Your memories of Dieting 1962-1977

In My Humble Opinion
1

Once upon a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or was that just a bad acid trip?), we didn’t have diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet everything and Lite/Low-cal/Low-carb beers. We had saccharine sweetened Tab (which was hideous, but not because of the saccharine) and… and… and…

That’s where I need your help. I seem to recall that the Coca-Cola’s Tab had its own “Pepsi” (but not necessarily made by Pepsi). I want to say it was called something like Metrical, but the only Metrical I can find is not a diet cola drink.

I’ll toss out some of what I remember, in the hopes of shaking loose some memories or stories of dieting ca. 1962-1977. I found an academic book on it, but it focused more on diversity and weirdness. I’m more interested in the mainstream stuff that was part of the popular culture.

Carnation Instant Breakfast (powdered or canned) billed itself a diet drink, but there was at least one dedicated canned “diet shake” [like SlimFast today). I can’t recall its name. in most people’s minds, Special K and Grape-Nuts were suspicious --like a masochists sex toys. Almost no one actually ate them except as acts of contrition. I’m amazed they stayed in business.

Being too unconventionally health-conscious marked you as a hippie. Almost no one ate -or sold- whole wheat bread, which included bread made with unbleached flour, back then. (This was a couple of years before the first whole wheat craze, when some manufacturers, taken by surprise. met the sudden demand by adding sawdust to their bread, according to newspaper articles–TV consumer reporters were still years away; the closest we came was 60 Minutes) In the eyes of many, “organic” meant “communist” and any “herb” was probably mixed with marijuana.

Who could forget Ayd’s diet candy, spawner of so many urban legends until its sudden demise, suspiciously soon after the first public furor over AIDS? On the other hand, that was also an era when amphetamines were among the most widely and casually prescribed drugs, for everything from diets to studying. IIRC, Dexatrim (phenylpropanolamine, a relatively mild over-the-counter stimulant and appetite suppressant) didn’t come along until at least '78 or 79, IIRC, but I’m sure someone will set me straight, if I’m mistaken

We probably had as many famous diets and fads as we do now. Weight Watchers was around then, as was Atkins. The Scarsdale diet was big (now remembered only because its millionaire-physican inventor was killed by his girlfriend, the headmistress of an exclusive girl’s school). I recall that there was another popular diet with equally tony roots (The Westchester diet?), but I was an exceptionally skinny grade-schooler back then, so diets didn’t really register on my radar.

We did believe in exercise, but many exercises of the day often seemed rather feeble: few of the calisthenics were very demanding (by kid standards). Everyone seemed to think jumping jacks were fantastic: Army training films, old Nazi Propaganda, our gym teachers, even Jack LaLanne (whose imaginative morning exercises for housewives, using milk jugs, heavy cans, broomsticks and kitchen chairs actually seem like they’d be effective). Along with the staples like sit-ups, push-ups and chin-ups, deep knee bends were de rigeur. You can still see the results–at any marina where orthopods keep their yachts.

In gyms, weight machines were primitive. Many athletes worked out with medicine balls or indian clubs. Almost every house seemed to have a punching ball or bag somewhere. A surprising number of aging “shake and bakes” were still around [I don’t know their proper name: but I remember rows of fat people in heavy grey sweatsuits --meant to make you sweat, unlike the sweats of today – with heavy fabric bands around their bellies, reading or even sometimes eating and drinking, as a motor “shook their pounds off”. Or more often–didn’t] Only the “exercycle” remains virtually unchanged today.

“Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting” - martial arts schools sprang up like weeds, but having actually studied martial arts back then, I know that 90% of the people who claimed to know karate would have hurt themselves (and strained their vocal cords) before laying a finger on their opponent. Jim Fixx (“The Running Book”) ushered in the jogging craze. Tennis got hot - but more watched than played. Golf [with a cart no less] and bowling were considered “good exercise” by many

What were your experiences and memories of the popular diets, practices, etc. of 1962-1977, five years before “Coke Lite” -soon to be Diet Coke- was introduced?

