One Third Off by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

Next day I kept it up, varying the first day's menus slightly, but keeping / the bulk consumption down, roughly, to about one-half or possibly / one-third what my rations formerly had been. Before night of the second / day that all-gone sensation had vanished. Already I had made the agreeable / discovery that I could get along and be reasonably happy on from 35 to 50 / per cent of what until then I had deludedly thought was required to / nourish me. Before the week ended I felt fitter and sprier in every way / than I had for years past; more alive, more interested in things, quicker / on my feet and brisker in my mental processes than in a long time. The / chronic logy, foggy feeling in my head disappeared and failed to return. / I may add that to date it still has not returned. Relieved of pressure / against its valves -- at least I assume that was what came to pass -- my heart / began functioning as I assume a normal heart should function, and at once / the sense of oppression in the neighborhood of the heart was gone.

Within the same week I took most joyful note of the fact that I was losing / flesh in the vicinities where mainly I craved to lose it amidships and at / the throat. I still had a double chin in front, but the third one, which I / carried behind as a spare -- the one which ran all the way round my neck and / lapped at the back like a clergyman's collar -- was melting away. And unless / I was woefully mistaken, I no longer had to fight so desperate a battle / with the waistband of my trousers when I dressed in the mornings.