ented with, but the remedy was as plain as the cause. It was
simple enough if I had the nerve to go through with it.

Inasmuch as an excess of food and drink make an excess of fat, it follows
that the reduction in the amount of food will stop that fat-forming and
give the body a chance to burn up the excess fat already formed. That
was my conclusion. Mind you, I reached that conclusion before I made any
of my arguments; but I didn't want to admit it as reasonable or logical,
for I hated to give up the pleasures of the table and the sociability
that came with the sort of drinking I did. I was trying to find a way
out that would be easy and comfortable. And all the time I was getting
fatter! The scales told me that.

This backing and filling and argument with myself lasted all through
January and part of February. It took me six weeks to get myself into
the frame of mind where I admitted the truth of my conclusion. I was no
hero. I didn't want to do it. I loved it all too well. I was as rank a
coward in the beginning as you ever saw! It appalled me to think of
restricting myself in any way, for I liked the pleasures that I knew I
must forego. However, when I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds I
sat down and had it out with myself.

"Here!" I said to myself. "You big stuff, you now weigh two hundred and
fifty pounds! In another year or two you will weigh two hundred and
seventy-five pounds! You are uncomfortable and heavy on your feet, and
you are gouty and wheezy; and it's a cinch you'll die in a few years if
you keep on this way. You know all this fat is caused by an excess of
food and drink, and you know it can be taken off by a reduction in those
fatmakers. Are you going to stick round here so fat you are a joke,
uncomfortable, miserable when it's hot, in your own way and in the way of
everybody else, when, if you've got the will-power of a chickadee, you
can get back to reasonable proportions and comfort merely by denying
yourself things you do not need?"

All the old arguments obtruded. See what I should lose! Life would be a
dull and dreary affair--a dun, dismal proposition. I admitted that. On
the other hand, however, life would not be a wheezy, sweaty,
choked-heart, uncomfortable proposition. I finally decided I would go to
it. And I did.

My method may be utterly unscientific. I suppose it hasn't a scientific
leg to stand on. Still, it did the business. And I maintain that
resu