Thought I’d share some of the symptoms I experienced with the Coronavirus and how Covid-19 ( Omicron ) impacted me as a 56 year old morbidly obese woman. In addition to my 1940s WW2 recipes YouTube channel, I have a channel where I focus on my own personal struggles with obesity.
My name is C. I am a morbidly obese woman, 56 year young and I reduced my weight from around 350 lbs to below 300 lbs 10 years ago and my weight has meandered between 228 lbs and 298 lbs ever since. My goal is to get below 200 lbs in a healthy, sustainable way and stay there forever. My typical pattern is success, failure, dust myself off, get back up again, rinse and repeat but I WILL succeed eventually!
I rarely use my blog for business. My blog is a warts and all, diary of life with little editing, but rather a raw, emotional journey plus WW2 recipe recreation during times when life is less overwhelming. Escapism if you like.
Beyond my blog I do work hard (as many of us do!!) and earn a living as a full-time marketing executive AND I do freelance work in my spare time (usually weekends and mostly instead of watching TV or going out anywhere) to pay the extortionate home rental rates here in the South-West (50% of my take home pay is rent but cannot even afford a flat to buy!) I moved to Wiltshire in January 2020 to be close to my parents, into a job that paid me significantly less than my last one up North (but now matches what I used to earn so that is great!) and as the only wage earner in our household, to me it is so important not to rely on one singular form of income. The extra £100 here and there from writing business articles or creating social posts/content keeps my youngest (25 year old) daughter and I with a roof over our heads. Just in case a comment is dropped below about my daughter, there are significant reasons why she is unable to work and a lot of the time I work from home to be her support but as you can understand the full details are private to her xxxxx
ANYWAY, I digress. I just wanted to put this out here that after Christmas, I would like to take on another client or two, I anticipate my rent to rise shortly and like everyone else, the cost of living is impacting. I charge £100 for up to a 1000 word researched and SEO optimised business article.
Stronghold Global are one of most recent businesses I have been working with to create SEO optimised short articles for their website and brochures. You can see some examples below. Please contact me if you are looking for articles or blog content for your business. As long as you’re not an ISO Consultancy (my day job and won’t accept anything that conflicts with this) we are good!
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Dear all, I’m out of the other side of finally getting the Coronavirus a couple of weeks ago and feeling much better. I had good intentions of starting my ration book Christmas recipes earlier than now but I felt so exhausted and poorly that all I could do was sleep lots and feel sorry for myself! BUT better late than never and this weekend it’s Christmas cake time!
I thought it might be fun to share our attempts at making traditional Christmas cakes using WW2 ration book recipes so I’ve enclosed some random photos of Christmas cakes I found plus clippings of WW2 recipes that might help!
I’ll be doing a vegan, eggless Christmas cake and making mock marzipan also and will likely decorate mine with some greenery from the garden, similar to the photos I found. I’m not sure whether to use regular icing sugar or not. It wasn’t really available during the times of rationing BUT we do know that in early years of rationing people still had supplies of icing sugar stashed away so that’s good enough for me. I REALLY want to do a snow scene with real icing sugar!!!
If you’d like to share a photo of what 1940s Christmas Cake recipe you’ve made please email me at 1940sexperiment@gmail.com and I’ll share it on my blog with a link to your blog or website if you like!
Much love, C xxx
I’m not so sure of the dates or country origins of the recipe clippings below but thought it would be nice to share them regardless!
Good morning! It’s 6 am and before I’ve had my morning coffee I thought I MUST add this post and share with you a free download of a 1942 cook book issued by the Board of Education and published by H.M Stationary Office and sold for 3D.
Here is an interesting blog I came across today after a quick conversation on Facebook messenger with “General Whiskers” who is a reenactor! For anyone interested in living history this seems like a great blog to bookmark!
I should start by explaining that as I begin this diet I am having to use up some perishables from my fridge and larder. Some of these items were not available in 1944, like bananas and fruit-flavoured yoghurt. These items will not be replaced while the experiment continues.
Yesterday, from my weekly ration I used: Tea, 2 bags (9%); Milk, 87ml (5%); Meat, 105g (19%); Butter & Margarine, 10g (6%). I have amalgamated the 60g of butter and 120g of margarine allowance because I eat vegetable spread for health reasons.
I have not touched my single egg or my cheese ration.
In addition I consumed the following “off-ration” items: 2 large potatoes, 1 apple, a little lettuce and cucumber (out of season?), an apple, a banana (unavailable) and half a tin of baked beans. I have as yet not discovered if tinned beans were rationed, only that they were considered…
Thank you to Mark Norris and Newquay Zoo who kindly donated a wonderful collection of original WW2 newspaper clippings and cookery pamphlets and books.
Quote: “The World War Zoo Gardens research project, schools workshops and allotment at Newquay Zoo ran from 2009 to 2019 (from the 70th to the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2).”
I’m thrilled to have received this collection and am looking forward to photographing, scanning and sharing the complete collection digitally for all.
C xxx
PS: Check out Marks “Wartime Diaries” research. This is an AMAZING slice of social history!
Pictured, part of our original wartime life collection at Newquay Zoo including recipe books
The World War Zoo Gardens research project, schools workshops and allotment at Newquay Zoo ran from 2009 to 2019 (from the 70th to the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2).
I wanted to explore what we could learn for the future from how zoos, their staff, visitors and animals survived the challenges of wartime life and rations.
Whilst this occasional research blog remains, along with my wartime diaries research, we have been steadily rehoming some of our original 1940s research materials, prior to a building move at Newquay Zoo.
The 1940's Experiment 