food diary

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£ 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
Dinner – Lentil 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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Wartime food diary – 7 days

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I had Anna ask me on Facebook today if I could post a few days worth of what I would typically eat when I am having a good week and sticking to my wartime rationing eating plan.

A while back I did a 7 day food diary with blips and all so thought incase you missed it I’d re-post the links to each day below. During that week I lost 5lbs too which was a bonus!

I always rely on quite a lot of quantity in my daily eating, I LOVE my veggies and lots of them so do eat a lot of large salads and stews BUT I have to say that a big meat pie (in my case a meat substitute like Quorn mince) with mashed potatoes, veggies and gravy is one of my favourite dishes.

The total cost of all my weeks food (not including electric and cups of tea) was under £15 but that was not really having any desserts as I don’t often eat those, maybe just once a week!

Food Diary Day 1 – click here
Food Diary Day 2 – click here
Food Diary Day 3 – click here
Food Diary Day 4 – click here
Food Diary Day 5 – click here
Food Diary Day 6 – click here
Food Diary Day 7 – click here

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