has denounced the diet as unsound and potentially dangerous to health; and Dr. Charles Roland of the Mayo Clinic says that its thesis rests on unproven assumptions. Dr. Atkins’ “diet revolution” consists of unlimited consumption of proteins and fats and virtually no carbohydrates. Patients are instructed to purchase a Ketone stick to test their urine on a daily basis to make sure they are in a state of “ketosis”—a state described in medical dictionaries as “acidosis,” occurring sometimes in severe diabetes.
Another bestseller is The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet, by Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman, often called the “water diet” because the dieter, while permitted to eat unlimited quantities of protein foods and nothing else, must drink eight glasses of water a day to keep from damaging the kidneys or producing other side-effect illnesses.
Dr. Solomon has tried to inject a few medical facts and some common sense into the scene with The Truth About Weight Control,2 and his book has enjoyed a respectable success. But the runaway bestsellers are still the “get-thin-quick and eat-all-you-want” books.
Overweight people can be an optimistic breed, and I could go on and on. The Ladies Home Journal and McCall’s magazine both ran a different diet every month for a year. And other women’s magazines feature a diet article in almost every issue. All these diets work—for a while—until the dieters slip back to their old living habits.
As for the sauna belts and garments that are supposed to reduce you effortlessly as you loll before your TV set or take a nap—they do help you lose water through perspiration, but that will return when you take your first sip of liquid. The reduction to the contents of your pocketbook, unfortunately, will be permanent.
Most of the commercially successful devices—whether books, gadgets, pills, or whatever—advertise: “no diet, no exercise, no harmful drugs.” The fads in reducing change so fast that I am sure by the time this book is published, a host of new books, gadgets, creams, baths, and other quick, no-effort nostrums will be flooding the marketplace and some of those mentioned here will be all but forgotten.
How many people can recall the 900-calorie drink that was the popular answer to the overweight problem some years ago? Since I am older than most of my readers, I can remember the vogue for machines that jiggle or vibrate the fat off hips and abdomen; the special reducing foods or tablets (eat all you want and this, too); chemicals or salts to put in the bath (drop a spoonful or wishful in the water); powerful laxatives and various types of reducing medication that are now being banned by the FDA. Many of the models who posed for the various reducing advertisements used to keep themselves trim, svelte, and lovely at the Reilly Health Institute with exercise in the gym, massage, baths, and Spartan diets.
A powerful drug was widely advertised some years ago. It was given alone or mixed with other drugs or foods. Without much clinical experimentation, especially of the aftereffects or side effects, this drug was launched on an unsuspecting public. Reducing without effort or diet has an irresistible appeal, except perhaps to a few cynics who “don’t believe in Santa Claus.” This new drug did have a powerful effect in stimulating the metabolic rate. It did reduce fat—and quickly. It also harmed people who took it. It upset glandular function, caused extreme toxemia, and in some cases resulted in blindness; in other cases, deaths resulting from the use of this reducing drug were reported. It is a sad commentary on human nature that, for the sake of a few dollars, unscrupulous people will use such drastic and fraudulent procedures to fool the uninformed and optimistic overweight public.
Another danger is involved when any inexperienced person operates a therapeutic electric machine. If the machine is on the safe side, it is usually too inadequate to effect much reduction. However, should you follow the diet which comes with most of these machines, you will then be able to give a testimonial to the many pounds you lost. You could very possibly lose the same number of pounds on the diet without the machine. (Also substituting the use of the machine by ten to twenty minutes of active exercise would increase the weight loss and decrease the financial one.)
There are exercising machines that are used for stretching and pulling-and-pushing movements. Some of these are conceived without much knowledge of anatomy. Others offer some help, but they must be used under proper supervision or they can cause back sprain, tearing of the muscles, and rupture of the abdominal wall. They can also influence the breaking down of the valves of the veins. Under proper supervision or when people are physically conditioned to use them, these machines can be of some value. But many people, even after the novelty has worn off and they find they don’t reduce as easily as the advertising and literature led them to believe they could, will still have an occasional final fling at reducing. Every few weeks they take the machine from under the bed or from the closet, dust it off, and try it again. The bending and stretching does give them some exercise, and the psychological effect of having a gadget might persuade one to indulge in some physical activity rather than neglect all exercise. This is why this kind of technique can produce results and glowing testimonials. The users’ faith in the gadgets or techniques has kept them exercising consistently, and I am all for it. But as long as it is within the range of the capacity of the person, I still say that the best exercises for reducing are the ones you do—not the scientific and complicated ones you read about but never attempt. Most medical preparations that you run across or see advertised for weight reduction are a pure gamble, for along with your weight you can lose your health or even your life.
There is actually no easy way to “take it off” once you have put it on. If you wish to stay reduced after taking off excess weight, it requires a radical change of habits and lifestyle, and discipline and know-how. The body is like a bank, and the caloric input must be balanced to the energy outgo for both reduction and maintenance of weight.
