The Fat Boy’s Book: How Elmer Lost 40 Pounds in 80 Days

By Elmer Wheeler

Where and Why The Fat Boy’s Book was written...

Sitting quietly at Chambers of Commerce luncheons and banquets, waiting my turn on the lecture platform, gave me the idea of the need for a Fat Boy’s Book.

I began to observe around me the hodge-podge collection of “banker’s shapes,” affluent men who had made good, then relaxed and put on bay windows. Then I looked at myself.

It was nice to see so much success in America, Land of Big Appetites and Opportunity, but, unfortunately, success had settled at the belt lines.

So, surrounded by my best inspirations, I started to write, and many a Chamber secretary will now know for the first time what I was scribbling on the back of the song sheet “God Bless America!” It was The Fat Boy’s Book.

BE A MAN OF DISTINCTION: SWITCH FROM FAT TO TRIM

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hauraki Publishing
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781787202863

Elmer Wheeler

Elmer Wheeler (1903-1968): Autor, orador y experto en ventas. Nacido en Rochester, Nueva York, Elmer Wheeler residió en Dallas, Texas, durante más de 30 años y residió allí hasta el momento de su muerte en octubre del año 1968. Su frase "No venda la tajada; venda su sabor" se transformó en una filosofía empresarial que condujo a la creación de un laboratorio de palabras conocido como "Sizzle Labs", para pesar y medir la capacidad relativa de las palabras para motivar a las personas. Más de 125 universidades, escuelas de negocios e individuos enseñan los métodos de Sizzle Lab. Hombres y mujeres de la Fuerza Aérea reciben capacitación mensual en los métodos de Sizzle Lab. Marine Corps también usan sus métodos para reclutar. Incluso los presos federales toman su curso en los centros de rehabilitación. Como conferencista, Wheeler ganó el primer y único Oscar que alguna vez se otorgó a un orador público. En el Dallas Cotton Bowl atrajo a 20,000 vendedores, tenedores de libros, secretarias y otros para aprender cómo hacer más amigos y conseguir más ventas. Dio conferencias para más de 50 Clubes de Ventas Americanos, los Jaycees y las cámaras de comercio.

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Text originally published in 1950 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE FAT BOY’S BOOK:

HOW ELMER LOST 40 POUNDS IN 80 DAYS

BY

ELMER WHEELER

ILLUSTRATED BY CARL ROSE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

THE FAT MAN’S FOIBLE 5

FOREWORD 6

THE FAT BOY’S BOOK 7

1 — MY NAME’S ELMER 7

2 — IT'S ALL MUSCLES, DOC-LOOK 15

3. — IT'S ALL THE WIFE'S FAULT 20

4 — I BEGIN ELMER’S BATTLE OF THE BULGE 27

5. — I GO TO THE DOGS FOR SOUND ADVICE 36

6. — I'M BECOMING STRONGHEART'S BEST ADVERTISEMENT 46

7 — I FORM CALORIES ANONYMOUS 53

8. — I LEARN TO CONTROL THE BURP 62

9. — THE LOWDOWN ON SOCIAL IMBIBING 68

10. — BECOMING A MAN OF DISTINCTION 74

11 — I LEARN NOT TO BE A DIET BORE 81

12. — DON'T LOOK NOW-BUT YOUR WIFE IS SHOWING 85

POOR ELMER’S ALMANAC 97

APPENDIX — THE CALORIE COUNT THAT TOOK 40 POUNDS OFF ELMER IN 80 DAYS 99

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 105

DEDICATION

TO

Everyone who ever turned around

when he heard the call:

Hey, Fatty!

THE FAT MAN’S FOIBLE

He isn’t jolly because he is fat, but in self-preservation of his discomforts!

Biologically, fat boys can’t be jolly—for their arches are low slung, they have galloping blood vessels, and sugar where it isn’t supposed to be.

DC-6 seats are too small for them; they can’t walk like Arthur Murray recommends, and their collars and belts are always open to gain relief.

They are robbed of the luxury of crossing their legs in public!

Insurance men avoid them like bank bandits, doctors warn them, wives heckle them; so they just pretend they are jolly!

In reality they are sad and distraught Pagliaccis of the chocolate pie and Brillat-Savarin’s insidious charm kitchen.

So in self-protection, the Fat Boy assumes a Laugh, Clown, Laugh philosophy; but deep down in his heart (surrounded by fat) he knows that no one really loves a fat man—but his mother!

ELMER’S PROVERB: SO SOLLY—FAT BOYS NOT JOLLY

FOREWORD

Where and Why The Fat Boy’s Book was written...

