Hobbies provide relaxation and help to maintain the zest for living that doctors have come to realize is immensely important to your health and general well-being.

Ideally, each of us should have an indoor and an outdoor hobby that gives us genuine, long-range satisfaction. Some energetic people change their hobbies every year or two. I prefer to be more casual, letting the hobby grow with time. I enjoy photography, which lends itself to both indoors and outdoors; piano playing, fishing, and swimming have also served well for me.

Hobbies need not be expensive. Some of them, like gardening and refinishing old furniture, or sewing and embroidering, can more than pay for themselves.

A hobby should be something you want to do. It should give you both satisfaction and relaxation. Your hobby should be worth doing. If it is a mere time filler with no built-in value, you will soon become bored. Being worthwhile, it will sooner or later be productive, not only in terms of inner satisfaction, but possibly even financially. Many women who started sewing or embroidering for fun and many men who turned to cabinet-making for relaxation later found their skills and services in demand at a profit. Finally, do not wait to begin until you are retired. How you develop your interests and activities as a young person, then in middle age, will largely determine how enjoyably you will spend your later years.

Adult education is becoming more and more popular. The motives range from completing degree requirements, to acquiring new knowledge or skill for its own sake, to developing a hobby.

Your local education department may offer adult courses at night.

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Constipation can be organic—that is, due to actual physical change in some organ. It can be caused by a tumour or cancer that is obstructing the intestines, a stricture that narrows them, or some disorder such as a hypothyroid condition. It is important to consult a doctor if you have constipation, especially if it has come on fairly suddenly.

Movements that are too hard to pass easily require straining and can bring about rectal troubles such as haemorrhoids and fissures, or they can aggravate hernias or the tendency to a hernia. Constipation can cause a number of uncomfortable symptoms that include nausea, heartburn, headache, and distress in the rectum or intestines, continuing until the stool is passed.

Sometimes, the bowel movements are not difficult to pass and cause no unpleasant symptoms, but simply do not occur as often as the individual thinks they should. The average person has a movement every day, usually right after breakfast. But countless people are perfectly normal even though they have more than one movement a day, or a movement every other day—or every third, fourth, fifth, or even eighth day! Self-induced constipation is caused by one or more of the following, which I discuss in detail under the heading ‘How to prevent or cure functional constipation’ below:

Improper diet: eating the wrong things or eating too little.

The use (that is, abuse) of laxatives, cathartics, and so on.

Irregularity in habits of elimination.

Functional constipation can also be caused by sluggishness. After food has been digested in the stomach and intestines, the residue is passed along in the form of watery material. The water is absorbed in the colon; that is why the faeces become hard and difficult to pass if they remain there too long before being eliminated. The stools are pushed along by a series of wavelike, peristaltic movements. These waves are irregular; usually they are strongest in the morning, which is why it is easiest to have a bowel movement before or just after breakfast. In some people, peristalsis is weak. This is apt to happen with increased age; elderly people may have to use some method to help elimination.

How to prevent or cure functional constipation

If you actually have constipation, there are certain things you can safely do to cure it. These same methods will also prevent you from becoming constipated:

Cultivate regular habits of elimination. Choose a regular time shortly before or after breakfast every morning for going to the toilet, and attempt to defecate, whether or not you have the urge. Allow ten minutes. Relax and be comfortable. If you go before breakfast, it will help to drink a glass or two of fluid upon getting out of bed; it can be warm or cool water, fruit juice, tea, or coffee. Teaching your bowels to move regularly can be done with patience, and once acquired, the habit persists.

