If you think the 21st-century diet industry is a wild and crazy place, check out this article from the August 21, 1940 issue of the Milwaukee Sentinel. The author, Ida Jean Kain, rails against the tricks and shortcuts offered to those needing to reduce. (Incidentally, Kain later authored the diet plan that Roxanne is putting to the test over at Shapely Weight from 1958.) And there were tricks and shortcuts aplenty. Somebody anxious to trim her figure in the '40s could try anything from replacing two meals a day with low calorie biscuits, joining a reducing salon, taking sweat baths or salt rubs, massage, mysterious "slimming" drinks, and even amphetamines... Kain reminds her readers that lowering your calorie intake is the only path to success. I'm printing her article in full here, but it's the next to last paragraph which truly caught my eye:
The latest trick in reducing is the neatest. Some ingenious and enterprising manufacturer with an uncanny understanding of the overweight psychology has evolved a method whereby you take his product in place of two meals a day and reduce. You could take anything in place of two meals a day and reduce. You could take an apple but it wouldn‘t keep the doctor away!
This is just calorie cutting in another guise. Instead of telling you to hold your calories down to 1,000 a day, the proponents of these plans get the same calorie deficit by having you take a synthetic product low in calories in place of the two meals. If you consistently omit two meals a day, you are fairly certain of reducing - but unless the substitute supplies all the protective elements you must have, it’s a risky business.
There are foods on the market which are low in calories and can be safely used in place of high calorie foods - they are in a different class. They do not purport to take the place of meals. It is suggested that they be used in conjunction with well balanced, low calorie meals to contribute satiety. You may find it easier to stay on a diet if you use some of the low calorie biscuits or breads because you can eat more of them without exceeding your reducing allowance.
But nothing in this world can reduce you unless you keep your calorie intake below the number expended daily in energy. Sweat baths, soaps, salts, creams, rubber girdles and all the long list of “reducers” are futile unless you keep your calorie intake below the number expended in energy! Then the stored fat is burned to make up the deficit.
Massage, although often advocated for the overweight, is not reducing. It is an excellent means of stimulating the circulation and improving the muscle tone. It shortens stretched muscles and improves your measurements. But it does not reduce weight.
I don’t even try to sell you on exercise as a reducer! The amount you are likely to take regularly will not help you to lose any appreciable number of pounds. When you consider the number of calories you have to burn in exercise - 4,320 - to lose one single pound of fat, you can see that you would not get very far on exercise if you ate as you pleased! But exercise tones the muscles and gives you a lovely figure.
When you understand the separate roles of a low calorie diet and streamlining exercise, it is not so easy for you to be led astray by the promises of substitutes!
Zowie! You have to burn more than 4,000 calories just to eliminate a single pound of fat?!? That means that even the 60 minutes of brisk walking I did last night (370 calories for somebody of my size) barely made a dent. No wonder I'm having such a hard time actually dropping pounds. I clearly need to investigate some changes in the food I'm eating. Imagine how much progress I could make if I was actually doing the two things at once...
9 comments:
When I was losing weight for our wedding, I was seeing a personal trainer 3x a week but I was stuck at a flatline weight. I happened to visit my mom for a couple of months (we were living cross country at the time) and she was on a low-sodium, low-sugar diet with 30 minutes of walking each night.
The idea was to eat meals with no more than 600mg of sodium in them (in your whole meal, not just a single serving) and no more than 14g of sugar in a single meal. It was hard but man did it pay off! I dropped 7 pounds while I was gone, and it wasn't even muscle tone. My trainer and I were able to pick right back up when I got home.
Once you start reading your labels watching for sodium and sugars, you'll be agast at what you've been consuming!
(Sorry this was such a long comment.)
Its funny how long we have had this information around, and yet as a society we still keep looking to the slimfast. One thing seems to have changed, and that is that one pound of weight is now considered to equal 3,500 calories. It would be interesting to know when and why it changed!
I have been reading, but haven't had much time for commenting, so I just wanted to edge in my moral support! You've really stuck with your missions and even if you couldn't see progress on the scales this time, your progress really comes through in your blog!
true... exercising per se does very little for weight loss, unless you take on an intense sport like tennis or body pump, or running. But exercising builds muscle, and muscle burns more calories than fat. That means that you burn more calories sleeping, day dreaming, etc just by having that extra muscle. Which is why a little body building associated to aerobic exercise is said to speed up body sculpting.
As for the calories, yup... i found that to lose or gain 100grs, 700 kcal must be ingested/burnt. 1 kg - 7000 kcal. Puts a lot into focus.
Good luck, and hang on there.
I disagree with the exercise info. Not only does it help burn the calories while you are working out but it also kicks up your metabolism so you keep burning calories faster longer.
Plus it helps to build muscle and shape you.
I think it's funny how silly the diet fads were back then. I wonder how funny the things we are doing now will be silly in another 50 years. I'm sure a lot.
Hugs,
Joanne
Amber, I'll bet there's a ton of sodium in the prepared foods I eat so much of at dinnertime. I've been mulling over some strategies today for cutting these gradually out of my life and replacing them with some real food. Low sodium is great for other areas of health, too.
Public Artist, thank you for edgin' in! As for the calories/lb. I'll bet our measuring technologies are just a bit more precise these days. Either way, that's a ton of calories to try and burn off by doing any form of exercise!
sweetie Bird, I wish I had the stamina to do one of those really intense sports and kill all these fat cells just with exercise. As it is, I guess it's pretty clear that my kind of exercise alone isn't going to cut it.
Joanne, my impression is that the author was trying to say that exercise couldn't do the job alone. It sounds like she was really pushing that a reduction in calories had to be part of the equation. Personally, I've been trying to escape the calorie bit! Well, I suppose a body can get used to anything... :)
Have you considered trying to slowly edge into jogging? I don't know if you have a community center near where you live, but I know that their prices for membership tend to be better than a gym. I started out walking and jogging a mile, with it being about equal between the walking and jogging. Now I walk a quarter mile and jog/run the rest. And it only took me a week to get into that! I've noticed it helps not just in my legs, but in my core as well, and that building some muscle tone seems to help burn the fat. Hope this helps!
I wish I could jog! Anything faster than a brisk walk, tho, has always made my throat and lungs just burn. It's a terrible feeling. I did purchase a membership to one of the city rec centers on Monday. It's a one-year walking-track-only membership and only cost $40. Thanks for stopping by with the suggestions!
i would suggest doing some weights training as well as the walking... as sweet bird says, muscle burns more energy than fat so increasing some muscle mass would help... plus you look more toned..
i've been doing some weights and everyone keeps asking me if i've lost weight... which i have to reply no because I haven't but it obviously looks like i have... *shrug*
don't buy anything... lift some cans from out of your cupboard... or a couple of litres of water...
What a great compliment! A friend of mine has suggested walking with weights. And I have my eye on some vintage muscle toning exercises as well. I'm going to mix up my fitness routine a bit next week and try adding something new to the walking.
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