The Dangers of Gimmick Weight Loss
One of the greatest hazards to health in trying easy fat reduction is the use of the more powerful drugs and glandular extracts for easy and rapid weight reduction (or should I say destruction?). Some of these preparations contain iodides in various forms. Except in a pathological condition of the goiter (and this is for your physician to decide), the iodides usually damage health as well as reduce weight. The thyroid extracts could, in sufficient quantity, stimulate weight reduction by increasing metabolism. However, this can cause general irritability and severe nervousness and can be an even more serious menace to health. There are also drugs for lessening the appetite, but these have many serious side effects and are not usually recommended by authoritative medical sources. Most are unproven as to any benefit, but we know their use can cause very serious negative effects on both the body and the mind.—H.J.R.
That the public continues to spend billions of dollars to lose weight must mean something. Certainly there are many reasons why it is undesirable to carry excess weight around. Many experiments have established that cutting one’s calorie intake and keeping weight down can prolong the life span by 20 percent. Dr. Roy A. Walford, professor of pathology at UCLA, reported to a science writers’ seminar that laboratory rats have been kept alive and active for twice their normal life span by reducing their calorie quotas. He said that repeated experiments have determined that low-calorie diets slow down deterioration of body functions, retard the normal loss of immunological factors, and have delayed the well-established high susceptibility period to cancer—from the present sixty-to-seventy age bracket to the late eighties. Overweight and obese individuals not only have a shorter life span, but they are hosts to a wide range of diseases brought on by their lifestyle.
This is why, in looking over the Cayce readings, we seldom find a case in which the problem of obesity is the only etiology. Cayce treated the obesity syndrome in conjunction with cases of toxemia, lack of elimination, poor elimination and assimilation, allergies, psoriasis, diabetes and diabetes tendencies, hypertension, kidney disease, glandular disorders (including incoordination), neurasthenia, heart and vascular disorders, and many other diseases. Cayce probably regarded obesity as a symptom of the malfunctioning of the body that was in the process of causing other diseases as well.
The role of fat in premature death and disease is so acute that Dr. Louis M. Orr, when he was president of the American Medical Association, was quoted in a newspaper interview as saying, “Cancer is the most dreaded disease in the United States. But the greatest danger to the health of the American people is obesity.”
The problem is so widespread that it has been estimated that 25 percent of men in their thirties and 35 percent of men in their fifties are about twenty pounds overweight, making them prime victims for heart attacks, strokes, emphysema, and diabetes. The incidence for women is higher, with about 40 percent becoming obese by the time they reach forty. In addition, the AMA points out that, in the overweight, high blood pressure is found twice as frequently as in others; hardening of the arteries occurs three times as often; and diabetes and arthritis are more common.
Corinne H. Robinson, whose Normal and Therapeutic Nutrition is a standard textbook for nutritionists and nurses, states: “The prevention and treatment of obesity are among the most perplexing problems facing the physician, the nutritionist, and most especially, the patient himself. The incidence and mortality from degenerative diseases are significantly greater for those who are obese than those who are lean. The popular saying, ‘The longer the belt, the shorter the life’ is far too true.”
Overweight is a physical handicap as well as a primary health hazard. Obese people are more uncomfortable during warm weather because the thick layers of fat serve as an insulator to hold in the heat of the body. More effort must be expended to do a given amount of work because of the increase in body mass. Because of their lessened agility, obese people are more susceptible to accidents. Fatigue, backache, and foot trouble are common complaints of the obese.
Surgery is a double hazard for the overweight and obese.
I have been called in by surgeons to give massage and manipulative therapy to patients who could not heal properly because of their fat. In one particularly memorable case, I was summoned by a surgeon to the Pierre Hotel to help a Mrs. Fernandez. The doctor said in a European accent: “We took her kidney out and the operation was very difficult but successful. But now she can’t heal. She is quite heavy and her fat keeps pulling the incision open.”
I went to the Pierre, to a magnificent suite with quite a few servants running around, all of them worried and communicating in whispers. There were beautiful hangings and rugs draped over everything. I wondered who Mrs. Fernandez was. It turned out that she was the Dowager Queen of Egypt, King Farouk’s mother.
The queen was a Syrian and her face was quite lovely. She had a beautiful bosom, a tiny waist, slender legs, and delicate feet. But she ballooned out at the hips and abdomen like an Oriental vase and the weight of fat was just tearing the wound apart every time she breathed or moved.
Every day for a month and a half, I gave her special massage and manipulation two and three hours at a time to promote circulation. Gradually, the wound started to heal. After that, because I was too busy to keep up this schedule, I sent my sister Violet to look after her. Violet saw her every day and finally the queen wanted to take Violet back to Egypt with her.