Diet. The residue of the foods you eat is easier to eliminate if it contains some roughage in the form of fibres; lubricants in the form of fats or oils; and fluid. These should be included in the diet of healthy people. I stress this word because people suffering from certain diseases will not be able to tolerate roughage, for example. In Chapter 2 are tables giving normal food requirements. To cure or prevent constipation, make sure that your diet also includes—

For breakfast: One half to one glassful of juice—tomato, grapefruit,

prune, or orange. Also, one item from each of the following:

Mixed dried fruits: prunes, apricots, or stewed figs

Cooked, whole-grain cereals with milk: barley, brown rice, oats,

or wheat Butter or margarine Whole-grain bread Beverage

For lunch, dinner, or supper, some of the following: Green leafy vegetables—lettuce, spinach, cress, endive Baked potatoes (eat skins) Butter or margarine; salad oils

Dried or stewed fruits, especially for dessert at the evening meal

Drink two glasses of fluid between meals, and at least eight glasses during the day. Take an extra amount of water in summer, because part of it is lost in perspiration.

Exercise. Strong abdominal muscles are helpful in aiding the bowels to eliminate wind and stools. If you do not have a firm, well-toned abdominal wall, be sure to start the exercises described in Chapter 1. If your job requires much sitting, you should indulge in regular sports or other forms of exercise.

Live sensibly. Try to avoid the strains and stresses of modern living. Get some relaxation. Do not worry about your constipation. If your doctor gives you a clean bill of health on your periodic checkups and you follow my suggestions for home check-ups between visits (see Chapter 9), your constipation is not going to harm your health. But if failure to move the bowels causes real discomfort, you may carry out the suggestions in paragraphs 5 and 6.

Take an enema. It should consist of a pint of warm water containing a level teaspoonful of table salt. If an enema does not help, your doctor can show you how to insert olive oil into the rectum at night through a catheter; this will soften the stool and make it easier to pass in the morning.

If you cannot take an enema, take a mild laxative, such as petrolatum and agar, aromatic cascara sagrada, or milk of magnesia.

Do not do this until you have given your bowels a chance to work by themselves. The first step in curing constipation is to stop taking all laxatives and cathartics. Laxatives are frequently the cause of your constipation, and seldom necessary in its cure. Suppositories can be irritating and cause rectal fissures, or increase their severity. Bulky substances such as bran can produce irritation of the colon. Mineral oil may interfere with the body’s absorption of essential vitamins.

WARNING

Do not give a laxative to a child, and do not take any cathartic or laxative yourself, if there is any fever, nausea, pain, or general feeling of illness associated with the constipation. It can result in fatal consequences if the condition is caused by appendicitis.

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Fats

Use skim milk or powdered milk; or take the cream off whole milk and use the fat-free milk in your beverages—hot skim milk is good in breakfast coffee—and in soups, mashed potatoes, gravies, and so on. Powdered milk is excellent for gravies. Use cottage cheese instead of butter or margarine. Try it with chives or celery salt on thin, dry toast.

Cook finely chopped spinach and other greens in very little water to which a bouillon cube has been added, and you will not miss the butter. Avoid fried foods, especially those that are french fried. Boil or poach eggs; you probably will not mind unbuttered toast if you serve your egg on it. Try cooking eggs on the type of pan that does not require greasing. Cook stews ahead of time, let them cool, and remove the hardened fat, at least from your portion. Trim the fat from your meat. Omit the rich gravy.

Sweets

Sponge cakes are not very high in calories if you remove your portion before adding the icing for the family, or before adding jam or filling. Take very small portions of any dessert. Avoid sugar-rich soft drinks.

Starches

Eat leafy green vegetables to provide the bulk you are accustomed to getting from starches. Do not munch on bread and butter, especially in restaurants. In America, salads are served first. This is a good idea because salads take the edge off your hunger before you get to the higher calorie foods. Take wine vinegar with herbs or lemon juice on salads instead of oily dressings.

Other suggestions

Do not taste while cooking. It has been jokingly estimated that half the overweight housewives in this country have ‘tasted themselves fat.’

