Feature on my blog in Waitrose Weekend!

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Waitrose have a FREE magazine/newspaper in store which is great because it has lots of recipes and food related articles in it every week.

This week until Wednesday, their weekly newspaper contains a double page spread on rationing during WW2, and my blog! I always like to do these things if asked as am passionate about getting back to basics and the promotion of food in its natural state rather than using processed foods for health and wellness. We all know how addictive processed foods and snacks are (am living proof of that!!!).

Anyway – it’s quite a good article with some factual information in it that you may like to read (I’ll try and take a high res photo later and upload it so you’ll be able to read it).

It was also great to re-create an ‘Apricot Mock Flan’ for the photoshoot and I’ll post the recipe for that including the photos I took later.

I’m just off to the gym right now for a couple of hours. See you on the flip side!

Lots of love

C xxxx

£ for lb – The 1940s Ration Book Diet.

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Did anyone watch “Save Money, Lose Weight” on ITV recently? Was anyone else SHOCKED how much money they spent in 28 days? Watch the episode HERE! 

Six overweight Brits were put through six off-the-shelf diets for 28 days. All of them successfully lost weight trying 6 different popular plans and were pleased with the results BUT HOLEY HELL – REALLY? How can someone afford a food bill for one person for one month of £400 – £500? Get real! In the real world many of us struggle and carefully budget so it did indeed seemed quite shocking to me the amount of money spent. Surely ongoing over a long period of time this wouldn’t be sustainable?

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And then like a terrier down a rabbit hole I decided to break down my food budget based on rationing, and worked out how much it would cost to lose weight ration book style. I’ve also decided to eat 28 days purely based on 1940s rationing up to 1500 cals a day and see how much I lose and convert the total cost spent to £’s for lbs, just like they did on the programme!

Today I weighed in at 276.8 lbs (up 27 lbs or so since the summer) and in 28 days I’ll see how much I’ve lost.

Based on what I am eating today my total cost for food and drink is £2.50 and a total of 1450 cals.

Breakfast – 40 g porridge, 2 teaspoons sugar, 150 ml soy light milk – 30p – 250 cals
Lunch – Salad – 1/5th raw cauliflower, 1 stalk celery, 1/2 can kidney beans, 1/4 cucumber, 25g salad cream light, 1 apple. 90p – 300 cals
DinnerLentil curry £1 – 600 cals
Dessert – Mock apricot tart –  30p – 300 cals
By my reckoning this is
28 days @ 2.50 = £70 – CONSIDERABLY LESS than £400 – £500.
Let’s see what I lose!
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I need a corporate sponsor..

carolyndonateI’ve started training for ‘The London Marathon 2017’.

I am part of ‘Team Legion’ at this amazing event and I have promised to raise £2000 for the Royal British Legion. For anyone who has done fundraising for a cause before you’ll know how difficult this is! I have some ideas I am implementing and am currently working on my first cook book (full colour keepsake recipe booklet with 40 pages and there will be a series of them) which will be on my blog for sale at the end of January (watch this space!). For every booklet I sell, £1 will be donated to the Royal British Legion. They called me today and are sending me bunting, posters and donation buckets so I do hope to get in a couple of fundraising bake sales before the big day in April too!

BUT what I REALLY need is a corporate sponsor who is willing to donate a good portion of the £2000 I am aiming to raise so I am asking you to please help me spread the word.

As a CORPORATE sponsor you will…

– Be associated with my blog for one whole year (there will be a colourful clickable ad that will always be displayed in my blog side bar top right)
– EVERY blog post I make until the end of April 2017 will contain your logo and link to your website.
– You will be personally mentioned in 10 blog posts on the lead up to the London Marathon.
– Your logo and link to your website and a personal mention in every newsletter I send out to subscribers (currently at 477).
– Your logo and link to your website will appear in all videos I produce and post to my YouTube channel until end of April 2017.
– You will be recognised via Facebook (2616 subscribers), Twitter (355 subscribers), Pinterest (1,100 followers) and Instagram (448 subscribers) every week on the lead up to the London Marathon.
– Your logo and website will be recognised on my Virgin Money fundraising page at www.donatepoppy.uk
– If you sign up as a corporate sponsor before January 20th 2017 your logo and web link will appear in every copy of my first cook book that I sell & market from my own blog.
– I will create a t-shirt with your logo and website address and wear this to all gym and training workouts on the lead up to the London Marathon.

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How popular is my blog, who visits it and will your business be a good fit?

The 1940sExperiment receives between 40,000 to 123,000 visits per month and on average about 850,000 visit per year with over 4 MILLION visits to date!

Females between the ages of 35 – 55 make up 50% of visitors.

1/2 of all web traffic is from the UK. Nearly 1/3rd is from the United States.

The 1940s Experiment is popular in the media especially in newspapers and magazines. CLICK HERE.

If you are interested in sponsoring me via my blog to raise money for the Royal British Legion please contact me ASAP on 1940sExperiment@gmail.com

THANK YOU 🙂

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Month without Money Challenge – Day 1

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So it’s January 1st and the beginning of a New Year and the first official day for the “Month without Money” challenge. On my FACEBOOK page and here on my blog, let’s share our successes, struggles and ideas and see how we do spending as little as possible on groceries (using up as much stuff we have languishing in our cupboards and freezers instead) and in every day life and “mend and make do”! Personally I’m pretty broke until pay day (and I’ve been very frugal over Christmas!) So every penny not spent will make a difference!

With working towards spending as little money as possible in January, I am using up veggies in the fridge (that have passed their sell by date and need using up), stuff that has been in the freezer for several months, and whatever pulses, beans and grains I have in cans and bags etc. I’m also on ‘toilet paper’ rations (does anyone know if toilet paper was rationed? I am thinking it was!) and seeing how little I can get by on so really being careful with what I’ve got!

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Veggie mince with some frozen yorkshire puddings that had been in the freezer for several months. I also found an old packet of stuffing at the back of the cupboard. This is for work lunches…

Had a productive day…

For breakfast I had 30g of porridge oats with some ground flax seed and soy milk.

For lunch I had one a meal prep meal of chilli which I made this morning. I had run out of rice so luckily found some pasta and used that instead.

For dinner I had one of the meal prep meals from yesterday with the lovely root vegetable mash followed by a slice of ‘mock apricot tart’ that I found in the freezer when I defrosted it yesterday. I served that with some custard.

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I found some slices of ‘mock apricot tart'(made with carrots) in the freezer so had some for pudding with a little custard

I’d imagine I’m now up to about 1500 cals for the day but I may sucuumb to some tinned peaches this evening!

How have you been doing? What triumphs have you had today?

Money spent on Day 1 – £0.00

C xxx

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