[raw-foods]Safe Slimming --- Herbert M. Shelton

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The torturous, damaging and sometimes fatal measures to which fat people

often resort in an effort to by-pass self-control would be comical were the

results not so disastrous. Preceding the effort to reorganize the human body

by surgery to reduce weight was the effort to reduce fat individuals by

slicing off the fat. This method of reducing, besides being unsatisfactory

and fraught with considerable danger, is expensive and leaves a. horrible

aftermath of scars and sagging skin. It is, however, a dramatic example of

the extremes to which men and women will go to avoid doing that which they

know they should.

 

Before it was dreamed that fat could be reduced surgically, drugs of various

kinds were employed for this purpose. The drugs were successful only because

they crippled the functions of life. The results of drug taking for reducing

weight have been nearly as disastrous as those of surgery, but this has not

caused fat individuals to cease taking drugs to reduce weight.

 

One may buy reducing pills, manufactured by reputable drug firms, and which

are available only on physicians' prescriptions. They are said to be only of

limited value.They act, so we are informed, on the central nervous system to

reduce appetite, although no one knows how they act.At any rate, they are

said to act with some people some of the time. A British writer says that a

fat person may have his appetite blunted by amphetamine pills. He adds, " no

one is sure how they work; but they do, after a fashion, if coupled with

perseverance. "

 

Drugs to control or suppress appetite (anorexigenic drugs) are sometimes

prescribed by physicians, but their assumed value is short lived and their

side effects include irritation of the nervous system and, with some of them,

drug addiction. Losing a little weight and gaining a drug addiction in

exchange seems to me to be a poor bargain. Blunting the appetite of the fat

individual with amphetamine pills is certainly substituting one evil for

another.

 

A physician of Guy's Hospital of London says that, " the treatment of obesity

is a stem and solemn procedure. It involves a life-sentence of

semi-starvation. " This is a gloomy picture of failure, a failure not only of

the reducing programs so much in vogue, but of nutritional science as it is

today understood. Even medical use of the fast for purposes of reducing was

so badly bungled that, in spite of the initial enthusiasm which they

manifested for the procedure, they are generally agreed today that it is too

hazardous to use outside of a hospital and under the watchful eyes of a corps

of experts in metabolism. They not only did everything wrong, but they made a

nightmare of the whole process.

 

A British writer says that the fat man may, " lie in a hospital bed and be

starved on black coffee and diabetic orangeade, while his blood (is)

scrutinized daily for signs of chemical mishap. " The frequent repetition of

blood tests, urine tests, metabolism tests, weighing, heart examinations and

other tests, produce so much fear, worry and anxiety in the fasters that this

alone would account for many of the metabolic hazards that resulted.

 

In addition to the emotional factors involved there was the drugging of the

fasters with the popular addictions. It is all right to say that one may be

in a hospital bed and be " starved " on black coffee, but it is not a mark of

intelligence to ignore the effects of the coffee drinking. In these medical

experiments the fasters were encouraged to drink freely of artificially

sweetened tea, coffee, and acaloric soft drinks. In at least one instance

that came to my attention, beer was permitted. The fasters were also

permitted to smoke freely. If any symptoms developed the physicians were

handy with their drugs. To cap the climax, people who were taking no food

were required to partake freely of vitamin pills.

 

The Lancet (London), November 5, 1966, carried an article detailing accounts

of fasting experiments conducted in British medical hospitals, in which

fasting was used in reducing weight. Thirteen obese patients fasted for

periods ranging from 25 to 249 days. The fasters were given unlimited amounts

of acoloric fluids and vitamin pills. They are reported to have tolerated the

fast very well, while undergoing many tests of their functions.One faster

lost 97 pounds. in 236 days. From this loss the reader will learn that the

rapid rates of loss experienced at the beginning of the fast do not continue

throughout the length of the fast.

 

The physicians writing in The Lancet of their experiences with fasting in

obesity say: " The treatment of obesity by total fasting is the logical

extension of the sub-caloric diet.We are convinced that it is the treatment

of choice, certainly in cases of gross obesity. It is well tolerated by

almost all patients . . .The results are uniformly successful and frequently

dramatic.

 

The following significant statement is quoted from The Lancet article: " At

the end of the 249-day fast, the weight had fallen by 74 pounds. She felt

improved symptomatically, in that her effort tolerance had increased and she

was no longer troubled in her arthritic knee. " Had the fast been properly

followed up the physician could not possibly have missed the lasting benefits

of fasting in arthritis. Except for the fact that in these fasting

experiments the physicians used only selected, that is " healthy' subjects,

they would have seen many improvements in the health of the experimental

subject.

 

The article carried in The Lancet describes experiments carried out at

Glasgow University by Michael Harrison, M.D., and Ronald Harden, M.D. These

men started with 62 fat subjects (all but four were women) who ranged in ages

from 14 to 73. These people spent ten days on a diet of water in the

hospital, after their own efforts at reducing had proved unsuccessful. Only

six failed to carry through the fast. They lost an average of 16 pounds in

the ten days, one fatty losing 30 pounds in this time. The experiments in

Glasgow were started six years previously and since that time some 200

volunteers have undergone fasts at the university hospital.

 

From the Hygienic point of view this loss of weight is largely one of

excretion of poisonous accumulations; is one of purification and results in

improvement. Ladies are delighted to find that they can lose flesh without

the loss of complexion and that there is no wrinkling. This absence of

wrinkling and sagging is especially true in the young, although there is

often some temporary wrinkling and sagging in older people. It is a simple

matter to lose weight by fasting. For more than forty years I have stressed

the fact that fasting is the fastest, simplest, safest, and most satisfactory

way of reducing weight. Trouble may arise in preventing a gain in weight

subsequent to breaking the fast.A return to the old eating pattern will

assure a return of fat. It is not an uncommon thing to have a fat person

declare, while in the process of reducing, that: " as soon as I get home, I am

going to have a big meal of steak and potatoes. "

 

A year after the foregoing experiment 40 percent of them bad not regained

the lost weight. Of 12 who were followed up for a period of three years, four

maintained their weight loss. Harden says in relation to fasting in reducing

weight: " Fasting seems to cause a metabolic reaction in the body. Our

patients had no desire for food provided they stuck to the fast. But one lump

of sugar would bring the appetite surging back and make them miserable. " This

statement that fasting causes a metabolic change can be accepted qualifiedly.

No radical change in metabolism is produced by fasting so that the one who

has. had a fast is no longer able to gain weight if be returns to his

previous eating habits. There is simply no means of reducing weight

permanently. Weight may be lost in one of two or three ways, but it will be

regained if the old eating pattern is returned to.

 

Years ago I discovered that the smallest particle of food taken by a faster

would cause a return of hunger and make it difficult to continue the fast.

Due to the foul taste in the mouth through much of the fast, fasters would

demand a few drops of lemon juice in their water or they would demand to be

allowed to cleanse their tongue and teeth with lemon juice. It did not take

long for me to find that to acceed to this demand would invariably result in

the return of the desire for food. If the faster desires to continue to

abstain from food he will find it less difficult to do so if he does not take

a particle of food into his mouth. It often happens when a fast is thus

interrupted that it is difficult to resume fasting. This is the same

phenomena on a different scale as that of sticking to a reducing diet.Even a

little food keeps alive the demand for food.