Another case was that of Marie Rippe, sixty-eight, who had been bleeding with increasing frequency and volume for eight years. She had been to gynecologists, but they were afraid to operate because of her large pendulous abdomen. The cancer tests were negative. I saw her in March 1973 and she had been bleeding without a stop since January. I came to the conclusion that the bleeding was being caused by the pressure of the fat on her internal organs. She weighed 180 pounds and her height was only five feet—and she carried most of her excess weight in the lower abdomen. I told her that she would have to reduce and she said that was impossible. She had tried almost every known method and just couldn’t lose weight.
I was very firm with her and said I would not see her again and could not help her if she did not lose at least a pound a week. I could not give her exercises because of the bleeding, but I gave her special massage and manipulation and instructed her how to prepare and use the Cayce castor oil packs. As for her diet, we had her keep a “diet diary” and then we made an evaluation of it and started to cut down her food intake. Instead of two slices of toast in the morning we cut to one slice. We cut the desserts—in general the quantities of food she was used to eating—and substituted salads for lunch and other modified menus. By August she had lost thirty-two pounds at the rate of one pound a week and she has been able to keep it off. She healed inside and the bleeding stopped. Only occasionally does a spot of blood appear when she stands on her feet too long. Surgery is no longer necessary.
The causes of excess weight are many and varied. Besides the most common causes, overeating and underexercising, it can also be influenced by heredity and geographical environment, racial body type, social and economic conditions, and—less frequently—disease.
The best way to avoid becoming obese is to choose thin parents. Studies reported by Dr. Jean Mayer indicate that it “has been repeatedly shown that obesity runs in families with genetic as well as environmental factors involved. Studies in the U.S. have shown that less than 10 percent of the children of parents of normal weight are obese, but that the proportion rises to 50 percent if one parent is obese and to 80 percent if both parents are obese. Studies of identical and fraternal twins have shown that food habits are not the main factor. Instead of denying the facts of heredity, it would be more intelligent and effective to use them to detect and identify overweight-prone persons and more important to try to prevent the development of obesity in susceptible children. Obesity is more malignant when the onset is early.”4
Corinne Robinson writes, “The pattern of obesity is often set in infancy when the mother overfeeds the baby in the erroneous belief that a ‘fat baby is a healthy baby.’ Sometimes overeating becomes a habit with a child . . . during adolescent years food is often used to submerge the many problems that face the boy and girl. The best hope for the prevention of obesity is through greatly expanded programs of nutrition education directed particularly to schoolchildren, teenagers, and mothers.”5
The tragedy of the “fat-baby myth” is that studies by Dr. Jules Hirsh and his associates at Rockefeller University have demonstrated that it is possible to make an actual count of the number of fat cells in the human body. Dr. Hirsh has concluded that the actual number of fat cells is determined in the first few months of life, and Dr. Jerome L. Knittle, a physician and nutritionist at the National Institutes of Health, has confirmed Dr. Hirsh’s work by showing that obese people have a higher number of fat cells than the nonobese and the fat cells are generally bigger than in the nonobese.
According to the work of Doctors Sims and Horton at the University of Vermont School of Medicine, the mother who overfeeds her infant condemns her child to a lifelong sentence as a “fattie” or a life sentence of dieting, hard exercise, and watchful discipline. As the individual gains weight, the fat cells increase in size like a wet sponge. When the sponge is wrung out, however, or the person reduces, although the number of holes in the sponge (or fat cells in the person) remain the same, they gradually empty of water, and fat-cell size is reduced.
Because of our survival pattern, most people have the capacity and the ability to increase the storage content of their fat cells. Those who are born with good digestion have to watch their intake and keep more active physically to maintain normal weight, and as a rule men and women who are born in a favorable environment require less physical activity in their daily living. Environment can also influence weight. If you are raised in a family of hearty eaters and are continually exposed to a bountiful variety of tempting foods, human nature being what it is, you are very likely to overeat. The capacity of the body for assimilation of food also varies with the individual. If your environment offered you a greater variety of food, while it might be conducive to a well-balanced diet, it could also easily encourage you to overeat. The stomach can be conditioned to accept less. Eat less and your stomach will shrink.
Another weight factor can be the geographical formation of the country. The people of countries that are very hilly are usually less obese than those of flat, level countries. Food is generally more abundant and varied in the latter countries and there is a great deal less physical activity. Living in a rough, hilly, or mountainous section usually requires a great deal of strenuous and varied physical activity. While the chest of the mountaineer is usually larger to accommodate more oxygen as the air becomes lighter, there is seldom excess fat on his body—unless an iodine deficiency exists. People living away from the sea, where there is a lack of iodine in the water, soil, and air, will become obese due to lack of this important element. When iodine is lacking, the thyroid gland has a tendency to slow down and the person becomes fat and sluggish. This is called hypothyroidism. It can be prevented by using iodized salt in the daily diet. Medical tests can easily determine if deficiency exists and your physician can advise you on the proper corrective procedures.
Even with a people considered small, a great deal can depend on environment. Most American-born children of undersized and underweight foreign-born parents grow taller and heavier. It has been found that children of smaller and less-heavy races grow much larger in both height and weight when the environment is more favorable. Children of Japanese parents who are born in Hawaii are much larger and heavier than their parents, and Australian-born children of English parents are larger.
