47 + 2 = 49

I've bid farewell to 2 more lbs. this week --- and good riddance to them. What's more, weighing in at 145 means that I've met my latest mini goal! My new mini goal is going to be 139. I'd like to weigh in at 139 by Sunday, December 13. Wish me luck. The weight is definitely coming off a bit more slowly now than it was over the summer, but I'm still headed in the right direction. By the time I get to 139, I should be solidly in a size 10.

I spent Halloween night with my nieces at a neighborhood carnival. Kitten was dressed up as her heroine of the moment - "Cingewedda" - and Poppet painted the town red as a fuzzy little chicken with orange and green striped legs. There were ghouls and goblins out in force last night with capes, tiaras, and face paint galore.

I've been experimenting with a little face paint myself recently. In addition to the loose powder I apply twice I day, I began trying a liquid foundation right down the center of my face - just trying to hit the places where I have more freckles and reddishness than I do anywhere else. Unfortunately, this is also the oiliest skin on my face. No sooner did I start using the liquid foundation than my skin began breaking out right in the very same area! One of the virtues of having been a frump for so long is that I'm starting with a great baseline. It's very easy to tell when something new is not a good idea. I went from having about one blemish per month to having two or three per week. Clearly, liquid foundation isn't a good idea for me, but I still wanted to try something to even out my skin tone in that area.

1940s beauty experts were adamant that no grown woman should consider herself fully dressed without a good foundation make-up. The right foundation was credited with giving the face everything from "a velvety finish" or "that pearly finish" to "smoothness which can’t be commanded in any other way." It was widely touted that foundation - or "base" - could even improve the facial skin:

Makeup bases are certainly a great addition to the cosmetic family and can protect the skin as well as make it look lovely. They can stay the damage of cold and wind and dust and sun. The powder clings to them and keeps your makeup fresh for a longer time. They cover up minor blemishes, and if you select the right kind for your skin, they will even act as a gentle lubricant for the extremely dry skin. (Spokane Daily Chronicle, March 27, 1944)

The Evening Independent's Alicia Hart suggested in an April 1940 article on the latest spring fashions that no look was complete without a well made-up face:

The face that is a connecting link between a new navy suit and a beautiful hat must be fresh and clean, expertly made up. Clean your face carefully at least three times a day - morning, noon and night. Don't put layers of fresh make-up on over stale. Don't expect to achieve that coveted luminous look unless you use a foundation film, cream or lotion. It's a mistake for any woman to assume she doesn't need to use a foundation preparation.

Clean your neck every time you clean your face and make it up just as carefully. The new vogue for white collars on everything - coats and suits as well as dresses - puts the spotlight once again on throats.

There were two major types of foundation on the market during this era. A cream variety - I'd guess this was similar to the liquid foundation available these days - and a "pancake" variety, "which comes in a wafer-cake form, and is applied with a moist sponge. It is this latter kind which now is generally used by the film stars" (St. Petersburg Times, May 29, 1940). Josephine Lowman advised her readers in March 1944 to select a foundation with a oily base if they had dry skin: "I have long thought the use of wet cake makeup may be extremely detrimental to dry skins, leading to coarseness and extreme dryness."

Application was everything. In The New American Etiquette (1941), Lily Haxworth Wallace recommends that after washing the face and applying face cream, "apply a lovely, smooth foundation. Use only five dots on your face, and blend it in very smoothly. The success of one's appearance depends, to a large extent, on the correct application of the foundation cream." One trick suggested by a beauty expert of the era was to dip your fingers in cold water to ensure more even coverage. At all costs, one must be absolutely sure when applying foundation that she doesn't forget her neck! "Don’t let makeup end at the chinline. Carry your foundation and face powder downward on throat. Your throat should match your face. Unless you apply makeup skillfully, it won’t" (The Evening Independent, March 10, 1941).

The truly adventurous woman might even attempt to use two shades of foundation in re-sculpting her face:

You can change your facial contour by a clever combination of light and dark foundation creams… Light lengthens and reveals. Dark shortens and conceals. Thus if you have a triangular face, use a light foundation cream on chin and lower cheeks… dark or medium on rest of face. This adds fullness. If round… apply dark foundation to lower cheeks tapering toward the chin, for a desired oval shape. If oblong… spread entire chin and jaws with dark foundation. Result is a foreshortening of the lower features. If your forehead is too deep, use a darker base than you do on the rest of the face. (St. Petersburg Times, September 2, 1945)

So what's a gal with a face that rejects a liquid foundation to do? I want that velvety finish of yesteryear, too! What I've decided to try is one of the new mineral powder foundations - just at the center of my face. I settled on a jar of Maybelline Mineral Power Natural Perfecting Powder Foundation in Classic Ivory the other day. I'm no cosmetics expert, but I'm pleased with the results so far. I'll have to give this some time in order to see how my skin reacts. Now if I can just remember not to try applying loose powder on top of the powder foundation...

Shampoo in the Shower

Let's face it. As much as I enjoy my nightly baths, there are times of the week and times of the month when an invigorating morning shower hits the spot. On Saturday and Sunday mornings - when I sweat hard during a 65-minute walk at the park - I need a shower to feel fresh and dry for the rest of the day. And when Aunt Flo pays a call, I couldn't do without a shower before heading out in the morning to face the world. The rest of the time, I'm perfectly cool with a nightly bath. I've come to prefer 'em. I love that squeaky clean feeling when I crawl under the covers at night --- and there's something about all that hot water that puts my head in just the right space for dreamland.

Folks in the '40s were just coming themselves to appreciate the virtues of a great shower, and showers were becoming popular enough additions to postwar American bathrooms that Good Housekeeping dedicated an article to washing your hair in the shower in its March 1947 issue. I'll bet they've got some advice that might be helpful to me:

Why not wash your hair in the shower? Once you get the hang of it, you will never go back to shampooing in a bowl. Try it this way. Before you strip, have everything you need at hand - cream shampoo or a cup into which you have measured enough liquid shampoo for two sudsings, a small brush, a towel placed where you can reach it with your eyes shut. Wet your hair thoroughly; then keep away from the spray when rubbing suds into the hair. To rinse, face the spray or turn your back, as you like. Either way, shut your eyes, and as the water begins to run clear, turn so that a strong spray can be concentrated on every part of your head. Your hair will be more thoroughly rinsed with less trouble than ever before; you'll step out clean from top to toe; and you won't have to mop the bathroom floor.

