this sort of thing--no matter what he says about it; and without
enjoyment exercise is of no use or worse than useless. It can be done,
of course; and lumps of muscle can be stuck on almost any part of the
body--but what's the use to the person who has to make a living? Then,
too, I am speaking now of methods that can be used by men and women who
are no longer young. A young man can and will do stunts in physical
culture that an older man cannot do, either satisfactorily or
comfortably.

So far as the medicinal or drug method of fat reduction is concerned,
any fat man or woman who takes drugs to reduce flesh, or to help,
deserves all that he or she will get--and that will be plenty. There's
no need of saying anything further on that subject. Then there remains
the dietary method--the old familiar friend, diet. Starting with
William Banting--maybe it didn't start with William, but before
him--but, starting with Bill for present purposes, there have been more
systems of diet invented and promulgated than there have been systems
of religion--and that means about one in every hundred has evolved a
system.

You can get them of all sorts and all sure to do the work, ranging from
an exclusive diet of beefsteak and spinach to desiccated hay and
creamed alfalfa. There are monodiets, duodiets, vegetable diets,
fruit diets, nut diets--all kinds of diets--each guaranteed to take off
flesh if you have too much or to put it on if you have too little.
Basically, however, the antiflesh diets are about the same. You are
told to cut out everything you want to eat and exist on triply toasted
bread and the white meat of a chicken, or string beans and sawdust, or
any other combination the sharps say will not produce fat, but will
sustain life in a lingering form. They surround these diet talks and