Nibbling and snacks

A cup of tea or coffee without cream and with one teaspoonful of sugar is only 16 calories. It may satisfy your hunger and provide the quick energy you need. In contrast, a chocolate sundae contains between 300 and 400 calories, while half a brick of plain ice cream is 200. Nibbling between meals helps some people to diet by decreasing their appetite at mealtime. If you try this, keep careful count of calories so you will know whether or not it is really helping you.

‘Helping’ children by sampling their dinners or finishing their portions is a common form of nibbling that helps neither them nor you.

Eating binges

Some dieters are able to go off their diets occasionally without ill effect. But remember, your appestat is easily conditioned, so be careful.

Breakfast

For reasons explained previously, a hearty, high-protein meal in the morning usually keeps people from being hungry in mid-morning and from eating too much at noon.

Alcoholic beverages

These are high in calories, and they seldom satisfy your hunger. Usually they make you forget you are on a diet. For example, three glasses of beer at 115 calories per 10 ounce glass will supply as many calories as a fairly substantial breakfast. Several mixed drinks at a party or before dinner will give you almost as many calories as a full day’s reducing diet. Even more serious is the fact that alcohol supplies empty calories, or energy without any of the other necessary food values such as proteins, vitamins, or minerals.

Moderation

This should be your key word. Remember, it took a long time for you to put on the fat you want to lose, so be moderate about reducing, too. Fat lost at the rate of one half pound to a pound a week stays off much better than that lost in a hurry—and a pound a week adds up to 52 pounds a year! When you lose weight slowly, your skin adjusts itself, and you do not look like a deflated balloon.

*29\68\2*

These are food substances that are essential for growth, health, and life itself. You need them only in tiny quantities, but you cannot get along without them. Vitamins help to change the food we eat into bones, skin, muscles, nerves, and other parts of our bodies. A basic, balanced diet, such as those I describe in this chapter, provides all the vitamins and minerals you need. Thousands of dollars are spent on vitamins every year in this country. Much of that money is spent by perfectly healthy people who have been convinced by high-powered advertisements that they need extra vitamins. Your doctor will certainly tell you if you need a supplement to the vitamins present in your normal diet. Consult the entry on vitamins in the encyclopaedia section for information about the various vitamins and the deficiency diseases that result if certain vitamins are lacking in the diet.

Salt and other minerals

The body requires salt (sodium chloride). This is obtained in sufficient quantity from the average diet except when a person sweats profusely. Salt is lost in the perspiration, and during hot summer days, everyone, especially workers, athletes, and lively children, should have more than the usual amount of salt. They can salt their food liberally, eat a few salted nuts or biscuits, or add salt to tomato juice. If salt tablets are taken, they should be specially coated ones that do not irritate the stomach or the digestive system.

In addition to vitamins, the body needs small amounts of other valuable materials. Only a small fraction of an ounce of iron is required, but without this, the body develops a form of anaemia. The blood’s rich redness is produced by haemoglobin containing iron and protein. Foods rich in iron include kidney beans; liver and other meats; turnip tops, beetroot, and spinach; whole-wheat bread; and molasses. A trace of iodine is necessary to prevent goitre; this can be obtained easily by the regular use of iodized table salt. The body also requires small quantities of magnesium, manganese, copper, and other substances. Nature provides these for us in balanced diets.

*21\68\2*

The amount of water drunk each day is usually correctly adjusted by your sense of thirst. The body loses about a quart of water each day in the form of invisible perspiration on the skin and as water vapour expired into the air from the lungs. This loss of water plus the quart or more of water contained in the daily urine must be supplied chiefly by:

1. Water in solid foods. For example, vegetables and fruits are high in water content.
2. Water in fluids such as milk, soups, and beverages.
   
3. Water taken as such. This will balance any difference between the intake and the output.

In hot weather, or when you work in a hot area, your body requires more water to compensate for the loss of sweat. Visible perspiration may amount to many quarts a day. Because the sweat contains salt too, it is necessary to replace the salt loss as well.

*13\68\2*