Good Housekeeping seems sold on showers! At least when it comes to washing hair. Isn't it funny how something which seems so natural to we shower-takers today had to be broken down step by step like this. Even the process of rinsing the hair. Well, I suppose washing my hair in the bathroom sink would seem just as unnatural to me. Here are some additional tips included in the article. Thank goodness I don't have to worry about dandruff!

• Whether you shampoo in a bowl or in a shower, always brush your hair thoroughly before you start, in order to loosen any clinging dandruff.

• Be sure to suds every part of the scalp and hair. Uneven cleansing is often the cause of drab locks.

• Use a hand brush or small hairbrush to rub suds around the hairline, behind the ears, and on any spot where dandruff is likely to be troublesome.

• Rinse until the water runs clear. Without perfect rinsing, it is impossible to have glossy, springy hair. Use a hand spray if you don't shampoo in a shower.

• In hard water, use a soapless shampoo or a soap shampoo specially made to rinse out in hard water. Or follow soap rinsing with a lemon or color rinse, to remove curd.

Can anyone guess who's famous gams those are in the photo at the top of this post?

Week Forty-three: The Mission

Time to step things up again... When the latest additions to my routine begin to seem super manageable, I know it's time to take on a new mission!

Fitness
You know I'm the first to give it up to vintage advice, but these limbering and stretching exercises are transforming my figure. I'm amazed at the changes I've seen in my waistline and my arms since adding these exercises to my almost-daily walks. Don't get me wrong. The walking has made a tremendous difference, especially in my legs, but - after about three months of these vintage exercises - I'm feeling leaner and lither and more flexible than I have in years. These may be some very basic movements, but when done slowly and regularly they seem to be making a real difference.

Here are a few more I'm going to add to my evening exercise routine beginning tomorrow night. These hip-busters were written up during the early 1940s by Betty Clarke, a syndicated woman's page columnist:

20. Stand with feet apart, arms out at side, bend body, touching left arm to right foot, then right arm to left foot. (20 reps)

21. Put feet flat on floor, raising arms overhead. Bend forward, touching floor with palms of hands. Raise arms over head, bend body back from waist. Relax. (20 reps)

22. You’ll need a three-foot rope, but your lounging robe belt will do if you can make a secure loop at each end of it. Lie on your back and put a foot in each loop. Lift your right foot as far from the floor as the rope permits. Alternate lifting right and left. (5 reps)

Reducing
My weekday lunches are still a challenge. Particularly because I get tired of eating the same thing more than once or twice in a row. The hot dishes called for on these menus, even the coleslaw on my most recent menu, are hard to prepare in just one or two servings --- and there's only so much room in my freezer for storing additional servings! I'm going to continue plugging away at this mission, though. It's made me truly appreciate the convenience in convenience foods, but my figure and my health are going to benefit immeasurably in the long run from moving towards whole foods at lunchtime.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. After taking my evening bath (a morning shower on the weekends), drying briskly with a towel, applying deodorant, and brushing and flossing my teeth:

Down with a nice, long glass of water - and so to bed.

I can do that. I've usually reached my water quota by the time I head in for my bath, but it can't hurt to save that one last glass for a little bit longer. Plus it keeps me from trying to down too much water too quickly in the evening. The more I spread this water out throughout the day, the easier it is on my bladder!

Dance Fever

Oh, I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate;
She shimmies like a jelly on a plate.
My mama wanted to know last night,
What makes the boys think Kate's so nice.
(Fats Waller, 1931)

As I try to incorporate a nightly brushing and flossing into my post-bath grooming routine, I've been reading up on vintage dental advice. Only to find that the pre-fluoride world was a frightening place... Did you know that in 1940 the average 25-year-old had already lost four teeth? The average 30-year-old was missing seven teeth, and by 40 - ten. At 36, then, I'd probably have several gaps in my smile. If I was lucky, maybe some artificial teeth to fill the most noticeable gaps. That's one of the uglier realities about life in the '40s.

Commercially-prepared dentifrices had been around for awhile. Tooth powders, toothpastes, liquid tooth preparations. Many folks probably still used good ol' baking soda. Lots of options. Beauty experts everywhere seemed to agree, though, that the right technique for brushing mattered more than the type of dentifrice found in your medicine cabinet. In a December 3, 1940 column, the Milwaukee Sentinel's Ida Jean Kain urged adults to quit the "rotary method" they'd learned as children.

Place the brush on the gums at an angle of about 45 degrees and brush with a “shimmy motion,” down from the upper teeth, and up from the lowers. Repeat the strokes two or three times until you feel that you have had a thorough brushing on the outside, then transfer your activities to the inside of your teeth and repeat...

It will really pay you to take the time to learn and practice the correct brushing technique, for we are given to understand that the old rotary brushing not only fails to clean the crevices between the teeth, but that it may actually cause the gums to recede from the teeth.

The Evening Independent's Howard Blakeslee tried in 1941 to appeal to his readers' interest in dance by describing the proper brushing technique as a rhumba:

The toothbrush rhumba is a side-to-side sway of the bristles while the point of the bristle stands still.

The sway is produced by holding the brush handle firmly in the fist, not in the fingers, to give downward pressure against the teeth. The fist moves from side to side, as in the motion which scrapes enamel, but not so far.

While the bristles are doing the rhumba, the brush is moved quite slowly up and down the surface of the teeth. The up movement stops at the first slight contact with the gums, for that is the place where the enamel erosion is dangerous.

Twice up and twice down is enough with this rhumba, say dental authorities.

Dental floss, a stiff-bristled toothbrush ("the stiffest you can find"), mouthwash --- these were just a few of the oft-mentioned accessories that would serve a woman well if she aspired to "personal daintiness." Brushing after every meal was ideal, but - if done properly - twice a day would suffice. Some experts also recommended massaging the gums with your fingers and cleaning the tongue:

It is surprising how many men and women who take meticulous care of their teeth will neglect their tongues… A coated tongue is a dirty tongue…

So brush your teeth, say your prayers, brush your hair, stick your tongue out at yourself in the mirror and scour it as far back as you can. You can use a piece of cotton or a brush which you keep especially for this purpose.

Which move do you and your toothbrush do when you hit the dance floor each night: the shimmy or the rhumba?

Week Forty-one: The Mission

It's that time again... I was planning to launch a new housekeeping mission this week, but I'm itching to kick things up another notch with my vintage beauty missions instead. I've got some serious momentum goin' on and don't want to lose it!