With a change from the regimented life of the Old World and the teeming, struggling masses of most of Asia, the minds and bodies of these children have expanded upward and outward.
Then there is the asthenic type, with a short body and long legs. These people can be within the normal weight range and still have an excess of fat, especially on the abdomen. In the same way, the short-legged, long-bodied type can easily be overweight without having too much fat.
Does this mean that because of your genes and early feeding patterns, which permanently endowed you with more fat cells, you can do nothing about it?
Nonsense. It is harder, to be sure, and you will have to persevere, perhaps work at it for the rest of your life. This is why crash or fad diets and quick-reducing gimmicks are not for you. It is precisely because of the factors of genes and fat cells that you have not been, and will not be, able to stay thin once you reduce—that is, unless you change your entire lifestyle.
There is a tendency nowadays to blame much of our obesity on our psychological or emotional state. This theory is supported by the fact that the hypothalamus, sometimes referred to as the middle brain, has much to do with our automatic control mechanisms. The hypothalamus is the part of the brain that controls the appetite, known as the appestat. It is interesting that many scientists also believe that it is the part of the brain that acts as a switchboard, translating ideas and emotions into physical action through nerves and hormones.
We all know of people who eat or drink through sheer boredom or as an escape from an unpleasant situation. An unfortunate love affair can cause people to put on a great deal of weight. People who are unhappy or frustrated or lack security find an outlet in the so-called retreat or reward foods. These are usually sweet, fat, rich foods or alcoholic drinks. They simulate the reactions of pleasure that love, affection, and success would supply.
Dr. William McJefferies, a Cleveland endocrinologist and researcher, says, “It is tempting to say, ‘Well, because a specific person tends to have overresponsive adrenals this explains his tendency to be a stress eater.’ When these people get under tension, they feel better when they eat because their system puts out more of an adrenal secretion called hydrocortisone which tends to increase the appetite. It could also explain the fact that these people seem to prefer carbohydrate foods rather than protein foods. On the other hand, you could turn it around and say, ‘This might not be the cause; it might be an effect.’”
If a person is overweight, it may alter his or her body’s metabolism so that the adrenals tend to be overresponsive. It is similar to the situation with regard to insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. Obese persons, as a group, tend to have overresponsive pancreas glands and produce excessive quantities of insulin. When they eat a certain amount of carbohydrate, they get a higher rise in insulin than a person who is not obese. Which is the cart and which is the horse? It is important to understand that when the obese person, through a normal well-balanced diet, returns to his or her ideal weight, the excretion and the production of adrenal hormone returns to normal.
So when certain individuals blame their overweight or obese condition on their glands, there is a certain amount of truth in their complaint. Their glands are affected, and so are their organs, the coordination of their nervous systems, and everything else in their body processes. But except in rare cases where there is a serious organic malfunction of the thyroid, adrenals, or pancreas, attaining and maintaining normal weight will correct the disorders. In fact, a restricted but balanced diet and adequate exercise are the usual medical treatment for hypoglycemia and other glandular disorders.
The role of exercise and physical activity is often overlooked by the overweight, misguided by bits and pieces of incomplete information.
A discouraged dieter might say, “Well if I can only walk off two calories in one minute, what’s the use of bothering?” The two calories become 120 in an hour, and if you increase the speed of walking from 2.5 miles per hour to 3 or 4 miles per hour, you will burn up 5.2 per minute, or 312 calories. (See the activity calorie table at the end of this chapter.)
Moreover, the effect of physical activity on the body chemistry and the appestat mechanism, which affects our feeling of hunger or satiety, is considerable and is now being explored by eminent researchers with interesting results.
Dr. Williams points out in Nutrition Against Disease:
Most of us are born with appestat mechanisms that are, or can be made, entirely serviceable. When they are not serviceable, something may have intervened to make them faulty. Lack of exercise has a crippling effect on appestat mechanisms . . .
Why is exercise so important for health? We do know that we are built to strive physically for food and other necessities, and that to get these necessities without any striving is not in accord with our biological background. It is probable that improved circulation, which is induced by exercise, is an important factor in promoting well-being. It is also probable that exercise promotes an improvement in the quality of our blood. Valuable hormonal substances may be released as a result of exercise, and these substances may contribute to an improved cellular environment for the appestat and other mechanisms.6
In any event, the fact remains, as Dr. Yudkin has pointed out, that “the appestat only works well with at least a moderate amount of physical activity. What might be adequate exercise for one individual might be inadequate for another.”
