Library of Blogress: Healthy Living Information

About the easiest method of giving this two-meal-a-day plan a trial, if living with a family where three daily meals are served, is to avoid breakfast altogether, eating your first meal at noon; or, if this is difficult, the first meal can be eaten in the morning, and the other meal in the evening. The best time to eat under these circumstances is the first meal between 10.30 and 11.30, and the second meal between 5.30 and 6.30. Usually the hours here mentioned will be found satisfactory, but the occupation, the hour of rising and retiring would naturally have considerable influence upon the proper time for meals. The first meal should be eaten from four to five hours after rising, and the second meal should follow this five or six hours later. As to which meal should be the heartiest, should advise one to depend altogether on the appetite; though, if the second meal is not eaten several hours before retiring the first meal should be the heartiest, as the digestive powers must be very strong to counteract the evil effects of retiring after a very hearty meal.

Two meals each day will furnish necessary nourishment for any one, no matter what his occupation may be. The idea that the stomach must never be empty, that it must have something to work on or it will digest itself is the product of brains that cannot deduce true conclusions from plain facts. For the past fifteen years I have personally followed the two-meal a day habit. On numerous occasions I have tried, three, four and even five meals a day, but on comparison of my mental and physical condition with that which was usual on the two-meal plan I always went back to two meals. At the time when I was doing the hardest physical work I ever was occupied with during my entire life, I only ate two daily meals, and one of these was usually a light lunch. This was when training for hard championship wrestling matches, and there is really no harder physical work than this. At this particular time, when my muscles had to be able to withstand the enormous efforts required in struggling with well-trained and burly antagonists I had an occasion to learn in a most striking manner, the value of the two-meal-a-day plan. In a wrestling match endurance is of great value. The ability to struggle and strain apparently with all your power and still seem not to tire, is one of the necessary qualities in a successful wrestler.

I was some time in acquiring this, but when I finally concluded that diet was of some importance, and began to experiment, not only with different foods, but also with the quantity necessary to maintain the greatest strength, I secured information of great value. My experiment taught me that the less you eat the better what you do eat is digested. That induced me to try the two-meal-per-day plan, and the almost immediate increase in my endurance so impressed me that the habit of eating only two meals per day has practically been followed by me ever since. On many occasions, after adopting this new diet I met wrestlers who seemed as strong and as scientific as I, but I felt at the time that they were doomed to defeat simply because my diet was superior to theirs, and, as stated in another chapter, never on any occasion after I adopted this plan of diet was I thrown a single fall in a wrestling match at my favorite style. To Be Continued….

If one is doing hard manual work there will be found little or no difficulty in digesting three meals, though two meals would certainly be better; but mental workers, to my mind, make a great mistake if they attempt to force this same habit upon themselves. In fact the belief so universally held that we must eat three meals each day to maintain health is un- questionably one of the principal causes that lead to many serious illnesses. It is this false theory that compels many a poor weakling to eat because it is the usual time, and every morsel adds to the poison and filth that is already lessening his physical forces. Whatever habits of eating you may have adopted keep clearly in mind the necessity for that appetite described in previous chapter, to lead and guide you. If you do this the problem of how many meals to partake of daily will solve itself. You will at once avoid those meals for which you have no appetite and, in consequence, eat more heartily and with more benefit, of those you do enjoy.

There is at least a grain of truth in the old and oft-quoted saying: “What is one man’s meat is another’s poison,” and each individual must study out these problems for himself, and, though experiments that are extreme in character are not advised, still a trial of, first the two-meal plan, and, later the one- meal plan, can do no possible harm, and the experiment will enable you to determine just what is best for your particular needs. But little knowledge can be gained by one or two days’ trial. At least a week should be devoted to each method if you are desirous of securing knowledge of value in determining as to your personal needs. The no-breakfast method often proves its advantage by showing an increase of energy the first or second day of trial. I have nothing to say to those who consider more than three meals per day necessary. It is simply impossible to retain vigorous health for any length of time under such dietetic in temperance, and usually a liberal quantity of alcoholic liquors must be used to spur the digestive organs to their labors, and, though this alcohol may suffice for a time, there results such a waste in vitality, such a drain on energy, that the term of life is unquestionably lessened, and serious ailments are sure to be produced sooner or later, by the habit of continually overloading the stomach.

Though I believe either the two or the one-meal plan would be found superior to three meals each day, one can undoubtedly follow this usual method and still retain vigorous health if he will occasionally fast by missing one or two meals, or a day or two when the appetite fails; and if he will abstain totally from food when illness of any kind threatens. In eating three meals daily there is always far more danger of eating beyond the capacity to digest. One meal is sometimes not digested when the next meal is eaten. The food, under these circumstances, is eaten with less appetite, and all the ills that are brought about by the sin of eating as a duty are invited. If three light meals can be eaten each day, always with appetite, and if they seem to digest without trouble, there is no very serious objection; but the moment any digestive disturbance becomes evident, the one or two meal habit should be immediately adopted.

It would also be well to remember that the three meal habit often tends to actually lessen the virility of the blood. The gastric, and other digestive juices are not sufficiently strong to abstract all the best elements of the food; the blood becomes filled with waste and other foreign matter, and the process of eliminating this, results not only in a waste of energy, but usually, under such circumstances, there exists at least a chronic ” tired feeling,” though often troubles are induced that are far more serious in character. To Be Continued….