Fitness
An article in the October 1945 issue of Good Housekeeping includes a series of exercises designed just for the "tubby teen." (They didn't pull any p.c. punches in the '40s!) Luckily, they're accompanied by little drawings, because the written descriptions are very spare. I think these would make a nice addition to my morning exercise routine:

16. Waistline. [Lying on your back,] touch right foot to left hand, then left foot to right hand.

17. Hips. Lie on back, bicycle with legs in air. Repeat, lying on side.

18. Thighs. Hold on chair to balance yourself and swing leg back and forth.

19. Ankle. Roll each ankle 20 times, making a big circle with your toes.

I think I'll do 20 reps of each. Speaking of which, for the sake of consistency, I think I'll increase the reps of each of my other "limbering and stretching exercises" to 20 apiece.

Reducing
My weekday lunches are still a work in progress. I haven't by any means mastered this mission yet. Just yesterday, I left all my plastic containers sitting in the dish drainer in the kitchen at work. Again! Which means I had to pack a leftover frozen lunch today. I'm going to continue chipping away at this goal during the week ahead. Today is payday, and y'all have given me some great ideas about lunchware - so I'm hitting the stores this weekend!

Grooming
And here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. After taking my evening bath (or morning shower on the weekends), drying briskly with a towel, and applying deodorant:

Give your crowning glory a good swishing with the brush, dampen ends and pin up curls.

Hmmm... Well I certainly brush my hair after my evening bath-and-brief-shower, but I can't sleep in the curlers I bought. I've been rolling my hair in the mornings after re-wetting it under the shower for a minute. This step was definitely designed for the woman who only washed her hair once a week - and needed just to wet the ends on a daily basis in order to put it up in pin curls. The next step in the routine is one I could truly benefit from in the evenings:

Brush teeth carefully.

I always brush my teeth in the mornings - sometimes twice --- but I don't always remember to brush them in the evenings. And my dentist has been after me forever to floss regularly. I think I'll make brushing and flossing my teeth each evening my new mission.

Charm of Person

The system which works with best results for women who pride themselves on daintiness and charm of person is bath first, and the use of their favorite deodorant afterwards, and the deodorant used again in a few hours.

Believe it or not, it's been about 21 hours now since I applied my deodorant --- and I'm still odor- and perspiration-free! No small feat in the Southwest in August. I even left my air-conditioned office for a walk at noon. I wouldn't say I'm feeling fresh as a daisy, but I still felt quite fresh when I left the house this morning. Now I'm just neutral. Maybe there's something to this nightly application of deodorant after all.

Commercially prepared deodorants were nothing new in the 1940s - Mum was patented in 1888 - but what hadn't been invented yet was the deodorant stick. (Ban Roll-On was the first in 1952.) Whether you bought deodorant in a cream, paste, liquid, or powder form, it always had to be applied by hand.

I suspect that use of deodorant wasn't yet as universal as it is today. Women from rural areas, for instance, or from families hard hit by the Depression --- they were probably more likely to think that soap and water should be more than enough to keep oneself clean and fresh. Vintage ads for the stuff are absolutely savage and must have gone a long way toward the addition of a deodorant to many a medicine cabinet. If you didn't use deodorant, you were surely destined for spinsterdom and friendlessness:

You chased him behind that paper, Cookie.

Some things you just can't mask, Pigeon!

Hips aren't your big problem, Honey!

Even Venus couldn't get away with that.

And there must have plenty of women trying to cover body odor with perfume, because the ads sound all kinds of alarms against that practice:

Don't be that kind of a Cover Girl!

"Be a safety-first girl..."

My little apartment has been in a state of upheaval for the last few days. I had some minor plumbing issues with the bathtub/shower, but it was enough to throw off that part of my routine entirely. After cleaning the bathroom on Saturday, I didn't want the tub to get all scurvy again before I had maintenance up to scope out my problem --- so I've been taking showers only since Saturday morning. Well, the maintenance guy was here yesterday and replaced my shower head and all the metal fixtures in my bathtub. You should have seen the water pressure I got this morning! Practically blew me out of the bathroom. I'm excited to get back in the bathtub this evening, though.

You know what I did learn during the last few days in Showerland? If I roll my hair up when it's freshly washed in the morning, it doesn't hold the curl nearly as well as when I wash my hair the night before and just wet it in the morning. I also found out that I'm way more excited now by the clean-ability of my bathtub fixtures than I am by their look. Once upon a time, I might have been concerned only with the fact that they were cute. The first thing I did when I got home yesterday was to check out those fixtures to see if they'd be easy to keep clean. And I think they will. Score 1 for the housekeeper!

My lunches for the last few days have been almost identical to Monday's. (I'm a one-woman household and that soup has got to be eaten up!) I'm definitely not feeling any afternoon hunger - which is a happy surprise considering that the vintage lunch has 2/3 the calories. One more day of the creamy broccoli/egg-salad combo and I should be ready for a new vintage lunch menu on Friday. This next one sounds a little, well, strange. Will I be able to choke it down? Will I actually enjoy it? Stay tuned...

I'm going to try the night-time deodorant thing tonight. The first time I read through the 1946 grooming routine, I thought it was nuts to apply your deodorant immediately after taking your nightly bath. Wouldn't you want to be as fresh as possible in the morning? Wouldn't you sweat it all away during the night??? So I was chatting with a friend the other day and she told me that she'd recently started using one of those new "clinical strength" deodorant/antiperspirants. Strangely enough, the directions on the container tell her to apply it at night! Maybe those vintage beauty experts were onto something after all. Well, we've sure got the right conditions to give this technique a run for its money. Temps should reach 104 or 105 degrees F. again tomorrow.

By the by, 169 seems to be my watermark when it comes to matchmaking. Since Monday, no less than two people have suggested setting me up with somebody! An acquaintance wants to set me up with a 44-year-old engineer who's a friend of the family. She describes him as "a little nerdy," but very athletic (hiking and swimming). She's one of the kindest people I know, so I'm intrigued. One of my closest co-workers also wants to set me up with a friend. Which would probably be a bad idea seeing as she's also kind of a supervisor of mine. I think I'll try to pass on that one!

