FOOD CAUSES
It is better to eat no more than eighty per cent of
your capacity. A Japanese proverb has it that eight parts of a full stomach ache sustain the man; the other two sustain
the doctor."
So one of the Zen masters is quoted in the book Three
Pillars of Zen (Beacon Press, Boston, 1967)
The advice is relevant. That Americans generally consume too
many calories for the amount of physical energy they expend is a matter of
record and of increasing concern as the energy expenditure tapers off even
more. Every five years, the National Research Council, which serves as
scientific adviser to the United States government, publishes recommended
dietary allowances.
After recommending, in 1963, a cut of 100 calories
per day for men and women, it recommended another 100-calorie reduction in 1968. In its calculations,
the Council uses a "reference" man and woman-each 22 years old,
weighing 154 pounds
and 127 pounds
respectively, living in a mean temperature of 68 degrees, and engaging in light
physical activity.
Such a man, the Council now figures, needs 2,800 calories a
day; the woman 2,000. The Council also recommends that caloric intake be cut
below these levels with age-by 5 percent between ages 22 and 35, by 3 percent
in each decade between 35 and 55, and by 5 percent per decade from 55 to 75.
This brings the figure for the woman, for example, to 1,900
by age 35, to 1,843 by age 45, to 1,788 by age 55, to 1,699 at 65 and to 1,614
at 75. These, of course, are general guidelines, leaving room for individual
variations, and your physician may well have suggestions of value for you. It
is a measure of good health, and a contribution toward maintaining it, to reach
and keep a desirable weight.
For that, an effective balance between food intake
and energy output is needed. If you are currently at ideal weight (see table on
page 61), your intake and output are in balance---which is fine if you are
getting adequate amounts of exercise. Exercise, of right kind and in adequate
amounts, is a vital element in health for many reasons (see Chapter 8). If you
should need to increase your physical activity, you will need to increase
intake to maintain desirable weight.
