For my video I have recorded everything I have eaten for 4 days living on WW2 rations including breaking every meal down by calories.

I try not to count calories but the last two months my weight loss has slowed quite a bit so I’ve tracked my calories for several days. Actually making a visual record of everything you put in your mouth is an excellent way of making you think before you eat something because you have to pull your phone out to take a photo.

I’m not restricting in any way at all.

This journey for me is about:

a) Recording what impact living on a WW2 Ration Book diet has on my health (and weight)

b) Removing bingeing and overeating from my life by filling my diet with lots of nutritious wholefoods and reducing Ultra Processed Foods

It’s been 10 months since I’ve binged.

This has literally been one of the best positive things about living on WW2 rations. I haven’t binged in 10 months! I can’t really explain what a relief this has been. I had felt very much out of control and overeating or bingeing was happening 3 or 4 times a week. Not only was this making me feel horribly sluggish with increasingly bad headaches but the mental/emotional turmoil of dealing with the aftermath (which is typically guilt and disgust and quite honestly, a failure) has gone.

The other plus is that my back pain has gone (it was crushingly AWFUL), my hip pains are mostly gone and my knee pains have decreased significantly… and hopefully these will continue to improve as I move towards a physically healthier BMI.

So how did the calories break down over the 4 days?

• Sunday = 2050
• Monday = 1660
• Tuesday = 1600
• Wednesday = 1400
• + 15 mugs of tea = 375

Grand total = 7085 /4 = 1771 average cal. per day

I’ll be doing my monthly weigh in next weekend and then it’s just two months to go!

C xxxx

10 months into living on WW2 rations, it’s been a rollercoaster, quite honestly it’s been a looong time.

Luckily for me, as I was unpacking some old boxes (yep, 3 years after moving in), I found an old shirt I bought several years ago. During that period of time my weight had spiralled up again, I may have been over 300 lbs again. All I know is I bought the shirt for wearing it to the office, it was the biggest size they did and it NEARLY fit (but not quite). I put it aside in the hope it would soon fit properly.

Somewhere between all the house moves since returning back to the UK in 2013 (there have been 4 moves) it got put in a box and stayed there. We’ve moved so often I rarely unpack all my boxes.

Finding the shirt brought forth a myriad of conflicting emotions, especially when I tried it on. Delight and relief that the shirt was now so big, but also recognition of the physical and emotional pain that I was going through during that time. Medicating oneself with food IS A THING, I know it, don’t tell me it isn’t. These actions aren’t about greed or gluttony. The food (especially the Ultra Processed Foods) were the drugs that quietened my mind, that made me calm down, that gave me that comforting hug, just as someone might reach for alcohol, or opiates or a joint.

For me, reaching out and eating vast quantities of “Ultra Processed Foods”, soon became an addiction and has been something I’ve struggled with for nearly 30 years. It waxes and it wanes, it never disappears but sometimes it takes a vacation. It always comes back home though.

Living for the past 10 months on a diet that is mostly whole foods, and very little Ultra Processed Foods has seen the addiction take an extended holiday. I feel happiness, the physical and mental pain is dissipating, I feel stronger and I want more from life that I did in January.

I’m REALLY going to make these final TWO MONTHS of the 1940s Experiment count!

C xxxxx