Week Forty: The Mission

Fitness
As I continue getting used to the extra resistance those 1-lb. wrist weights add to my arms, I'm going to add a few more limbering and stretching exercises to my evening routine. These exercises targeting "heavy hips" and a "thick waistline" were featured in the March 27, 1947 edition of Salt Lake City's Deseret News:

13. Get on your knees, keeping your back straight and arms stretched overhead. Bend your body sharply to the right side, and lower the hips as far as possible toward the floor. Then raise your body up straight, bend to the left side, and lower hips. Repeat 4 times; rest. 8 to 12 times altogether.

14. Stand with arms out to the sides, and kick your right leg across your body, trying to touch the left hand. Feel that stretch? Return leg to position, and kick the left leg. Do 12 times, alternating legs.

15. Now get down on the floor, flat on your back, with legs straight and arms out to the sides. Keep shoulders flat on the floor. Pull both knees up to your chest and roll them over to left side, then to right. Swing from side to side 6 times; rest. 12 to 18 times altogether.

Reducing
My weekday lunches have gone almost untouched thus far by the changes I've made to my diet. The only thing I've been doing differently at lunchtime is to opt for fruit when it comes to dessert. I guess I've been holding out on this meal because it's the high point of a working day which can sometimes seem like a long slog! Unfortunately, my lunch choices are often quite high in sodium - and probably in calories - and filled with additives and preservatives... So I've been collecting vintage menus for the lunchbox and am planning on trying some of these out. I'll have to make some adaptations, of course. Cut down on the carbs and eliminate the desserts. Stick to vintage portion sizes. Make open-faced sandwiches. And I'll keep an eye on the calorie content of these meals to make sure I'm not exceeding what I've been accustomed to eating for lunch on weekdays. Here's the original menu that I'll be adapting for tomorrow's lunch. It's included in a chapter on "The Lunch Box" in The American Woman's Cook Book (1945):

Cream of Spinach Soup
Crackers
Egg Salad Sandwiches with Lettuce
Raw Vegetable Strips
Apple
Cup Cake

Grooming
And here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. After taking my evening bath (or morning shower on the weekends) and a brisk dry with the towel:

Don't forget the deodorant under your arms.

Deodorant at night? Won't I be all sweaty by the time I head to work in the morning???

Curly Top

It's like Christmas every day here at Casa Jitterbug!

Putting my hair up in curlers totally makes me feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I'm still very new at this, so I'm never quite sure how the curls are going to come out. It's kind of exciting --- waiting with anticipation while the hair dries. I have to remind myself to be patient. Though the hair on the top of my head dries pretty quickly, the hair on the bottom takes a bit longer. When it's finally time to take the curlers out, it feels like I'm unwrapping a present I didn't even have a chance to shake beforehand.

When I began taking nightly baths the week before last, I was psyched to have the chance to work a "wet set" into my schedule. So after looking about to see what's out there, I picked out a set of self-holding rollers by Scunci. They're wrapped in a material kind of like the prickly side of a piece of Velcro. My hair is very fine, so the last thing I need is to lose any strands unnecessarily in clips or pins.



What I'd forgotten is that you can't sleep on curlers like these! Sponge curlers, maybe. Maybe even rag curls or pin curls. I gave it a good try the first night I took a bath, but it definitely wasn't going to work. Back to the bathroom. Took out all the curlers and resolved to re-wet my hair in the morning and try it again. And that's how I've worked it into my schedule ever since. When I get up in the morning, I duck my head under the shower to get my hair good and wet again. Then up in the curlers so it can dry while I go about my morning chores. Just about the time I finish my breakfast, the hair is dry and ready to unroll and style. A little hairspray, and my style holds for the better part of the day. It's usually a bit looser late afternoon/early evening, but still pretty curly. Hey, if I brushed it a bit more and pinned up the sides, I might even be able to pull off that pageboy I was picturing about a month ago.

I haven't tried using any setting lotion or other product before curling the hair, but suspect the style would hold even longer if I did so. Any recommendations for product that'll make curls a little more glossy, but still natural-looking? I suppose the right setting lotion would've been super important was I truly a '40s gal and washed and set my hair only once a week...

Also - I'm a complete dolt when it comes to rolling my hair. My bangs definitely need the smallest curlers, but what about the rest of the hair? I'm not really shooting for a tightly curled look, so is it best to use the biggest curlers on the top of my head with medium curlers at ear level and small curlers at the bottom? Or am I going about this backwards? I don't want to end up with triangle head. And should the curlers be rolled into place horizontally or vertically?

Week Thirty-six: The Mission

Eeesh! How did it already get to be Wednesday? I'm sorry for the delay in new posts. Kitten was suffering from a virus and I've been pulling some Auntie overtime. But I'm back in my own little nest this evening and looking forward to some quality time with my iron. So how about a new vintage beauty mission? It's been a few weeks and I'm itching to add something new to my routine...

Fitness
I'm going to add a few more "limbering and stretching exercises" to my pre-bed fitness routine. The first is from a July 1940 edition of the St. Petersburg [Florida] Times and is especially designed for reducing fatty tissue in the hip area:

10. If you are bothered by this special beauty sorrow stand erect, steady yourself by holding to the back of a chair, swing the leg in wide circles. Lift the foot as high as you can. You will be aware of a strong muscle pull from knees to hips…

Two more exercises are from a charming article in a February 1940 edition of The Evening Independent. The author, a syndicated woman's page columnist, suggests that women living in a cold climate go in for skiing or skating to attain the new "stretched look." Tennis and swimming were suggested for women living in a warm climate. If money is tight or time is short, not to fear! Here are some exercises designed to mimic these sports. Anybody up for a game of imaginary tennis?

11. Simply hold a pie pan or other round, shallow pan in your right hand high above your head and look toward the ceiling as if you were watching for a high ball to come across an imaginary net. As the imaginary ball comes closer, jump a foot off the floor and hit it with the pan, driving it back across the imaginary net to an imaginary opponent. Drop arm to side, count to four slowly, then raise arm, jump and strike at the ball again. Repeat 10 times.

Reverse, holding pan in left hand and make believe that you are a left-handed tennis player. Incidentally, since jumping up and down is a simple exercise which reduces the thighs and hips, an imaginary tennis game a day may serve a double purpose.

12. The breast stroke exercise is also recommended. Lie across a single bed so that arms and legs are not supported by the bed. Keeping head up with neck straight, stretch arms forward with palms facing each other. Now fling arms wide apart, turning palms in the opposite direction. Do this slowly and deliberately. Repeat 20 times.

