The following table may be accepted as fairly accurate, and shows what the respective natural weights of persons ought to be. I do not lay down a hard and fast rule, that in no case ought it to be exceeded. On the contrary, my theory, based on personal experience, convinces me that every person has his own peculiar weight and dimensions as intended by Nature, and when he has found his “bearings”—which he will have no difficulty in doing, as I shall explain hereafter, by unmistakable symptoms—any further reduction is attended with difficulty, and is, indeed, unnecessary. Taken, however, as something to work upon, the following scale, obtained from a leading insurance company, may be studied with advantage; and when the corpulent reader has arrived within half a stone of the specified weight—a generous concession surely—he may then, but not till then, begin to take occasional liberties, both as regards quantity and quality. I am offering these remarks to those only who conscientiously intend to give my theory a fair trial. To those lukewarm disciples who would like to be thin, without possessing the self-denial necessary for this most simple remedy, I cannot do better than apply the views I once heard expressed by a piper to a cockney officer in a Highland regiment who asked him to play the “Mabel” valse—that “it would only be making a fool of the tune and a fool of the pipes.”
Average weight for a High person Stones Pounds Feet Inches 8 2 or 3 5 0 8 8 – 9 5 1 9 1 – 2 5 2 9 8 – 9 5 3 9 11 – 12 5 4 10 3 – 4 5 5 10 6 – 7 5 6 10 9 – 10 5 7 11 2 – 3 5 8 11 9 – 10 5 9 12 4 – 5 5 10 12 10 – 12 5 11 13 0 6 0
When the reader has attained to within half a stone of these figures, he will have the game in his own hands, and can regulate his system with as much accuracy as a clock. On November 25th, 1881, I weighed the enormous weight of 19 stone 13 lbs. On October 1st, 1882, I weighed 12 stone 4 lbs., and with a loss of 18 inches in girth—_i.e._, a reduction of 7 stone 9 lbs.; and as this can be verified, my opinion is at least worthy of attention. I consider it absolutely necessary that one should at first limit one’s self to 2 pounds solid and 3 pints fluid daily; and I cannot do better than give the dietary I have pursued for the past five or six months in the south of France:—