Two meals each day will furnish necessary nourishment for any one, no matter what his occupation may be. The idea that the stomach must never be empty, that it must have something to work on or it will digest itself is the product of brains that cannot deduce true conclusions from plain facts. For the past fifteen years I have personally followed the two-meal a day habit. On numerous occasions I have tried, three, four and even five meals a day, but on comparison of my mental and physical condition with that which was usual on the two-meal plan I always went back to two meals. At the time when I was doing the hardest physical work I ever was occupied with during my entire life, I only ate two daily meals, and one of these was usually a light lunch. This was when training for hard championship wrestling matches, and there is really no harder physical work than this. At this particular time, when my muscles had to be able to withstand the enormous efforts required in struggling with well-trained and burly antagonists I had an occasion to learn in a most striking manner, the value of the two-meal-a-day plan. In a wrestling match endurance is of great value.

The ability to struggle and strain apparently with all your power and still seem not to tire, is one of the necessary qualities in a successful wrestler. I was some time in acquiring this, but when I finally concluded that diet was of some importance, and began to experiment, not only with different foods, but also with the quantity necessary to maintain the greatest strength, I secured information of great value. My experiment taught me that the less you eat the better what you do eat is digested. That induced me to try the two-meal-per-day plan, and the almost immediate increase in my endurance so impressed me that the habit of eating only two meals per day has practically been followed by me ever since. On many occasions, after adopting this new diet I met wrestlers who seemed as strong and as scientific as I, but I felt at the time that they were doomed to defeat simply because my diet was superior to theirs, and, as stated in another chapter, never on any occasion after I adopted this plan of diet was I thrown a single fall in a wrestling match at my favorite style.

About the easiest method of giving this two-meal-a-day plan a trial, if living with a family where three daily meals are served, is to avoid breakfast altogether, eating your first meal at noon; or, if this is difficult, the first meal can be eaten in the morning, and the other meal in the evening. The best time to eat under these circumstances is the first meal between 10.30 and 11.30, and the second meal between 5.30 and 6.30. Usually the hours here mentioned will be found satisfactory, but the occupation, the hour of rising and retiring would naturally have considerable influence upon the proper time for meals. The first meal should be eaten from four to five hours after rising, and the second meal should follow this five or six hours later. As to which meal should be the heartiest, should advise one to depend altogether on the appetite; though, if the second meal is not eaten several hours before retiring the first meal should be the heartiest, as the digestive powers must be very strong to counteract the evil effects of retiring after a very hearty meal.