Reducing
In an effort to rev up the protein content in my dinners - and eliminate those late night temptations! - I'm going to continue limiting the portion size of the prepared, pre-packaged foods and add a serving of a bean dish of one sort or another. My dinner plate (and lunch on the weekends) will now look something like this: 1/3 my once-typical serving of prepared foods + 1 serving of vegetables + 1 serving of beans. And since it's summer, I'm all about cold bean dishes. There's a Moroccan lentil salad I used to be nuts about and haven't made in forever. A restaurant here in the city makes a chickpea/tomato/parsley salad that I've been dying to replicate. I think I've found a recipe online that should be close. I'm going to give it a try tonight after my ironing is finished. The flavors should be perfectly meshed by suppertime tomorrow night. I ought to be able to whip up a big dish of one of these salads once a week and having a serving from it every day!

Grooming
Well, this reforming frump has finished the 1946 morning grooming routine and lived to tell the tale... so this week I'm tackling the evening grooming routine:

Out of your clothes and into the tub -

1. Coat yourself thoroughly with a susdy lather, and don't spare the elbow grease. Rinse well, doing face separately with water from the faucet.

It's a good thing I've been cleaning my bathroom on a weekly basis --- my tub is ready for a good, hot bath. Every night, no less! Can I survive the shift from Shower Land?

Week Thirty-three: The Mission

Fitness
This week, I'm going to add another few "limbering and stretching exercises" to my day. These exercises were included in an article by beauty expert Antoinette Donnelly in an article titled "Daily Exercise Aids Feeling of Fatigue" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 13, 1940). Donnelly recommended that her readers begin by doing each exercise 20 times. The first will be added to my morning routine:

7. Rise up on the balls of your feet, bring your arms up overhead, stretching, stretching, stretching everything from toes up, keeping chest high, abdomen in.

The next two will be the nucleus of an evening exercise routine:

8. Take your old friend the floor-touching one, but we prefer the floor-touching one in which you turn on the waist and attempt to touch the floor back of your heels.

9. Lie on your back on the floor with your arms stretched wide at shoulders. Keep head and shoulders on the floor while you raise your right foot over and cross the left, aiming to reach with a long stretch a meeting between your right-foot toes and your left-hand fingers. Then reverse, bringing your left foot and right hand into contact. At first the meeting will be very, very formal, the pair not getting together at all. But that’s all right. You’re doing something fine for yourself, your waistline, hipline, thighs, lower back and, indeed, the upper torso comes in for benefit, too.

Reducing
I'm transforming my desserts this week. I've long since made over my lunchtime desserts on weekdays. They're almost always some sort of decadent dish of fruit - berries, usually. Now it's time to do something about the desserts I eat after dinner and at lunchtime on the weekends. Ice cream was banished from my household several weeks ago, but it's been replaced with something possibly even worse --- peanut butter cups. I winced when I turned the container over the other day and faced the fact that three of these babies equal 180 calories. Yikes! I could easily eat six to nine of them in a sitting.

An article on reducing in the October 1945 issue of Good Housekeeping has three great dessert suggestions: baked custard, lemon sherbet, and pudding. Sadly, the recipe for each of these dishes includes saccharin as the sweetener. I'm not fond of artificial sweeteners. (Splenda, in particular, rips through me like a house afire.) What I figure, though, is that - even sweetened with sugar - if I stick to the recommended serving size, I'll be making a ginormous step in the right direction if I trade one of these dessert suggestions for my peanut butter cups:

1/2 cup fat-free rainbow sherbet = 120 calories
1/2 cup chocolate pudding made with 1% organic milk = 140 calories

Either one is a heck of a lot better than 360-540 calories' worth of peanut butter and chocolate! There are lots of flavors to keep me interested and they'll be sinchy to make.

Grooming
My face is powdered, my lips have been painted --- my hair may not be in vintage order, but it's been brushed 'til it shines and parted with precision. Here's the last step in the 1946 morning grooming routine for young women:

Take a last look, to be sure you are impeccable from top to toe.

I'm going to dust off that looking glass and take a good long look at myself in the morning before I leave the house. Wrinkles in my clothing? Lint? How does my hair look from the back? It's high time I take some responsibility for what I look like below the neck!

Coloring outside the Lines

Before Max Factor "helped" the lovely Ms. Crawford to a new look.


After.

Beauty experts of the 1940s regularly counseled women to take artistic license when it came to applying lipstick. Is your lower lip too "prominent"? One 1940 newspaper article profiled model and actress Eleanor Chandler, revealing her solution to this thorny problem:

First, she covers her lip a fraction of an inch when applying her cake foundation and then outlines the desired size with a lipstick pencil. Since Eleanor is a natural blonde, she finds a lipstick which is true red in color most flattering to her type. She spreads it to the very corners of her mouth thereby increasing its apparent width and further minimizing the fullness of her lower lip.

The St. Petersburg Times' Betty Clarke agreed, adding that "[a] thin upper lip can be made to look fuller by shaping mouth over natural line with darker lipstick and applying a lighter shade to lower lip." She also advised her readers in 1944 that if a mouth is too wide "it can be made to appear narrow by lipsticking center full, and tapering off gradually before it reaches the corners."

Despite all the enthusiasm, you occasionally come across a word of caution. In 1943, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Antoinette Donnelly slammed Joan Crawford and her "blob of enormous width and shapelessness" --- warning young women, in particular, that you could go horribly wrong once you started playing around with the natural shape of your mouth. "A passe performance that! Some go in for the 'sultry' lower lip insofar as it can be attained by lipstick loading."

I still feel a bit like I'm drawing on my lips even just by applying cosmetics to my natural lips. But I do have to admit that I felt a little naked this morning when I was halfway from my parking lot to the office and realized I'd forgotten to put on my lipstick before leaving the house! The washroom was my first stop... The more I get used to wearing lipstick, the longer it seems to last before needing to be reapplied. I was so self-conscious when I first started wearing it that I was always rubbing my lips together and running my tongue across my front teeth (just in case anything had rubbed off on 'em). I must have looked like a crazy woman! Now I can easily go through the morning without having to reapply until after eating lunch.

Are you an artist when it comes to lipstick - or do you stay inside the lines?

The Smartest Coiffures

Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

One of the gifts my mom and dad gave me last Christmas was a lovely vintage dresser set. A brush, comb, and mirror with gold-tone handles and a burgundy moire-type panel set into the back of the brush and mirror. They were still in the box they'd been sold in and, to all appearances, had never been used. Well, I decided it was time to break 'em out this week in honor of my latest grooming mission. What luxury to use a brush with nylon bristles! I haven't spent all that much time in the hairstyling aisles, but it seems like all the brushes today have either those hard plastic bristles - with the knobby ends that often break off - or boar bristles.