Reports confirm the fact that prolonged vigorous exercise or activity can lower blood cholesterol levels. A Swiss physician, Dr. Daniella Gsell, and Dr. Jean Mayer compared the cholesterol levels of the population of a remote Swiss village with those of a control group of Basel, a modern industrial Swiss city. The people of the Swiss village had a high fat intake and, moreover, ate 100 calories more each day than their city cousins. However, they worked very hard and were physically very active, as all supplies into the village had to be carried in by mule or by the residents themselves. Dr. Mayer reports that “the serum cholesterol levels of the physically active men and women in the village were much lower than those of the Basel residents.”7
The story is the same on this side of the Atlantic. A study comparing mortality from heart disease among railroad employees again showed the importance of activity. The section hands, who do the heavy labor of repairing the roadbed, had a much better record than switchmen (light activity, walking), who, in turn, did much better than the sitting clerks.
I remember one of my first important reducing assignments—with Metropolitan Opera star Beniamino Gigli. He was convinced that he had to have a big stomach and lots of fat to get volume for his voice. Then one day, in Romeo and Juliet, he knelt on the stage before his fair Juliet and couldn’t get up. That did it. The impresario of the Met at the time told him to reduce—or else. Getting Mr. Gigli to exercise wasn’t easy, and to curb his appetite for pasta was a truly Herculean job. I had to shrink him from 245 pounds, at five-foot-nine, to 195, and hold him there so that he could continue to sing the romantic parts he loved.
I kept him in shape for eleven years, and during that time, while reducing, he also cured himself of the arthritis that had forced him to miss many of his performances.
I made Gigli arise at a certain time. If he was still asleep, I’d grab a handful of his midriff and start working then and there. He punched the bag, walked the treadmill, and rode the mechanical horse. Sometimes I had him saw and chop wood, which we gave away to the poor. I sometimes went on tour with him and sat next to him at banquets. When he was eating too much, I’d nudge him with my foot under the table as a gentle reminder that it was time to pause for station identification.
Now, all this was fine for an opera star or other professionals who must reduce for their careers, but what about Suzy Housewife and Joe Bookkeeper? What is their motivation? Each person has to discover what his or her own motivation is. It may be getting a better job—I can assure you if you reduce in a healthful, constructive way, you will have more energy, think more clearly, be able to cope and solve problems, and assuredly be better able to absorb the stress and strain of the competitive life.
It could be pleasing a man—or a woman.
For a long-married woman it could mean fitting into a sexy dress—the kind you have not been able to wear for many years or since your wedding. Go out and buy it—hang it up where you will constantly see it, and look forward to the day when you can wear it.
For husband and wife, the motivation could be a second honeymoon or a trip or the purchase of a new car—some reward that you will enjoy once you have achieved your goal.
Write it down—not only the weight you want to achieve but the reward that awaits you when you reach your goal. Paste it on the refrigerator door to remind you each time you are tempted. Also to inspire you, paste on the refrigerator—and the food-storage cupboards, too—a picture of yourself in your younger years, when you were slimmer.
If you meditate or pray, visualize yourself as you want to be and read some of the inspirational affirmations that abound in the Cayce literature or that of other seers.
Remember: anyone can reduce. Stop eating. In some sections of the world, many of the inhabitants are chronically underweight. The average person, if not panicked by fear, could find it possible to do without food for twenty to thirty days, and some records show that it can be for as long as seventy days. But we who have access to food of many tempting varieties that appeal to our vision, sense of smell, and other pleasant associations that go with eating must apply discipline somewhere along the line. Except in a very few cases of glandular abnormality we gain weight because of the simple fact that the intake is greater than the outgo.
Putting on fat is a storage mechanism of the body. It was useful in primitive times to tide the body over during famine, for in those times eating was largely a matter of feast or famine. The fat storage was necessary for survival when food was scarce, and no doubt the extra fat that forms on the well-rounded and pleasing contours of the female figure was useful for storing reserves for the mother and potential child. Methods of storing and preserving food have improved as civilization advanced, but the capacity of the body to store fat has remained and the physical energy formerly required to obtain food is no longer necessary. Therefore, to reduce permanently you will have to increase your output of physical energy and decrease your input of food energy (which means calories).
First, check with your physician or a specialist in endocrinology to detect any abnormalities. If there are none, you are ready to begin your R[esolution] I[nformation] P[erseverence] reducing program. Cayce and I will supply the “information.” You must provide the “resolution” and the “perseverance.”
It is important to have a scale on which you can weigh yourself the first thing every morning. Make each day a reducing day by careful attention to diet and exercise. Plan recreation that involves physical activity.
Start keeping a “diet diary.” Write down every mouthful of food you normally consume and add up the calories, the carbohydrate content, and the content of other nutrients. Calorie and carbohydrate counters are widely available for a small cost at many stores. Nutrient charts can be obtained from the Department of Agriculture at the address given in Chapter 5.
Depending on your starting weight and general condition, a loss of from one to two pounds per week is a good goal to aim for. Greater reduction is possible but not desirable without supervision.
Remember, there is inside fat holding the abdominal organs in place. There is a structural factor to be considered in weight loss. If you reduce too rapidly, before you have had time to develop muscle tone to substitute for the fat, it can result in a prolapsis (dropping of the organs of the abdomen).