2

General Questions is for questions with factual answers. IMHO is for opinions and polls. I’ll move this to IMHO for you.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

3

My only memory of Metrecal comes courtesy of Allan Sherman’s Shticks Of One Kind And Half A Dozen Of The Other:

“Fare thee well, Metrecal,
And the others of that ilk.
Let the diet start tomorrow,
'Cause today I’ll drown my sorrow
In a double malted milk.”

I also remember Tab as the pre-diet Coke diet Coke, but I don’t recall anything named “Coke Lite”.

And I remember it being the height of hilarity to ask the druggist circa 1982 (seventh grade) “Do you have Ayds?”

4

[QUOTE=KP]
Carnation Instant Breakfast (powdered or canned) billed itself a diet drink, but there was at least one dedicated canned “diet shake” [like SlimFast today). I can’t recall its name.

[QUOTE]
Would you possibly mean Sego?

(Aside) I wouldn’t have survived childhood without Carnation Instant Breakfast.

5

I believe Metrecal was the first “nutritional” diet drink, similar to Carnation Instant Breakfast but it came in a can. This was in the early to mid '60s. I seem to recall it tasting rather chalky and coming in vanilla and chocolate flavors.
I also remember the “rainbow pills”…amphetamines actually, doctors were passing them out, to even the slightly overweight, like candy.

6

I remember there was a “cottage cheese” diet.

Supposedly, you would only eat cottage cheese for two weeks and lose 20 pounds.

Oddly the diet plan fad didn’t last long.
Even more oddly, I can finally look at cottage cheese and not throw up.

7

Pritikin has also been around for ages and ages. My personal favorite was the “TWA” diet, supposedly so named because it was how TWA flight attendants kept their trim figures. (Of course, back then, they were required to be under a certain weight by regulation.) It required a half of a grapefruit at every meal. The heartburn was unbelievable. And there was also the Cabbage Soup diet. By the third day you wanted to kill yourself, and just stopped eating, hence melting away the pounds.

I remember a diet drink that may have come out at the end of the era, called Alba 77. Dreadful, awful, chalky, desperately bad stuff. But it wasn’t canned, I don’t think, just a powder that was to be mixed with skim milk. Gag me with a handweight.

8

Weight Watchers was started in 1963. It started as a diet group based on a diet clinic’s diet: Protein & Bread for Breakfast; Double Protein, Bread & Veggies for Lunch; Triple Protein & Veggies for Supper; Two Glasses of Powered Milk and Three Fruits a Day.

Fortunately, the diet has changed a lot since then.

9

I remember avocado green food scales in the 70’s…grapefruit diets…Dexatrim (is this still around?)…and body suits made of foil or something to sweat/burn the fat.

10

Coke had Tab.
RC had Diet Rite Cola.
I don’t think Pepsi would come out with anything for a few more years.

Metrecal was a liquid diet in a can. Sego was a competitor. They came in assorted flavors (first vanilla and chocolate, then strawberry, then each of them tried some - unique - flavors) Eventually they came out with diet bars, for those who felt they had to have something crunchy during a meal. There was also something called Figurines, but I don’t remember whether it was a diet bar, or just a low-cal snack.

When you exercised, you did calisthentics. Jumping jacks, sit-ups and running (we didn’t call it jogging back then, whippersnapper!)

There were a few sugar-free foods, made specifically for diabetics. My brother-in-law was diabetic, and whenever I ate those foods, I felt profoundly sorry for him.

As a last result, you went to the doctor and got a prescription for “diet pills.” My father tried that, went on a months-long frenzy of (really badly done) home improvements and damn near had my mother walk out on him.

11

ESPN Classic runs grainy old Jack Lalaine shows from the 50’s and 60’s.

Let me tell you this: You could quote that man and print it here and you’d swear it was a modern dietician giving you advice or exericise and food. He was all over the ‘refined sugars’…‘food that make you hungrier’…and ‘we spend to much time watching movies and TV’ issues.

The 60’s and 70’s took common sense about eating and exercise and created mass media bunk by propping up miracel pills, suits, machines and drinks.

You want the best modern approach to diet and lifestlye? Watch Jack Lalaine from the 1950’s!

Dude is, and was, nuts in a good way.