Here's an article from the January 22, 1940 edition of St. Petersburg, Florida's Evening Independent. Didn't think there was a technique for hairbrushing? Leave it to the beauty experts of this era.... There's a technique for everything! The article promotes hairbrushing as a nightly ritual, but there's no reason why the same techniques wouldn't come in handy when setting your hair in the morning.

The smartest coiffures at the moment absolutely demand healthy, shiny hair which shows the excellent results of meticulous grooming. Whether you have retained your long bob, are wearing your hair up in front and down in back, or really quite short all over the head with soft curls or a roll in the nape of the neck, your coiffure won't be completely flattering or manageable unless you brush it at least five times a week.

If your present hair brush is indeed a sorry sight, by all means invest in a new one. Choose a brush with long, flexible bristles and a handle which fits your hand...

Hold your brush lightly in one hand, lean forward, relaxing your body as you do so, then place the bristles against your scalp at the hairline and continue on out to the ends of the hair. Let the bristles become embedded in your locks. Don't simply brush the surface, neglecting scalp and hair underneath.

When you straighten up, brush upward from nape of the neck to ends of the hair. In other words, don't stop brushing until the scalp is tingling and every hair has been brushed and polished. Repeat five nights a week and, within three months, you'll notice an enormous difference in the texture of your hair and the ease with which the waves and curls fall back into place after the brushing.

If you have dandruff or your hair is too oily or too dry, supplement the brushing routines with weekly scalp treatments. There are special tonics designed to correct scalp ailments. Brushing is most important, however. It's the great cure-all.

Week Thirty-one: The Mission

Fitness
As I continue my transition to using the indoor walking track for my weekday workouts, I'm going to begin adding some muscle toning exercises to my daily routine. In the 1940s, they were called "limbering and stretching exercises" and recommended by beauty experts as an ideal supplement to a brisk daily walk. I've found a ton of these in vintage newspapers and magazines, but here are a few from a 1940 edition of the St. Maurice Valley [Quebec] Chronicle for use before and immediately after getting out of bed in the morning. I'll start with these:

1. Before you get out of bed in the morning, do this routine five times: stretch body out with arms out at sides. Lift both legs simultaneously as high as you can, even, if you can, over your head; then down again, slowly.

2. Here is a good stretching exercise that helps to develop the bust and improves the posture and figure generally: Stand with feet slightly apart, arms down at sides. Stretch arms in front up and over the head slowly as far as you can, without straining, then slowly return to original position. Repeat this several times.

3. To improve hips and waist and improve general line of figure: (A) Stand with feet slightly apart, abdomen in, seat well down, fingers interlaced and raised high over head, arms making a frame for the face. Keep face framed by arms throughout exercise, and body absolutely steady from waist down. (B) Swing forward till body and arms are horizontal. Swing body round to right side and travel upwards till arms are over head once more. (C) Turn to the left and swing the body round and down till body and arms are once again horizontal, as in B.

Reducing
In the spirit of reducing my calorie intake, I'm going to begin limiting the portion size of the prepared, pre-packaged foods I typically eat at dinner and for lunch on the weekends. One of these kinds of foods would usually make up my entire meal. Now, I know perfectly well that I can't go from 0 to 60 overnight, so I'm going to do this in steps. This week, I'll try to cut the portion size by a third --- where I would normally eat three pieces of frozen tomato/pesto/mozzarella pizza, I'm going to eat two. If I would normally have 3/4 of a bag of frozen mushroom fettucine, I'll make it 1/2 a bag. What I'm going to do at the same time - and this is equally important - is to fill up the rest of the plate with veggies. They don't have to be anything fancy or anything that requires much time or energy in the kitchen. Frozen or canned vegetables will do just fine for now. Something to try and trick my body into feeling just as full as it would have with that larger portion of the pre-packaged foods. If I can make a go of this, I'll cut the portion size of the pre-packaged foods by another third next week.

Grooming
My face has been powdered, my lips are painted... it's time to attend to my hair! Here's the next step in the 1946 morning grooming routine for young women:

Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

In honor of the occasion, I betook myself to the salon this weekend. A rare event indeed for this reforming frump! I'm launching the mission with a new haircut and some freshly manicured eyebrows.

From Apple Red to Apple Blossom

I've been continuing my completely unscientific survey of 1940s lipstick colors by reviewing some of the newspaper articles written up on that topic by beauty experts of the day. It's interesting to see how trends in color changed over the decade. A woman's page columnist from the St. Petersburg Times offered up this spring forecast on February 4, 1940:

Evidently, this spring no woman will be well dressed without at least four shades of lipstick: pure red red, a blue red, brown red, and an especially dramatic lipstick to give that "different" look.

There were some bold new colors out there in the spring of 1940 that fit the bill for women seeking a dramatic look. One particularly "heavy, dark red" was so dark the lipstick was named Black! The fascination developing in all things south-of-the-border had also led to a popular new lip color termed "South American red":

Fashions, dances, music–and now makeup–go South American! The makeup is designed to give your face the exotic vibrant quality that’s demanded by the new South American clothes. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 4, 1940)

A March 1941 article in a Florida paper warned women that the methods they used to apply lipstick would be especially important as these dramatic new colors continued to gain in popularity. "Caution in the use of lipstick becomes more important as shades go more South American, Indian and militantly red." The advice on application is strikingly similar to some of the tips women share with each other today!

Mildred Coles, motion picture actress, offers this lipstick fashion formula to check against: Begin by cleaning the lips of lipstick applied previously… Use lipstick before public appearances unless you have become proficient with a lip pencil or brush. If you use a brush for outline, then fill in with lipstick… For lovelier lips, Mildred Coles uses brush to apply lipstick to the corners of her mouth. To achieve a natural effect, blot off excess lipstick by biting piece of cleansing tissue.

Men shopping for St. Valentine's Day gifts in 1942 were urged to choose an "apple red if she’s the fresh out-of-doors type, red velvet if she’s a glamor girl, or any of the other brilliant reds designed to flatter every type of woman." As women began worrying that the war would bring about a shortage in lipsticks - many of the oils and waxes used in these and other cosmetics were imports - Betty Clarke, AP Newsfeatures Beauty Editor, advised them to focus on the four most important colors: "a honey-like yellow-red, a bright red, a dark red and a rosy red with an undertone of blue." And, by all means, learn how to apply your lipstick with a brush:

It lasts longer on you and it looks lovelier. Moreover, it means you can use the last little dab of lipstick in the case and conservation in cosmetics won't do any harm.