Sitting quietly at Chambers of Commerce luncheons and banquets, waiting my turn on the lecture platform, gave me the idea of the need for a Fat Boy’s Book.

I began to observe around me the hodge-podge collection of banker’s shapes, affluent men who had made good, then relaxed and put on bay windows. Then I looked at myself.

It was nice to see so much success in America, Land of Big Appetites and Opportunity, but, unfortunately, success had settled at the belt lines.

So, surrounded by my best inspirations, I started to write, and many a Chamber secretary will now know for the first time what I was scribbling on the back of the song sheet God Bless America! It was The Fat Boy’s Book.

BE A MAN OF DISTINCTION: SWITCH FROM FAT TO TRIM

THE FAT BOY’S BOOK

1 — MY NAME’S ELMER

For a while there, the fat of the land was living on me.

This is the tale of a fat boy who flunked his exams when he was asked who were Andrew Johnson, William Harvey, and Edward the Confessor—

But who got A for Appetite when he was asked who were Antoine of New Orleans, Fred Harvey, and Don the Beachcomber.

A Fatso who bypassed the art galleries in the big cities in order to pass by the mouth-watering grocery shelves of S. S. Pierce, Fred Wolferman, Charles & Co., and Solaris.

A 4 by 4 who thought the song Home on the Range was a cookbook by Ida Mae Bailey.

A food-lover who thought that Omar Khayyam’s line about a loaf of bread and a jug of wine was written to promote his famous San Francisco restaurant. When I took a train ride through the Royal Gorge I didn’t even see it. I was too busy having a royal gorge in the diner.

This is the story of a Fatso of the Forties, a Satellite of the Saucepans, who bounced up to 230 non-jolly pounds, lost his pep, vigor, sex and honeymoon figure!

Then got mad when a fresh clerk sent him to the Fat Men’s Department for a shirt and a Marine Corps medico ridiculed his gallery of calories—so mad he took off 40 pounds!

It’s a merry yam of calories—how fat boys can remove them, how skinnies can acquire them, how Victor Mature can keep his! A laugh-scape of a Fat Boy named Elmer who won the Battle of the Bulge in approved medical manner!

I got fat because my name’s Elmer.

I’ve read a lot about why us fatties get fat. Real scientific stuff. Some doctors say the real reason is due to boredom. We eat to have something to do.

Other diet experts say insecurity in life prompts us to overindulge. They claim this is inherent in us from babyhood, when we rushed to our mother’s breast at the first sign of fright.

Personally, I think a person’s name has something to do with fat.

You just know that a fellow with the fortunate name of Richard feels inwardly that he is a lion-hearted cuss, so he struts around burning up energy. Bill is a real he-man’s name, and living up to it keeps him slender.

Charlie is a good solid name. So is John.

But Elmer!

Gosh, it’s always associated with some comic character. A country rube. A hillbilly. A bull who is married to Elsie!

So us Elmer’s have developed inferiority complexes. We are shy fellows. We drown our shame in tons of food.

I was going to say, Look at any Elmer you can think of, but the only ones I can think of offhand are Elmer Davis, the commentator, and Elmer Rice, the playwright, and neither of them is fat.

Well, anyway, I’m entitled to my theories!

Of course, there are some people who think I got fat because I ate too much food, and that I ate too much food simply because it tasted so good.

THE BOOM GOT US ELMER’S

I’m like a million other fat boys born of the Boom.

Before the Lavish Forties (not my forties—the Nineteen-Forties), dieting was always easy for me. I was an expert at it. Why, I used to practice at dieting three or four times a year!

After every lazy vacation; after every gall bladder attack; after every insurance rejection; before each Thanksgiving dinner, I dieted.

Then the Boom sneaked up on me.

Life was gay, parties numerous, food and liquids most generously offered in the Feverish Forties, with their sales promotional orgies and Navy E award banquets by pleased possessors.

Parties went on constantly in everybody’s home, from welder to advertising manager; in every hotel and motel room, from the palatial Palmer House to the Magnolia Manor Motor Court.

Prosperity got me. I fell victim to calories. Ominous calories. Insidious calories.

Tasty calories!

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

King Henry the Eighth had nothing on Elmer the First, Fat Boy of the Forties.

I ate like a horse, and when they put the à la carte in front of the horse I knew what to do with it. I dined with the best and gained such skill that I could glance at a 36-inch menu in the hands of an impatient waiter and order a $30 meal quicker’n you could say, This one’s on me!

Waiters smiled, headwaiters grew heady and chefs shimmied with joy