YOU AND BEAUTY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 103, 13 June 1941, Page 42

YOU AND BEAUTY

STREAMLINE YOUR FIGURE HERE is a great deal of truth in the old wisecrack that the best reducing exercise is turning the head from side to side rapidly when offered food. This is perhaps an even more difficult exercise than usual with colder weather coming on, when the body seems to demand larger and more frequent meals. On the other hand the bulkier garments we wear in winter add to our circumference, and it is now that steps should be taken to preserve last summer’s sylph-like silhouette. Reducing depends upon two things, your diet and the amount of exercise you get, The two are of equal importance in your search for the perfect figure. As you probably know, all foods are made up of varying quantities of proteins, starches, fats and water. Starches and fats provide heat and energy, whereas proteins act as body builders and tissue repairers. When the energy provided by the starches and fats in our diet is in excess of our needs, then the surplus is kept in cold storage (cf, Mr. Nash) in the body in the form of fat. The remedy is, of course, to use up the surplus by leading a more active life or to regulate the daily intake according to our own requirements, If the intake of

energy-providing foods is less than the. quota demanded by the body, then some of the accumulated fat is naturally used up. But it is important to provide the body with an adequate diet. In summer salads and fruit can be used to great advantage, but in winter a somewhat more substantial diet is necessary. We therefore place a great deal of our reliance on the protein foods, meat, fish, eggs and milk. Do not avoid milk on the ground that it is fattening, but remember that it should be regarded as a food rather than as a drink, Restrict yourself as far as possible to three meals a day. It is afternoon teas and suppers which do most to convert those curves to bulges. Avoid cakes, pastries, sweet biscuits and fried foods of

all kinds. And above all, be consistent. It is useless having just a cup of tea at lunch if you make up for it by eating twice as much at dinner. Those of you who saw Madeleine Carroll in My Son, My Son, may have commented upon the matronliness of her once perfect figure. But in her more recent Safari, it was as perfect as ever. Miss Carroll lost the excess pounds (she doesn’t confess how many) in eight weeks, by the following method: : One day a week she takes nothing but fruit juices. On the other days her diet is as follows: Breakfast: A baked apple or stewed fruit, without sugar or cream. One or two slices of rye toast and coffee. Lunch: A fruit or vegetable salad. Tea or a glass of milk. Dinner: Grilled steak or two grilled lamb chops, or a roast of lamb or beef with plain vegetables. Once or twice a week a baked potato, Dessert is always fruit. This diet may seem a trifle unsubstantial to those of us who are launching ourselves on a diet for the first time, but by the exercise of a little will power it becomes easy to adhere to it. Now that apples are with us in such quantities, full advantage can be taken of them in a diet such as Miss Carroll’s. An apple goes quite well with a cup of tea at morning and afternoon tea time, and if after eating your two lamb chops, vegetables, and dessert at dinner-time there is still that empty space which you know will cause you embarrassment later on by rumbling in the middle of-a dramatic film sequence, you can always eat an extra apple. (Next Week: More on This Subject)