12

Dr. Stillman’s Quick Weight Loss Diet was popular. Image eating nothing but lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs and cottage cheese and drinking eight glasses of water a day. This lead to the Scarsdale Medical Diet by Dr. Herman Tarnower, who was shot to death by scorned lover Jean Harris. That was one helluva trial.

13

Amen! Especially when some of that protein was supposed to be mother fucking LIVER! I am so glad that went away before I needed them.

14

I loved chocolate Metracal! My mom had to hide them from me. They were more similar to Slim-Fast than Instant Breakfast.

She also used those diet Ayds candy things. The idea behind them was that they satisfied your urge for something sweet, and you were supposed to eat ONE instead of a meal. She’d go through a box in a couple of days.

The only whole wheat bread you could get at the grocery was Roman Meal, but everybody called it “brown bread” and it was considered a diet bread.

Metamucil was used for dieting.

Sometimes my mom would take me to her excercise classes. This was long before they started making fashionable workout clothes. Some of the women wore swimsuits, but most of them were in their bras and panties with an occassional girdle.

15

Two words:
TRIM JEANS!!!

These used to be advertised in the TV schedules that came with the Sunday papers. They weren’t really jeans; they were these long puffy shorts that you would pump up with air to squeeze your midriff and thighs. From the ads they looked like they were made of material similar to a nylon ski jacket, and went from just below your chest almost to your knees. I guess the theory was that if you applied excruciating pressure around your waist and abdomen, the body would assume a new trim shape. The ads showed a couple relaxing in their back yard, wearing their Trim Jeans.

Monty Python even did a sketch with them; it was something like the “Trim Jeans Theatre Presents Julius Caesar”.

16

Sorry about that, Dr. Matrix.

I posted this in General Questions, because I was looking for details and factual recollections to jog my own memory, not current opinions about those practices, or heaven forbid, some sort of poll. The responses thus far have had as much factual detail as most GQ threads, with just enough personal detail to keep it interesting

I don’t mind the move. I like the responses I’m getting in IMHO (and maybe I wouldn’t have gotten as much in GQ). I’m just not sure why this wasn’t a GQ.

To help me in future threads: what put this topic into the category of “opinion”? I suppose it wasn’t a single specific question (though I still want to know e.g. the name of that other “major” early diet cola–that’s been bugging me for a long time)
I consider “experiences” factual, even if they are not always objective. Many of the most useful GQ replies are based on actual personal experience

The Pritkin Diet may have been the major diet I was thinking of, TeaElle, (alongside Atkins, Weight Watchers, and Scarsdale). If it wasn’t, it should have been. Did the idea of bestselling “book diets” first take off in the 60s/70s, or were they always around?

BTW, my mother joined Weight-Watchers for a while, and I remember noting how covert it seemed. The exterior was barely marked, and the parking/entrance was at the back of the strip mall shop, not the front. Was this common? Did people not want to admit they were in Weight Watchers?

Thanks to everyone who mentioned other diets (cottage cheese, grapefruit, etc.) Those popped up so many times in the '80s/90s that I’d completely forgotten (if I ever knew) that they were much older. Keep 'em coming!

I actually rather liked those mannitol-based diabetic candies, kunilou (then again, I rarely ate candy at all). Of course, there was a drawback: mannitol isn’t absorbed by the body, and retains water in the stools, so it could give you ‘the runs’. I never had that problem , but there was a warning on the box, which stood out in an era when warning labels were rare.

Also, thanks for cuing me to Diet Rite. The dates fit (it came out in 1958), but I could have sworn the name I’m looking for started with an “M”. Perhaps I’m thinking of a local brand. I grew up in Atlanta (Coca-Cola HQ) , so RC, “The one with the mad mad taste”, was a distant also-ran (I remember feeling sorry for them). You could like Pepsi, but if you only stocked Pepsi in your larder, and no Coke, it was likely to come up in neighborhood conversations. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was a warning sign that you might hold other unconventional views.

They say “the Sixties” really mostly happened in the '70s, with good justification. The real '60s were more like the stereotypical Fifties than we realized at the time.

