Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/148

Rh with an egg. Half an hour later a cup of tea, and bed at nine.

This is, of course, but a rough outline; but indicates the general plan.

In the rest after dinner there must be no sleep. While breakfast and dinner should be the important meals, the dinner should be the heavier, and should be in the middle of the day.

The amount of fluid taken should be only moderate, especially when it is a question of reducing fat. By rendering the solution of food in the stomach more dilute it promotes the rapidity of absorption, and, in fact, increases the actual amount of nutriment absorbed. Yet, water is, probably, the most important article taken into the stomach of man. A person can endure hunger much more than thirst; and the demand for water will make itself felt more quickly and more imperatively than the demand for food. It is my belief, that, as a rule, in training, too little water is allowed. Three quarts, rather than three pints a day. There are good reasons for this. Many of the refuse particles, left after the chemistry of the body, are carried out by the kidneys. If there is not supply of water enough to hold these matters in solution, the effect of too concentrated secretion from those organs will make itself felt in serious disturbance, if not in actual disease; and, when it is remembered how much of the water is carried off by the lungs and skin,—in breathing and in perspiration,—an additional reason for caution in undue deprivation of water, is manifest.

Of course, if milk or beer is used, that, to a certain extent, will diminish the necessity for water.

It should be stated here, however, that milk, if used in the diet, is to be regarded rather as a solid food, than as a beverage,—a pint of good milk being nearly the equivalent in nutritive properties to a pound of steak. One reason that milk is said to be hard of digestion by certain people is, that after a hearty meal they drink milk for a average, putting, as it were, one steak on top of another; and wondering why the stomach will not manage it all. Another reason why there