Watching the Waistline - Diets from My Family's Past

Just had my annual physical and was happy with the results.  I always brace for the doctor lecture about losing weight.  It didn't come, though, because it's hard to tell someone to diet when the lab results are all good.  Still, I know it's not healthy to be carrying around extra weight.
I come from long lines of fat people so I like to believe it's genetic and not lifestyle.  That's actually delusional on my part as they all loved food and so do I,  My grandmother's best gifts were cookbooks of which I inherited many.
With the holidays approaching, hubby and I decided it would be wise to be more selective of our food choices for the next few weeks.  My hydroponic garden is doing awesome with the warm days and cool nights so I have a bountiful supply of organic lettuce, kale, and cabbage.  Only 3 tomatoes so far but it's early for a Florida harvest.  Same with the peppers, broccoli and cauliflower but that's ok, too.
With the weather cooling off I decided it would be a good idea to make my grandmother's stuffed cabbage recipe.  About 15 years ago I took all of the family recipes, retyped them and had three books made - one for each of my kids and one for me.  I also included anecdotes about the recipe, such as the awesome beef stew from the Lutheran Church Woman's Guild Society's cookbook that was attributed to my sister-in-law  When I first made it and let her know how good it was she had no idea what I was taking about.  Turns out, my mother-in-law submitted the recipe because she wanted to have her daughter's name in print.  We chuckle every time someone mentions beef stew.
Since food was always a big deal in our family, I wanted to pass down as many stories as I could and adding them to the cookbook insured they would be remembered.  By creating a cookbook, I also eliminated wear and tear to the originals.
I don't know why but instead of going to "my cookbook" I pulled out one of my grandmother's old ones and there was her "Miracle Diet" consisting of apple cider vinegar.  I don't know where or when she got it so I did a little internet searching and discovered that no one else can figure out that diet's origin.  I can assure you it didn't work for her.  This got me thinking of other diets.
I found this on a blog by Peter and Drew Greenlaw from 3 March 2016:
"Dieting goes back at least as far as the 3rd century BC, according to Louise Foxcroft, author of Calories & Corsets:  A History of Dieting Over 2000 Years.  She says that followers of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates recommended a diet of light and emollient foods, slow running, hard work, wrestling, sea-water enemas, walking about naked and vomiting after lunch."  I guess this was also the first documented recommendation for purging.
I'm making a great leap here but my maternal line was originally from the Greek island of Kos. Hippocrates' medical school was located on Kos Island.  I can only imagine my ancestors going to Dr. Hippocrates and being given the fat lecture and his diet.  Clearly, that diet didn't work either or it would have been passed down.
Happy Hunting!
  

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-history-of-dieting-and-weight-loss-it-started-2300-years-ago-with-the-greeks-158890/#HRor0tUIBYocC0pg.99