You will have to cut your calories by 3,500 a week to lose one pound; by 7,000 to lose two pounds. From this basic figure you can subtract the calories you spend on exercise and physical activity. Consult the table at the end of this chapter for the number of calories you burn in various physical activities. I have had patients take off as much as 108 pounds following the regimen described here.
You will also have to take your measurements to determine and type your figure.
Measurements can be taken about once a week at the beginning, and if the weight reduction is satisfactory, about every two weeks of the first six weeks. Taking your own measurements is a tricky procedure. You must always be sure to measure the parts at the exact spot and use the same amount of tension on the tape. It is very easy to let your enthusiasm get the better of your accuracy. In fact, you might even subconsciously cheat on an inch or so. Be sure to use what is known as a seamstress tape, which is made of oilclothlike material that won’t expand or contract and is unaffected by heat, cold, wetness, or dryness.
Now for the facts on different types of figures that the tape measure will tell. Let’s begin with the male figure. We consider a man to have a good figure when the chest is at least five inches larger than the waist and the hips one-half of that difference or two and one-half inches less than the chest. The abdomen should not be over two inches larger than the waist, and one inch would be better. This would produce the following average measurements:
For a very good physique and figure we would like to have the chest eight to ten inches larger than the waist, with the hips in the same proportion as in the chart. This is not easy to attain, but we have accomplished this with a great many men, including some over the half-century mark in age.
Now for the women. The first is a composite form of several high-fashion models whose figures you may have seen hundreds of times dressed in the most glamorous creations of well-known designers:
Then we have the more substantial figure that is fairly suitable for the young matron. She might try for a slimmer figure, but if she will retain the same measurements and proportions in relation to her height and weight to her eightieth birthday, it is all right with me:
In the older-matron type, there are some measurements that will keep one looking well in clothes and even in a bathing suit. These figures have made some concession to age and the accumulations that are part of growing older, but if you condition into these measurements to start with, there is no law to prohibit you from working into the “young matron” or “fashion model” group:
(The term “overweight” is applied to persons who are 10 to 20 percent above desirable weight. Obesity is applied to persons 20 percent or more over desirable weight.)
On the basis of life-insurance statistics the most nearly ideal weight to maintain throughout life is that which is proper at age twenty-five for one’s height and body build. (Consult the accompanying tables from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and note that desirable weights under current conditions are somewhat lower than those shown in the tables prepared by the same company in the early 1940s.)
The Cayce readings have given us two superb reducing aids—the three-day apple diet and grape juice in water (taken four times a day, a half-hour before meals and before bedtime).
If there will be a change in the diet or the application of foods for reducing the weight, we will aid much in more normalizing the weight, for there is the tendency for high blood pressure throughout the body.
We would use first the apple diet to purify the system; that is, for three days eat nothing but apples of the Jonathan variety if possible. This includes the Delicious, which is a variety of Jonathan. The Jonathan is usually grown farther north than the Delicious but these are of the same variety, but eat some. You may drink coffee if you desire, but do not put milk or cream in it, especially while you are taking the apples.
At the end of the third day, the next morning take about two tablespoons of Olive Oil.
Then begin with taking . . . about one-half hour before each meal and before retiring at night, three ounces of grape juice in one ounce of plain water.
Do not take any carbonated drinks. Cut down on sweets, but if you wish, honey may be taken or honeycomb at times, but not too much of this either . . .
(Q) What about the remainder of the diet?
(A) Just a normal diet. Cut down on the sweets and do have more of the leafy vegetables. (780-12)
Here in reading 1268-1 Cayce spells out the diet in greater detail:
Mornings—citrus fruits. Brown toast, whole wheat, of cereals (not at the same meal with the citrus fruits). Do not use cow’s milk in same . . .
Noons—only vegetables; these may be combined.
In the diet: Abstain from great quantities of starches. Most of the breads (if any are taken) should be of the Rye Bread or Ry-Krisp. One meal each day should consist of green raw vegetables. No potatoes with meats. No starches that have the greases should be taken at the same time with meats. Use grape juice rather than water; and whether this is two, three, four, five glasses a day, let it be taken with half water (not carbonated water) and half pure grape juice. (1339-1)
Evenings—have either all leafy vegetables, well-cooked, or else have same with a little chicken, fowl, or fish, or potatoes and lamb. (1268-1)
Edgar Cayce on Obesity
Other Cayce comments on obesity are consonant with current scientific and nutritional knowledge:
(Q) Are there any exercises that I can take to keep my weight down that will not be detrimental to my back?
(A) Take grape juice regularly four times each day, about half an hour before each meal and before retiring. Use three ounces of pure grape juice (such as Welch’s) with one ounce of plain water, not carbonated water. This with the sweats or baths will keep down the weight as well as remove poisons.
(3413-2)
(Q) Why should the body take Grape Juice?
(A) To supply the necessary sugars without gaining or making for greater weight. (457-8)
(Q) Why is it hard to increase weight in portions [of the body] and decrease it in others?