According to an article on college coeds, the girls were going in for a "brilliant rascal red lipstick" in September 1942. Two years later, one beauty expert proclaimed a "bright cherry shade" was the most versatile of colors for the lips. By the end of the decade, though, color trends for lipstick were opening up, with rosy pinks creating the greatest buzz. Contrast the early '40s chorus of accolades for red lips to these articles forecasting the latest colors for Spring 1949:

• Typical of new lipstick pinks is one which translates the deepest pink shade of the apple blossom into rouge. Makeup of this soft coloring is designed to accent the pink fashions so prevalent for spring... ("Pink Cosmetics Accent New Togs," The Evening Independent, April 30, 1949)
  


• Spring costume colors such as taupe, beige, gray and navy, amber, copper and spice brown can all be flattered with a warm lipstick shade that borrows its color from the rose geranium or other spring flowers. ("Spring Lipsticks Warm in Color, Not Dark Smears," The Evening-Independent, May 19, 1949)

What I've been finding myself about wearing red lipstick is that it totally ups the ante for the rest of my appearance. It makes me worry about whether my teeth are as white as they should be --- and so the Jitterbug bathroom cabinet is now stocked with an extra whitening toothpaste. Red lipstick also makes me want to do something about my eyebrows. And my eye lashes are positively screaming for some mascara to live up to the red lips! Who knew one cosmetic could be such an engine for change...

Week Twenty-seven: The Mission

It's not entirely a mystery why I lost two lbs. a couple of weeks ago and promptly gained it back. It did take me a few days to sort out what must've happened, but I think I've narrowed things down. The week before last, my freezer was stocked with Drumsticks. You know the kind I'm talking about - those tasty, nutty morsels of chocolatey-caramelly goodness. The week before that, nary a Drumstick in sight. I was trying to be "good" that particular week by buying Fudgsicles instead. The one-stick kind. Could this minor change in frozen dairy treats be the reason my workouts actually had a chance at doing their job? I think so. I can easily eat two or three Drumsticks in a sitting, whereas the Fudgsicles weren't as satisfying so the box was around for awhile.

This is one of the not-so-pretty realities of life 50 lbs. past a healthy body weight. When no holds are barred when it comes to cravings. I've had a Drumstick habit off and on for about two years. Well, no more! NO MORE!!! I declare my independence from ice cream this very day! The ice cream is gone, the Drumsticks are gone, the Fudgsicles are gone, the Blue Bell Chocolate Cherry Bars are gone... This is my July 4, 1776!

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, four times during the week.
Walk 50 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Reducing
Ice cream: I love you, but you done me wrong. Ice cream and frozen dairy treats of any kind are herewith banished from the Jitterbug household.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 morning grooming routine. After drinking a glass of water, brushing your teeth, washing your face, and powdering your nose, you're to dress up your lips with a coat of lipstick.

Put on some bright, pretty lipstick, making the edges neat and blotting away the excess.

The ice cream thing is going to be excruciating, but I'm a bit nervous about the lipstick, too. Can I pull it off without looking like a clown? We'll see...

Week Twenty-four: The Mission

Consult your mirror. Decide what you want to be, then set out to be that very person.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (March 18, 1940)

While I continue fine-tuning the kitchen routine, I'm going to take advantage of the momentum of the last few weeks and make this another vintage beauty mission. I hope you'll all excuse the interlude from housework! I haven't stopped the housework by any means, I'm just trying to balance all of the many things that would have been important to my '40s counterpart in caring for her home and for herself. I've got all kinds of ideas for future missions - everything from cleaning the bathroom to vintage culture - but I also want to take the time to make sure I've got this kitchen thing down pat before I add another roomful of chores to my weekly list. In the meantime, there's plenty in the world of vintage beauty to keep me busy...

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, three times during the week.
Walk 40 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Reducing
I'm cinching the noose a little tighter... No snacking after 7:30 p.m.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. First thing in the morning - as soon as you get out of bed, go into the bathroom, drink a glass of water, brush your teeth, and wash your face - you're to powder your nose. Or rather your face.

Pat on a bit of powder to take away that soap-and-water shine.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it is in the vintage manuals and magazine articles that I enjoy so much. It's not just the content or the illustrations or even the window into the past. That's the icing on the cake. What draws me to these things is pure attitude. There's a spirited optimism in all these how-to type books and articles. Optimism that with the right instruction, the playing field is leveled. You can do anything and create anything you set your mind to! It seems ironic at first considering how dark the era was in terms of world events, but it's right in keeping with the faith Americans were coming to have in scientific progress. Machinery, chemicals, synthetic fabrics, plastic --- there's a science to housework and beauty that makes anything feel possible. And such faith in the team of professionals standing ready to assist women in looking their best. Oculists, dentists, beauticians, hairdressers, a good corsetier.

That optimism and faith in possibilities is like a drug to me now. What a change in tone from all the self-defeating angst of our own times!

An Age-old Debate

One cosmetic issue just as hotly debated during the 1940s as it is today: whether or not to be gentle to your face when washing it. I find myself now - at 35 - being much more gentle with my face than I was in my early 20s. When all the world was my oyster and my skin would be beautiful forever... On the other hand, you do see all those infomercials with gorgeous women in towel turbans praising appliances meant to massage and stimulate your facial muscles. That's supposed to be the key to keeping a youthful skintone, so they say.

I'm not sure what to think, but it is a comfort knowing that my '40s counterpart probably would have been just as confused. Helen Follett, touched on the debate on the women's page of the St. Petersburg [Florida] Times during the early 1940s.

Never Be Afraid of Your Face

November 9, 1940

Don’t be afraid to give your complexion a thorough friction with soap and water. Some women clean their faces with little dabs as if the skin were something sacred, should be treated with the utmost gentleness. Friction tones the tissues, stimulates glandular activity and rouses up the blood streams which give good coloring to the flesh. Muscles and tiny fibers are exercised.

