The Weight of all Flesh

With it being the new year, tons of people follow the trend of getting on a diet and starting a gym membership..."new year, new me!" Of course within a couple of months they have gained 10 pounds extra and have nestled themselves back into their worn out divot in the couch.  After all, it's not January anymore and that was the trendy time to boast about getting into shape.

I find myself refocusing my intentions on weight loss in January, not for a "new me", but because I have eaten so many yummy, carb loaded goodies over the holidays and January happens to be the end to all the fun.

To give the dieting folks out there something enjoyable to look at and not eat, I thought I would
share a few images from a neat little diet book from 1953 that we picked up at the library book sale last year.  

There aren't too many illustrations but this one is pretty great!  No mention about who the artist is.

The book has the typical info on weight loss:  calorie reduction and portion control.  It also has several menus to follow that I always think are setting people up to fail.  No one wants just a half of grapefruit for breakfast or liver for lunch.  The food choices they offer are the kind of things that are used as cruel and unusual punishment....beets, onion slices, melba toast, and 1 butter cookie!

I did find one gem of real truth in the "exercise" section of the book:
""Exercising for weight reduction is a pretty futile task.  It takes a tremendous amount of sustained exercise to lose weight that will stay off.  Several miles of running are required to take off the weight put on by the whipped cream on your dessert.  The only way to loss weight and keep it off is by reducing the calorie intake. 
Exercising to keep fit, improve posture, and tighten up flabby muscles is certainly beneficial.  While you will not lose pounds through this means, you may find that toned up muscles and improved posture will make you appear slimmer and make your clothes fit better."

This is all so true.  I lost 15 pounds last year and it was all by food choices.  I absolutely hate exercising just to exercise.  I don't mind going for a walk to enjoy the fresh air or when cleaning the house being more boisterous with it but I'm not getting on a boring ass treadmill. 

The book does give a few examples of exercises to do daily.  Nothing too strenuous, mostly stretches.  But the most beneficial exercises are shown below:

Well I'm off to munch on some carrot sticks, which I will pretend are bland Kit Kats!