(A) The natural tendency or trend in the development of the foetus forces in its inception, and then the general activities have been in these directions. This would go more into the psychological than the pathological conditions, to be sure, as we have indicated through these sources respecting the associations throughout the sojourn of the entity and its bodily forces in the earth. (288-38)
Preventing Weight Gain
Cayce recommended massage and hydrotherapy for keeping down weight:
(Q) How may I prevent gain in weight?
(A) This may be done by keeping down the calories, and by the general work out once a week with the masseuse and the hydrotherapy treatment.
Also for weight reduction we would follow the grape juice way; that is:
Half an hour before each meal and at bedtime, drink two ounces of Grape Juice (preferably Welch’s) in one ounce of plain water (not carbonated water).
Keep away from sugars, pastries and the like.
These will keep better conditions in the assimilation and elimination also.
(1567-3)
In my own practice I have found that repetition of the apple diet four times a year and a regimen of balanced, restricted eating, following the Cayce grape juice diet, exercise, baths, and colonics, invariably works. I have scores of patients who have reduced and who stay reduced, and I have kept my own weight down following my own advice.
Professor R.H. from Illinois was terribly overweight. She taught singing and had chronic trouble with her sinuses, a nasal drip, and a sore throat. She went to a doctor in New Jersey for the nose and throat condition and was told to reduce. She came to the Reilly Institute at Rockefeller Center and, after it closed, began coming to my New Jersey home two or three times a year for the apple-diet cleansing regimen to keep her weight down and her sinuses clear and fit, so that she could teach and sing. Now, after twenty-five years she is still teaching and says: “I feel younger and much more alert than in my forties. In the process of improving my health with the massage and exercise Dr. Reilly taught me, I was able to resolve a severe condition of diverticulitis.”
I would like to take exception to a feature found in most reducing diets: permission to drink unlimited amounts of black coffee. This is counterproductive for the reducer who, by following such a course, will suffer more acutely than ever from hunger. Dr. E.M. Abrahamson in Body, Mind, and Sugar presents the scientific reasons why this is so:
Overindulgence in sweets tends to sensitize the islands of Langerhans by subjecting them to repeated stimulation and exercise. Caffeine stimulates the adrenal cortex to produce more of its hormones, which in turn induce the liver to break down glycogen into glucose, which flows into the bloodstream. This is why a cup of coffee “gives you a lift.” Trouble develops because the islands of Langerhans cannot distinguish between the effects of drinking coffee and eating food. They don’t know and don’t care whether the sugar has come from the food that is being digested or from previously stored glycogen, broken down by the action of the caffeine’s stimulus to the adrenal cortex. To the islands of Langerhans sugar is sugar. They go to work to force the blood sugar to its normal level. In the course of time, because of their repeated stimulation, the islands become so sensitive that they overrespond to a normal stimulus.8
Preventing Weight Gain
Cayce recommended massage and hydrotherapy for keeping down weight:
(Q) How may I prevent gain in weight?
(A) This may be done by keeping down the calories, and by the general workout once a week with the masseuse and the hydrotherapy treatment.
Also for weight reduction we would follow the grape juice way; that is:
Half an hour before each meal and at bedtime, drink two ounces of Grape Juice (preferably Welch’s) in one ounce of plain water (not carbonated water).
Keep away from sugars, pastries and the like.
These will keep better conditions in the assimilation and elimination also. (1567-3)
Obviously, then, anyone trying to lose weight who drinks black coffee to quiet the pangs of hunger is only making matters worse for him- or herself. The repeated stimulus to the islands of Langerhans makes them more sensitive, and the resultant low blood sugar only makes the rigid diet more onerous. Dieting to reduce is much easier if coffee, as well as caffeine in other forms (such as strong tea, chocolate, and soft drinks containing this alkaloid) is excluded.
In closing, I would like to share an amusing but significant conversation I once had with a multimillionaire client who had been coming to the Reilly Health Institute for about twenty years. He took colonics, sweat baths, massages, Scotch douches—all the passive therapies we offered. He had a low potbelly, and one day while I was giving him a massage, he patted it and said: “Dr. H.J., I have been coming here for twenty years and I still have a potbelly. Aren’t you ashamed? Why don’t you do something about it?”
I replied, “Yes, Mr. X., but I could never get you to exercise. You are a very smart man and a great business executive and you have thousands of people working for you and your company, but there is just one thing you never figured out: how you could hire somebody to exercise for you.”
No one can do it for you, but anyone can reduce. Just stop eating more than you work off—half of the world population is underweight because they don’t get enough to eat.
1. The following foods should be included in your diet:
(a) All kinds of raw vegetables, such as asparagus, watercress, chard, mustard greens, kale, celery, lettuce (leaf or romaine), string beans, oyster plant (salsify), carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, radishes, etc.
