Advice to Fat Men Is To 'Go Primitive'

Dr. Blake Donaldson insists that his weight reducing ideas are simultaneously 20 years ahead of the times and 8,000 years old. 

Donaldson, a trim 70 years old, is impressed by evidence that primitive man, for all his troubles, did not suffer from overweight. So Donaldson advises his patients to go primitive. Results, they shed a total of 4,000 pounds of fat per year. 

"The human animal " said Donaldson, while eating a big steak at a New York restaurant, "for millions of years lived just one way. He dwelled in forests and on the banks of streams. "He hunted and ate fat meat. His life was one of constant exercise. He had to be able to jump seven feet into a tree to escape a saber-toothed tiger. 

"We are fairly sure--from examining old German burial grounds and skulls found in the Arctic--that he had excellent vision, good teeth, no  arthritis or skin problems. Chances are he usually avoided the crippling and killing diseases aggravated by overweight." 

"People just refuse to believe that a ginger snap or a soda cracker is starch.

For the past four decades Donaldson has advised his overweight patients personally or through his book "Strong Medicine," to hold to the following regimen:

Do not retire before 10 p.m.; up by 6 a.m. Never sleep more than eight hours per day.

Before breakfast take a half-hour brisk walk. ("This is the most important medical advance in 8,000 years.")

For breakfast, lunch and dinner eat the same thing: one-half pound of fresh fat meat. A demitasse of black coffee three times daily is permissible.

Drink six glasses of water per day, none after 5 p.m.

Abstain from every other food, including seasoning. "It's so simple it's difficult," complained the good doctor.

"People just refuse to believe that a ginger snap or a soda cracker is starch. This is not an extreme diet. But if anybody is content to peel off three pounds of fat a week--and keep it off--my plan does it. 

"I don't object to smoking. People must have a few vices or they aren't worth talking to. They become plants.

"But I do object to flour addiction. This is a worse vice than heroin in terms of the physical damage it can do."

As Donaldson polished off his steak he confessed that being fat is not enough inducement to reduce. "It has to hurt you--either your pride or your body," he said. 

"And it's impossible to slim down some people. They simply do not obey orders. I don't think the devil himself could take fat off an opera singer."