Topic : Diet, Dieting

Spring is here, and many of us are fighting to shed those five pounds we picked up over the winter. Fortunately, there is a sensible way to avoid those excess calories that wreak havoc on the battle of the bulge. Simply follow these rules, which have been passed down by calorie counters through the generations:

• Anything eaten in small increments has no calories. If someone in your office brings in a box of cookies and you only nibble each time you pass by, you do not have to count those calories.
• Anything eaten standing up or off someone else’s plate does not count.
• Gulps count, sips don’t.
• Whatever you purchase from a street vendor has fewer calories than the same item consumed at home.
• The calories in hard candy or gum are too minuscule to bother with. Eat as much as you want.
• Whatever you eat that was prepared by your child (no matter how old the child) does not have calories.
• Neatness cancels calories. If you take an extra bit of cake to even off the slice, those calories do not exist. Ditto for evening off a pint of ice cream.
• Anything you cook yourself has reduced calories because of the huge amount of energy you expended preparing it. - Judith H. Dobrzynski in New York Times

Reader’s Digest, April, 1997, p. 146

A calorie guide citing a recent medical association report: “Proper weight control and physical fitness cannot be attained by dieting alone. Many people who are engaged in sedentary occupations do not realize that calories can be burned by the hundreds by engaging in strenuous activities that do not require physical exercise.”

Here’s the guide to calorie-burning activities and the number of calories per hour they consume.

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• Breakfast—1/2 grapefruit, 1 slice whole-wheat bread, 8 ounces skim milk.
• Lunch—4 ounces broiled chicken breast, 1 cup steamed zucchini, 1 Oreo cookie, 1 cup herb tea.
• Mid afternoon Snack—Rest of the package or Oreo cookies, 1 quart Rocky Road ice cream, 1 jar hot fudge sauce.
• Dinner—2 loaves garlic bread, large pepperoni and mushroom pizza, 3 candy bars, entire frozen cheesecake eaten directly from the freezer.

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• If no one sees you eat it, it has no calories
• If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, they will cancel each other out.
• Calories don’t count if you eat with someone and you both eat the same amount.
• Food taken for medicinal purposes does not count. This includes toast, hot chocolate, and Sara Lee chocolate cake.
• If you fatten up everyone around you, you’ll look thinner.
• Snacks consumed at a movie do not count as they are part of the entertainment. For example: Mild Duds, popcorn with butter, red licorice and M&Ms.
• Pieces of cookies contain no calories. The process of breaking causes a calorie leakage.
• Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.
• Never eat more than you can lift. Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life

There’s one thing to be said for a diet—it certainly does improve your appetite.

E. Wilson

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• Ever notice how people on a diet are never reduced to silence? G. S. Galbraith
• The problem with bucket seats is that everyone doesn’t have the same size bucket. - O. Smith

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In his book, The Americanization of Edward Bok, Edward Bok, one-time editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, tells a story about his grandfather, who lived in Denmark. It seems the grandfather had been commissioned by the King of Denmark to lead a band of soldiers against pirates who were playing havoc with shipping along a certain coastal area. The elder Bok set up his headquarters on a lonely, rocky, desolate island just off the coast, and after a few years was able to clear the pirates out of the area.

Upon returning to the mainland Bok reported to the King. The King was very pleased and offered Bok anything he wanted. All he wanted, he told the King, was a plot of land on the island where he had just lived and fought for so many months. They told him the island was barren. Why would he want to live there? “I want to plant trees,” was Bok’s reply. “I want to make the island beautiful.” The King’s aides thought he was crazy. The island was constantly swept by storms and high winds. He would never be able to get a tree to grow there.

Bok, however, insisted, and the King granted him his wish. He went to live on the island, built a home, and finally was able to bring his wife to it. For years, they worked industriously, persistently, planting trees, shrubs, grass. Gradually the vegetation took hold, the island began to flourish. One morning they arose to hear birds singing. There had never been any birds on the island before.

Eventually the island became a showplace and now is visited by thousands of tourists each year. When he died the grandfather requested that the following words be inscribed on his tombstone: “Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have been on it.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Edward Bok, the grandson, who had become an American citizen, believed that anyone who was able to do so should retire at 50 and spend the rest of his life making the world a more beautiful and better place to live. And he was as good as his word. At 50 he retired as editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal.

One day, while traveling around central Florida, he came upon Iron Mountain, elevation 324 ft. above sea level, the highest point in Florida. Immediately the thought hit him—why not repeat in America what his grandfather had done in the old country? He bought the site and set to work. Eventually he was more than successful. The place is called Mountain Lake Sanctuary, Lake Wales, Florida. Upon his death, Edward Bok willed it to the State of Florida, and it is now a major tourist attraction. Upon the younger Bok’s catafalque were the words: “Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better place because you have been in it.”

Bits & Pieces, March 31, 1994, pp. 17-20