I haven’t ached so much in months! Another busy weekend coming up as we try and clear more space and move more stuff into the house from the storage unit! Last weekend I got my daughter moved into my home office (which is a tiny box room) and I moved my computer and desk into my bedroom. It’s a really tight squeeze but trying to make it work!

Oh did I mention that my eldest daughter Jess has come back to live with me? We got a permitted occupier permit (we rent our home) and Jess is settling in Swindon and will be with us until she is ready to move to her own place. Rent here is just so expensive, I really don’t know how people on minimum wage get by. There are many HMO’s here as renting out a room in a house is the only affordable option for many single people on a lower income.

Anyway, our house is now bursting even more with boxes and no place to store things so I’m committed to a tip run at least once a month to get rid of anything we don’t need anymore (if we can’t donate or recycle). It means being brutal and letting go but it has to be done!

My eating remains surprisingly stable. My daily 1940’s menu is often this…

Breakfast: Porridge with milled flax seed with a handful of berries thrown in OR a couple of slices of toast with Marmite OR a cooked breakfast on toast one day a week.

Lunch: Leftovers from dinner the day before OR a large salad and a sandwich

Dinner: A stew rich with beans and pulses or soy mince OR a pie with pastry OR vegetables and mashed potato with vegan sausages OR bubble and squeak

Snack in bed: A piece of fruit OR some bread and butter pudding OR a slice of bread a jam

My average grocery spend per week is around £15 but I tend to spend a bit extra here and there when I run out of condiments or when I fancy some extra veg!

C xxx

Hi all, I made a video regarding my weight-loss during the past month living 100% on a WW2 English ration book diet.

This month I’ve had my first modern day real-life challenges which I feel I managed to navigate successfully. I was invited out to meal with my work team to welcome a new member aboard. I don’t spend much time away from the house due to the fact that my youngest has some severe anxiety issues and panic disorder BUT I can’t put all my life on hold so we work things out by short periods away from the house. The restaurant was just two streets away so I went.

Living on a WW2 diet I’m committed to eating food stuffs that were available during the 1940s during the times of rationing. The restaurant we attended served curries so I went for a vegan plain vegetable curry (tomato based) with plain white rice, no naan, no poppadoms and I drank an ale. Curry was served in Britain as early as 1733 and there were curry houses in several cities during WW2 but it wasn’t until post-war Britain when Bangladeshi seamen began to buy bombed out chippies and cafes and started selling curry and rice alongside fish, pies, and chips, that curry worked it’s way firmly into British culture.

I digress….

Apart from the excitement of enjoying a curry, most of my diet has been very similar but I am thoroughly enjoying it. In addition to porridge, sandwiches, salads, stews, pies and lots of vegetables and potatoes, I’ve also baked biscuits, bread pudding and fruit cake. With hindsight, baking a cake wasn’t a good idea as my inability to resist high fat/high sugar combinations, led me to eat the whole cake within 30 minutes. This was a lesson learned to only cook small portions of treats. However, this wasn’t a complete disaster as I ensured I carried on eating plenty of main meals with lots of vegetables and potatoes and this ensured I didn’t have any cravings for the sweet stuff!

Despite this, I’m pleased to say that I lost 11 lbs this month and in two months I have lost 24 lbs (1 st 10 lbs).

C xxx