Weight loss

“ Weight is an index to health. Any persistent loss of weight on the part of an adult or loss or even failure to gain in a growing child, are indications that all is not right and immediate measures must be taken to locate and relieve the trouble.
Loss of Weight due to pathological conditions can only be relieved by removing the cause, after which the diet may be adjusted to suit the condition. ”

“ When we find what quantity of milk will sustain the weight, we diminish the amount by degrees until the patient is losing a half-pound of weight each day, or less or more, as seems to be well borne. Meanwhile, during the first week or two rest in bed is enjoined, and later for a varying period rest in bed or on a lounge is insisted upon, while at the same time massage is used once or twice a day, and later in the case Swedish movements. At the same time, the pulse and weight are observed with care, so that if there be too rapid loss, or any sign of feebleness, the diet may be increased. ”

“ Loss of flesh has also a collateral value of great import, because it is almost an invariable rule that rapid thinning is accompanied soon or late with more or less anæmia, and it is uncommon to see a person steadily gaining fat after any pathological reduction of weight without a corresponding gain in amount and quality of blood. We too rarely reflect that the blood thins with the decrease of the tissues and enriches as they increase. ”

“ II. The Rôle of Diet in Reducing and Increasing Weight
In addition to the natural and proper inclination to make the best of oneself, there is scientific reason in the stout woman's desire to reduce her weight, and the painfully thin woman's wish to take on a few more pounds of flesh; health itself is at its best when the body maintains its normal proportions, without serious loss or gain. Any considerable variation from the normal standard shows a disturbance in the balance of nutrition ”

“ The loss of weight is one of the striking changes which take place during the puerperium, varying in different women from a total loss of from twelve to fifteen pounds. Fat women lose more than thin women and those who nurse their babies lose more than those who do not. ”

“ When a person eats only enough to supply the energy he uses, his weight stays the same. If he takes in more calories than he needs, the excess is stored as fat. If his food adds up to fewer calories than he needs, his body takes the extra energy out of its storehouse of fat, and a loss in weight occurs. ”

“ These cold applications have also a tonic effect upon the nervous system, and increase the muscular disposition for exercise, and this is the most rational treatment for obesity.
Loss of Weight.—There are many cases in which metabolism has been so sluggish, allowing an accumulation of imperfectly oxidized matters in the body, that the first active stimulation of the nutritive processes is in disproportion to the increased destructive metabolism. Under these circumstances there is necessarily a decrease in weight. ”

“ It has been proved that the body in daily work loses about 1-24th of its weight, and that life ceases when the waste has reduced it to 3-5ths of its original weight. In the nerves, however, the loss is hardly perceptible; while the fat suffers in double the proportion of the muscles, 90 and 45 per cent. ”

“ This time, instead of skirmishing valiantly for a space and then being ignominiously and fatly routed by the powerful forces of food and drink, I hung stolidly to the line of my original attack, harassed the enemy by a constant and deadly fire—and one morning discovered I had the foe on the run.
It always makes me laugh to hear people talk about losing flesh—unless, of course, the decrease in weight is due to illness. No healthy person, predisposed to fat, ever lost any flesh. If that person gets rid of any weight, or girth, or fat, it isn't lost—it is fought off, beaten off. ”

“ Many authors, both ancient and modern, and many physicians also, recommend, in order to reduce obesity, that the patient should eat a less amount by weight than the body loses. By such means a wasting of all the organs of the body would be simultaneously effected; not only fat, but muscle, nerve, tissue, blood—all must suffer. ”

“ Thin persons need more food in proportion to their weights than fat ones. In order to lose weight, the body must be driven to consume its own fat.
To take care of the internal work of the body, breathing, heart-beating, digestion, involuntary pull of the muscles, and for the multiplied activities of the cells, each hour during the twenty-four we must have a certain number of calories as our basal requirement. ”

“ This is going to be your chief business and pursuit in life for the next few months, this reducing of your weight. However, keep up your Red Cross and all other activities, fast and furiously, so that you won't be thinking about yourself.
More Warnings
Don't reduce more than two or three pounds a week; two or less is better. If you are too cannibalistic, your heart, kidneys and nervous system are liable to suffer—you yourself are supplying too much fat in your dietary, and there are other scientific reasons against reducing too rapidly. ”

“ Whether fat people possess greater power of resistance as against the fatal wasting of certain maladies or not, does not seem to be known, and I fancy that the popular medical belief is rather opposed to a belief in the vital endurance of those who are unusually fat.
That I am not pushing too far this idea of the indicative value of gain of weight may be further seen in persons who suffer from some incurable chronic malady, but who are in other respects well. The relief from their disease, even if temporary, is apt to be signalled by abrupt gain in weight. ”

“ Taken in moderation they are easily digested, but if taken in excess they become a burden to the system. About 7 or 8 per cent of the weight of a normal body is fat, and this fat is formed chiefly from the fatty foods taken into the system, supplemented by the sugar and starch.
When the body becomes very fat, it is a disease, called obesity. Fat people are never healthy. The fat usurps the place that should be occupied by normal tissues and organs. It crowds the heart and the lungs, and even replaces the muscle cells in the heart. ”

“ Limiting the Fluids in Obesity.—Thus it is seen that when the intake of fluids is limited, the body will call upon that surplus which is stored in every nerve, tissue, and fluid throughout the entire organism to assist in the necessary work of the organs, thus reducing the body weight just that much.
Exercise.—The athlete who is overweight, due to adipose tissue, increases his exercise at times, even adding to the weight of his clothing, causing an increased energy output, profuse perspiration, etc., all of which causes the body to use its surplus fuel in the form of the stored fat. ”