These may be eaten with gelatin. This should be Knox Gelatine, taken a minimum of three times per week, but better daily. Use the Knox Gelatine recipes; the gelatin may also be taken with tomato juice or other juices. (Gelatin has been called a catalyst in the body, helping it make use of the vitamins and other properties of vegetables and fruits.)
(b) Black bread in limited quantity (pumpernickel, rye, or whole wheat; other whole or sprouted grain).
(c) Nuts, especially almonds and filberts (raw nuts are better than those roasted and salted), seeds (such as pumpkin, sunflower, sesame), once a week as a meat substitute.
(d) Fish and other seafoods, fowl, lamb, wild game, liver.
(e) Vegetable juices, citrus fruit juices, at times when cereal is not eaten. Grape juice to be taken four times daily and at bedtime as directed later in this chapter under “Model Reducing Diet Plan.”
(f) Citrus fruits, berries.
(g) Cooked leafy vegetables, oyster plant (salsify), parsnip, potato peelings from the baked potato, but not the bulk of it.
(h) Jerusalem artichoke once each week (this is a root).
(i) A great deal of watercress and beet tops (these especially help the eliminations), (j) Most fruits may be eaten, preferably fresh. (Apples should be cooked or baked except on raw apple diet.) Melons should be eaten alone.
2. The following foods should be avoided:
(a) Fruits: raw apples, bananas.
(b) Starchy vegetables.
(c) Fried foods, fats, pork of any kind, including bacon.
(d) Malt drinks, carbonated waters (i.e., in any soft drinks).
(e) Alcohol, spices, or other stimulants.
Grape Juice: |
Four times per day, thirty minutes before meals and at bedtime, drink at least 4 ounces of a combination of grape juice and water—3 ounces of grape juice to 1 ounce of water. Be sure the grape juice is natural and unsweetened, such as Welch’s. When used over a period of time, this will help the digestion and the elimination and help one to lose weight. |
Bread and Cereal: |
Limit bread to 1 or 2 slices daily or 1 slice of bread and one 3/4 cup serving of dry or ½ cup cooked whole grain cereal. Use whole grain breads only. |
BREAKFAST |
Citrus fruits—combine 4 parts orange or grapefruit juice with 1 part lemon or lime, or one grapefruit or juice of two or three oranges. Never combine citrus fruit with cereal. |
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If having citrus fruit, have 1 coddled egg; 1 slice dry toast. If having cereal, have fruit juice or other fruits between meals. |
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Coffee substitute or Ovaltine or cereal drink. (Use very little coffee, tea, or milk. No coffee at all is better.) |
LUNCH |
All raw vegetable salad with any oil dressing, or vegetable-gelatin salad (see recipe in Chapter 5, page 87) |
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or |
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Vegetable soup (no fat or starchy vegetables); herb tea. |
DINNER |
Fish, fowl, occasionally lean lamb, nuts, or legumes, broiled, baked, roasted—never fried. |
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Cooked vegetables—no tuberous roots, although potatoes may be taken one or two times per week; eat only the skins and potato nearest the skin, discard the rest. |
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Have any of the green vegetables cooked that grow above the ground—cooked—use very little butter or fats. You may have two 3% carbohydrate vegetables and one small salad or one 5% carbohydrate vegetable and one 3% vegetable or salad. |
DAIRY PRODUCTS: |
4 ounces of buttermilk or yogurt daily—not taken with any food—eaten alone for a meal or between meals. |
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Once a week you may substitute one 3-ounce serving of ice cream for one milk and one fat. Herb teas may be taken with any meal—you may use 1 teaspoon of honey one or two times a week. Fruit or fruit juice may be taken between meals when not on breakfast menu. |
FATS: |
One may have 1 tablespoon of oil (preferably seed oil) on salad one to three times weekly. You may substitute 1 teaspoon butter or nut butter for oil. |
AVOID: |
Starches, fats, sugars, and sugar products (pastries, candy, syrups, honey, etc.), dried fruits, alcohol, carbonated drinks, spices (except herbs). |
3% Carbohydrate Low-Starch Vegetables
Asparagus |
Lettuce |
Bamboo shoots |
Mung bean sprouts |
Beet greens |
Mushroom |
Broccoli |
Mustard greens |
Cabbage |
Mustard spinach |
Cauliflower |
Okra |
Celery |
Radish |
Chicory greens |
Rhubarb |
Cocozelle, zucchini |
Snap beans |
Collards |
Spinach |
Cress |
Summer squash: yellow, scallop |
Cucumber |
Sweet pepper |
Eggplant |
Swiss chard |
Endive (escarole) |
Tomato |
Fennel |
Turnip |
Green beans |
Watercress |
Kale |
Zucchini, cocozelle |
Kohlrabi |
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5% Carbohydrate Starchy Vegetables
Beans: red, white, pinto, calico, lima, mung |
Rice |
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Rye grain |
Chestnuts |
Sweet potato |
Corn |
Wheat grain |
Cowpeas |
Winter squash: acorn, butternut, hubbard |
Peas |
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Potato |
Yams |