Yes, I saw an old Jack Lanne episode recently, Philster, and I was impressed at how sensible it seemed, compared withteh exercise fads of the next half-century. His “workouts” (if that was a word back then) were the only ones I recall that were even remotely a challenge. [Then again, most were geared to sedentary adults, not active kids… we were so deprived that ‘playing war’ meant running, jumping and hiding in real grass and trees, instead of “life-like physics” in 64-bit color and dolby surround sound-- and building our own treehouses from scraps

You know, you just explained a mystery, hillbilly queen. I remember when the opened a (short-lived) exercise studio in a strip mall we sometimes visited. I remember thinking how odd it was that they painted over the big glass storefront windows --and from the inside! I’d never seen a shop do that, unless it was empty and awaiting a new tenant. Now I know what was going on in there!

I think you’ve opened a can of worms, Spectre of Pithecanthropus: TV “miracle” products! I’m sure Ron Popeil must have marketed an Ab-o-matic – everyone else did. My parents bought a TV exercise machine that involved pulleys, springs, and aseat that rolled on a steel frame. The box showed it being used as a rowing machine, but the only way to get any real resistance was to put it on an incline. We kids spent many a summer hour inventing new ways to use it (in fact, I still have the springs from it – in a device I rigged to help me rehab my knee a few years ago. Structurally, it was a clear direct evolutionary ancestor of that “Total Gym” taht Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley are always hawking.
Some other memories:
Space Food Sticks were marketed like a “health food”–ideal nutrition. Of course, they never called it that–“health food” wasn’t a compliment. Vitamin-enriched Wonderbread was also considered very good for you, though that may be a holdover from the '50s [when Kent cigarettes with asbestos-containing Micronite filters were “doctor recommended” for heavy smokers]

Yoga marked you as a real weirdo. Some people even called it “un-Christian”.

17

There was a yoga show on PBS in the 70s, though, with Lilias Folan, who still seems to be going strong.

I’m not sure what this was, but there was a diet that was passed around among my friends in high school (late 70s). I don’t know where it came from, book or magazine–it was just copied onto a piece of paper by whoever needed it. Looking back, it was basically a low-carb thing, but I don’t think it was Atkins. For one thing, it stated exactly what food you had to eat at each meal for two weeks. All I remember was that there were about 6 hard-boiled eggs per day for the first week, along with raw tomatoes and some other veggies.

I remember women’s magazine diets being very big around that time. There’s still lots of diet stuff in magazines, of course, but you don’t see so much of the “Take off 10 pounds in 2 weeks!” crash diets, where they gave you menus for every day, usually involving depressing amounts of cottage cheese and Ryecrisps.

18

I remember some of this stuff because my mom and older sister would get all enthused over it…but I had to eat it too. ::shudders::

  • Drinking Tab with a squirt of lemon to make it taste almost decent.
  • Sweet-10 sweetener; it came in a bottle with a little push top thingy that stopped working when the bottle was still half full
  • saccarhine tablets; itty-bitty things that women carried around in pill bottles
  • diets based on weird food combinations that supposedly counteracted each other. The only I remember most bitterly featured spinach, hardboiled eggs and stewed tomatoes. I like all those things but not every damend meal.

In exercise related stuff, I remember Jack LaLanne quite well. He was a bit cheesy but so were most TV personalities back then. His approach really was quite sensible and effective but my sister and I hated it because it was too similar to calesthenics in gym. (Squat thrusts…yuck.)

There were lots of oddball exercise things for sale too. One (FlipFlop?) looked for the world like a simple cot that bent both ways in the middle. You’d grab the upper bar with your hands and fold double, then stretch back, fold double, stretch back. There were also plenty of snake-oil “instant” disguises like SoP’s Trim Jeans that wouldn’t fool a blind person. I remember a few of them, like wide belts made to “invisibly” under clothes that supposedly spot-reduced bellies and love handles. IIRC a few of them even had batteries. Swathing oneself with plastic wrap was quite popular for a while too. It sure helped shed water weight quickly but unfortunately also made people sicker than dogs.

hillbilly queen is dead on about the lack of attractive exercise clothes. Actually, until the counter culture kicked in, clothes in general were decidedly uncomfortable, for men and women. Girdles were SOP, for heaven’s sake. Shorts were okay for backyard cookouts but not much else.