To Improve Defects in Facial Skin

February 28, 1941

Mirrors magnify complexion defects; let that be a consolation to the girl whose complexion is of coarse texture, pores large and falling into little dents. She longs for a fine-grained facial coat, and if she will be persistent she can improve the one that is so disappointing to her. She must avoid the use of hot water when washing her face, have the water just warm enough to form a suds. Friction is a help in skin toning and refining, so when rinsing away the suds she should use the palms of her hands, dashing the cold water first on her chin, working up over her forehead. A first-class face washing can be a pretty fair facial treatment. When drying the face, wrap the towel around the hands and do that same upward slapping.

One Big Glass

So far, so good.

I drank a glass of water first thing this morning. (How big is "big" in 1946 standards? I drank eight ounces.) At noon, I walked for 24 minutes. I was bummed that the route I plotted didn't end up taking a full half-hour, but I'll make it a little longer tomorrow and see if I can solve that problem. While I wait for my mattress, bed covers, and pillows to air, I thought I'd pop online and celebrate a successful first day - of many, I hope!

Many of you asked for more on the grooming routine in the 1946 issue of Good Housekeeping. Here it is in full:

GOOD-MORNING!

Out of bed and into the bathroom -

1. Drink one big glass of water.

2. Brush teeth carefully.

3. Wash face gently but thoroughly with a clean washcloth, a good mild soap, and plenty of warm water. Splash on cold to tone your skin - and open your eyes!

4. Pat on a bit of powder to take away that soap-and-water shine.

5. Put on some bright, pretty lipstick, making the edges neat and blotting away the excess.

6. Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

7. Take a last look, to be sure you are impeccable from top to toe.

GOOD-NIGHT!

Out of your clothes and into the tub -

1. Coat yourself thoroughly with a susdy lather, and don't spare the elbow grease. Rinse well, doing face separately with water from the faucet.

2. Rub yourself dry, so that you tingle all over and chest and back turn a healthy pink.

3. Don't forget the deodorant under your arms.

4. Give your crowning glory a good swishing with the brush, dampen ends and pin up curls.

5. Brush teeth carefully.

6. Down with a nice, long glass of water - and so to bed.

ONCE A WEEK WITHOUT FAIL

1. Shampoo hair, and rinse six or seven times until it squeaks "clean." Perhaps you might need a little vinegar or lemon juice or a special rinse to bring out some "sunlit" luster.

2. Clip toenails.

3. File fingernails, push back cuticle, and apply a polish to go with your lipstick.

4. Defuzz legs and underarms.

5. Pluck scraggly eyebrows.

6. Go over clothes, and mend, clean, and brush as necessary.

The article is designed for high school-aged girls, so the routine is much more basic than a grown woman might have followed --- but it's a good place to start. I think. Some of this sounds a bit scary to me, but I'll just take it one step at a time for now.

There's nothing wrong with a glass of water first thing in the a.m., but I'm curious about the timing. Was it thought to be an aid to the digestive system? Something to perk up the appetite for breakfast? Or was it meant to benefit the skin? Roxanne mentioned in her comment on yesterday's post that our bodies are quite dehydrated when we wake up in the morning. Today in 2009 we know all kinds of benefits that water can have - from making our insides run more smoothly to flushing toxins from our bodies - but I wonder what it was in 1946 that prompted the woman writing this article to recommend drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Is it because people weren't prone to drinking very much water during the day, so she tried to squeeze a little in by making it part of a grooming ritual?

Week Twenty-one: The Mission

The accepted modern silhouette is slender. Try to attain it in whatever way is easiest for you. The slim uncorseted look is especially youthful and graceful.

Lily Haxworth Wallace, The New American Etiquette (1941)

As we all know, there was more to the model 1940s housewife than housework. Women of the era were expected to practice good grooming habits throughout their lives. And even middle-aged and older women were encouraged to wear corsets if necessary to achieve a more youthful figure.

I can remember as a teenager being much less interested in makeup, fashion and hairstyles than my peers. I was a little interested, but nowhere near fascinated enough to spend hours poring over fashion magazines, practicing hairstyles, or hanging out at the mall. I guess I was too busy with music. Fast forward nearly two decades, and I'm still uninterested. But I can't get away with that as nicely as I could when I was young. (That youthful glow can make up for a lot!) When you're in your teens, it's the natural, outdoorsy look. When you're in your thirties, it's just frumpy. Frowsy and frumpy.

Like many women in their thirties, my weight has a biography almost as long as my own. Suffice it to say, it's been an issue since I was 18 and my metabolism finally hit puberty. I've had chubby times, slender times, and long periods when I was able to maintain a great figure through hard work. Between 2003 and 2005, though, I gained 75-80 lbs. and have carried most of that weight around for the last few years. Okay, it's very hard for me to put the final figure down in black and white --- but if I can be even half as successful taking the approach that's working for my housekeeping and applying it to my weight problem, it will be worth it --- *deep breath* - I weigh 196 today. I should say "about" 196, because I only get on a scale when I go to the doctor's office and it's been a month or so. Do I beat myself up about it? A little. But what frightens me more is how accepting I've become about the extra weight.

So the frump needs to go. I'm cleaning house now in every sense of the word and all this extra "clutter" needs to be dispensed with. Easier said than done - as I'm sure many of you know from personal experience. I'm encouraged by the fact that the approach I've taken to becoming a better housekeeper is working. The historical side of it intrigues me enough to get things done even when it seems like torture. Maybe this can help me in losing this weight.

There are no mysteries here. We've known forever that all it takes is to moderate your diet and exercise more. They knew sixty years ago that there weren't any magic answers to this age-old issue: "Try to attain it in whatever way is easiest for you." During my twenties, walking was the key. I walked 40 minutes a day, seven days a week. So I'm going to trust that experience and put it to work again. Walking isn't particularly easy when you live in a sketchy city neighborhood, but I do work in a good location for walking and there's the park on weekends. So here is my three-fold mission for the next week:

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week. I'll probably aim for three times on weekdays (during the lunch hour) and both days on weekends.

Diet
I'm going to knock the empty calorie breakfast menus off the meal plan, i.e. French toast, griddlecakes, and waffles. I don't particularly like them, and they don't do me any favors energy-wise.

Grooming

I came across a grooming routine for teenage girls in the October 1946 issue of Good Housekeeping. Seven steps for the morning, six steps for the evening, and six items to be done "once a week without fail." I'm adopting the first of these this week. First thing in the morning, as soon as you get out of bed and go into the bathroom:

Drink one big glass of water.

Wish me luck... The fitness plan is truly going to be my toughest mission yet!