“ Every additional pound tempts to the formation of lazy or sluggish habits because of the additional weight that has to be carried around. Everyone knows how hard it is to walk a few blocks a little briskly carrying a suit case that weighs thirty pounds. Even twenty pounds soon proves to be a burden. Fat in the tissues, though it seems to be a portion of the individual, is really quite outside of him and consists of extra food material that the body is carrying round, having accumulated it for the purpose, apparently, of using it at some time when it should be necessary. ”

“ Then it is necessary to reduce the food intake until digestion and assimilation catch up with supply. Then if the eating is right the individual goes to the proper weight and retains it.
The slender people are in the safest physical condition. The vast amount of statistics gathered by the life insurance companies bears this out. Remember that fat is a low grade tissue, which sometimes crowds out high grade tissue, that an excess indicates degeneration and that obesity is a disease. All fat people eat too much, even though they consider themselves small eaters. ”

“ When people are more than 10 per cent. over weight they are in the danger zone, and with 20 per cent. above the normal, decrease must come or the condition becomes inveterate. It is between these two points and not when they are forty or fifty pounds over weight that they need the advice of a physician and the careful institution of regular life to prevent further fat accumulation. After the body has carried thirty or forty pounds over weight for some time, it has acquired the habit of accumulating fat, rather than using it, and this, once acquired, is hard to break. ”

“ The greater weight is a burden to carry. The muscular tissues have in part changed to fat, and are therefore less able to do their work. The action of the lungs and the heart is interfered with by the pressure of the fat, and the individual quickly becomes exhausted and short of breath. There is the greater demand, therefore, on the part of those who incline to obesity, to exercise with determined persistency and regularity, in order to reduce their weight. ”

“ The abdomen attains a vast size, and impedes walking; so that a person labouring under obesity carries the head erect, and the body thrown back, as in the case of a pregnant woman, in order to preserve the necessary equilibrium and not fall forward. The intestinal mass, with its surrounding fat, being connected with the kidneys, by its weight gives rise to a dragging sensation, and causes pain on walking. It also pushes up the diaphragm, compresses the lungs and the heart, and becomes one of the causes of the sense of oppression complained of by fat people. ”

“ Excess of fat is a burden. It replaces other tissues and weakens the muscles. It overcrowds the abdominal and thoracic cavities, thus making the breath short and the working of the heart more difficult, also producing a tendency to prolapsus of the various abdominal organs.
People make the mistake of thinking that stoutness indicates health. It indicates disease. Going into weight is going into degeneration. Women like to be plump for various reasons, some of which are not the most creditable to either men or women. Fat people are not good looking. ”

“ Even in health the weight of men, and still more of women, is by no means constant, but, as a rule, when we are holding our own with that share of stored-up fat which belongs to the individual we are usually in a condition of nutritive prosperity, and when after any strain or trial which has lessened weight we are slowly repairing mischief and laying by fat we are equally in a state of health. ”

“ With us the over-fat are chiefly to be found among the women of the well-to-do classes of the cities, and from thirty years old onward. They persecute the medical men to reduce their weight, and the vast number of advertisements of quack and proprietary remedies against obesity indicate how wide-spread the tendency must be. ”

“ Even thin people have it in some quantity always ready, and, despite the fluctuations, every one has a standard share, which varies at different times of life. The mechanism which limits the storing away of an excess is almost unknown, and we are only aware that some foods and lack of exertion favor growth in fat, while action and lessened diet diminish it; but also we know that while any one can be made to lose weight, there are some persons who cannot be made to gain a pound by any possible device, so that in this, as in other things, to spend is easier than to get ”

“ Even then, the overweight patient who is under a physician’s treatment for glandular disorders is able to lose weight when his food intake is regulated.
What many people do not realize, however, is that the body’s energy requirements usually change after age 30 or 40. As a person gets older, metabolism slows down, and fewer calories are needed to maintain weight. The trouble is that eating habits usually stay exactly the same, while physical activity often decreases. ”

“ Sir,—Having read your book on the treatment of obesity, I wish to ask if you will undertake my case, although living at a distance of three hundred miles from Paris. I am fifty years of age, and possessed of a vigorous constitution. Since I have retired from business, now ten years ago, I have steadily increased in corpulence; my present weight being one hundred and eighty-nine pounds. I am troubled with an affection of the heart, shortness of breath, and my legs swell, especially when not taking much exercise on foot. I am not fond of walking, since it induces great fatigue. ”

“ IV. It must be admitted that, under ordinary and normal conditions of diet and muscular exercise, the weight of the body being uniform, the ingress and egress of matter necessarily balance each other. If this balance be disturbed by diminishing the supply of food below the requirements of the system for its nutrition and for muscular work, the body necessarily loses weight, a certain portion of its constituent parts being consumed and not repaired. ”

“ Any weight above two and one-half pounds to the inch in stature may be considered as excessive, inasmuch as it adds nothing to one’s mental or physical efficiency, and is frequently the forerunner of obesity, the remedy for which is to live on a selected diet and to burn up more through exercise. ”

“ The loss of fat which is not due to change of diet or to exercise, especially its rapid or steady loss, nearly always goes along with conditions which impoverish the blood, and, on the other hand, the gain of fat up to a certain point seems to go hand in hand with a rise in all other essentials of health, and notably with an improvement in the color and amount of the red corpuscles. ”