Choose from any of the salads, but pay particular attention to the leafy green ones, the vegetable concoctions, and the fruit fantasies. These will be the best for you, because you can push the dressing to ^onc side. Salad dressings, both French and mayonnaise, are taboo for dieters because they are rich and oily. Salads such as chicken, avocado, and tuna fish are not recommended because they contain food oils as well as dressing oils. One of the best choices you can make is hard-boiled egg garnished with water cress—it is chock full of protein that will help to burn up your excess fat.

After your salad has been selected you may add a slice of bread, rye or whole-wheat, and a glass of milk-white, not chocolate. Then for dessert, sublimate your yearnings for that sumptuous affair of gooey sauce and ice cream and choose from the fruits—either a stewed fruit or a fresh one. You can vary your selections from day to day, but stick within the suggestions I have outlined for you.

Time for dinner, and all of you, whether you be the lunch toters or the lunch buyers, are beset by the same problem.

At breakfast and luncheon you are pretty much on your own; you can easily skip the calories because your choice is varied and what you eat does not conflict with anyone around you. At dinner you are in a different position. Dinner is a family meal. And it is a meal at which the family expects to eat well. Your father looks forward to pie, your mother makes pie.

You cannot expect the rest of the family to give up their pie because you are on a diet. You cannot quarrel with your mother because you refuse to come to the table, afraid that you will succumb to eating that pie if it is offered to you.

What you must do is to come to dinner prepared to say nicely, "No thank you." "No, thank you, no pie. No, thank you, no seconds." In the beginning, you serve yourself and you use no gravy or butter. You indulge yourself with large servings of the green vegetables and you look the other way when the bread is passed. In other words, you eat the meat, the vegetables, the salad. You also may eat the dessert, but only if it is fruit, Jello without whipped cream, or custard. All through the dinner you keep a careful check on your calories, but you do so without calling attention to the fact. Above all, you join in the family circle, and under no circumstances do you behave like a martyr.

Below I have listed some good non-fattening dinner menus. They will all look familiar because they are just like any normal family dinner with the extras removed.

Dinner on a Diet

i

1 glass of tomato juice

large patty lean ground beef, broiled, no gravy large serving of spinach

tomato, lettuce, and hard-cooked egg salad, with

vinegar stewed apricots 1 glass of milk

coffee or tea, if desired or allowed.

2

i cup clear soup

large patty of ground beef

Vi cup boiled cabbage

asparagus salad with sliced tomatoes

small sherbet

i glass of milk

3

1 cup vegetable soup

veal cutlet, broiled, with the fat removed

V2 cup boiled rice, with tablespoon gravy

tomato and cucumber salad, vinegar or lemon juice

1 glass of milk

4

1 glass of tomato juice

generous serving of lean roast beef

small baked potato, Vi teaspoon butter or table

spoon pan gravy large serving of green leafy vegetable, any kind 3 stalks of celery stuffed with cottage cheese baked custard 1 glass of milk

1 cup vegetable soup

generous serving of lean broiled fish, with lemon Vi cup stewed tomatoes 3 stalks of celery an apple, pear or any fresh fruit 1 glass of milk

6

1 glass of tomato juice

generous serving of broiled calf s liver

serving of cooked carrots

tomato and lettuce salad with lemon juice

fruit Jello

1 glass of milk

7

i cup clear consomme

generous serving of lean roast lamb, beef or veal small serving of mashed potato, with tablespoon pan

gravy l cup string beans

tomato and lettuce salad, with vinegar dressing small serving of fruit sherbet l glass of milk

If you stick to the three meals a day that have been outlined for you in this chapter, youll lose weight. Do not be discouraged if nothing happens immediately. A diet that progresses slowly progresses more surely. Trick diets in which you lose weight quickly often turn out to be ones in which all the weight comes right back the minute you stop dieting. Starvation diets such as the all-liquid ones or others popular from time to time can be injurious to the health and should be avoided.

These sample menus give you the proper nutrition and a balanced diet. They will provide you with the correct amount of energy. Still, many of you will feel hungry between meals. What to eat then becomes a problem. It is a great temptation to smuggle a sandwich or a cookie, but try not to do it. Instead nibble on a carrot, finish a leftover custard or munch on an apple. Drink milk or tomato juice if you are thirsty. As for taunts from your friends—and they will taunt you— keep your chin up and your weight down.

Now for you thin gals who have been patiently waiting while your chubbier friends have been guided over the bumps. Your problem is just as acute. Your bones jut out every which way every time you put on a formal, and you feel foolish in a bathing suit. You try to gain weight, but you don't seem to succeed. Perhaps you are going about it the wrong way. Be systematic. Make certain to butter your toast liberally, step up your servings at mealtime—try for double portions— and help yourself to lots of dressing and gravy. Take time to eat. Don't rush through your meals and don't skip a course.

Get acquainted with calories. Chances are you have been steering away from them. If you don't know what foods are fattening, ask your chubby friends, because they will know. The strange irony of the whole figure problem is that so often it is the thin girls who don't drink the double malted milks, while the chubbies just dote on them. Well, it's time to switch places—swing your partner and dos-a-dos.

One warning to girls trying to gain weight is this: Do not go overboard on chocolate and very heavy pastries. Though you may gain weight on this type of eating, you will also wreck your complexion. Build up your calorie quota on foods like potatoes, butter, milk products, and sugars. Be sure to nibble between meals, and not on carrot sticks like your unhappier sisters, but on peanut-butter-and-jelly concoctions. And, most important of all, if you are really underweight, see your doctor. He will be able to prescribe for your best advantage.

Now that the fat girls are thin and the thin ones fat, a word of advice about striking the happy medium. The happy medium is that weight which best fits your height and your bone structure. It differs for everyone. You and your doctor will be the best judges of that weight, because youH achieve it when you feel your best and when your mirror tells you that you look your best. Your best weight will be the one at which you can be peppy all day, ready to go anywhere and do anything. If you feel listless and all tired out, chances are that you are not in a healthy condition. To look your best youve got to feel your best, and to do that you must be healthy.