Woman who followed a 1940s diet ration diet for a week reveals how she lost 5Ibs and it changed her relationship with food forever
Hannah Hall, from Nottingham, East Midlands, who fell in love with the 1940s after watching wartime films with her late grandfather, Henry, often shares nostalgic and educational YouTube videos on her channel Real Vintage Dolls House of life during wartime Britain.
In one of her latest clips, Hannah decided to do an experiment, to follow a WWII style rationed diet for a week.
The content creator swapped takeaways and mindless snacking for limited ingredients and small portions, but the results were surprising.
After eight days, she shed 5Ibs, felt more energetic, and completely transformed the way she saw food.
Armed with a 1940's ration book replica and a week's worth of basics, Hannah planned out exactly what she was going to eat for eight days.
From toast and jam for breakfast, egg and soldiers for lunch and corned beef fritters for dinner, Hannah was surprised by the small portion sizes.
She explained that in the food restriction era a UK adult would of had a weekly allowance for four ounces of bacon and ham, two ounces of butter, two ounces of cheese, four ounces of margarine, three pints of milk, eight ounces of sugar, four ounces of jam, two ounces of loose teas leafs (which equates to around 25 tea bags), one egg, and three ounces of sweets.
She explained: 'I have planned this diet out meticulously to see if I display any changes.'
At first, Hannah revealed the portions felt small and she often went to bed a little hungry, but as the days went on, she found herself adjusting and even enjoying the structure and discipline.
On day one she had a breakfast of porridge and apple, for lunch she eat jam on toast and she opted for Spam hash.
At the start of day she added: 'I've noticed is that I'm definitely, hungrier than I would usually be at this time, we're only on day two, but I do feel hungrier than usual.'
Hannah had porridge again for breakfast with an apple, tomato soup with bread and butter for her lunch and she had left over Spam hash for dinner.
She added: 'I've noticed a theme, and that is stodgy, carby, big dinners to kind of keep you going but eating quite small throughout the day.'
By day three she added: 'I don't know if this is like a placebo effect or just because I've had a recent change to my diet but I feel like I've got a lot more energy, like last night I got so much more done than I usually would have and this morning I found it a lot easier to get up, like I was awake before my alarm even went off.
'I'm still hungry but it's like a manageable level of hunger.'
She explained that in the food restriction era a UK adult would of had a weekly allowance for four ounces of bacon and ham, two ounces of butter, two ounces of cheese, four ounces of margarine, three pints of milk, eight ounces of sugar, four ounces of jam, two ounces of loose teas leafs (which equates to around 25 tea bags), one egg, and three ounces of sweets
For day three she had her porridge and apple again, leftover Spam hash for lunch and a bacon sandwich with one sweet for dinner.
Hannah even managed to make a roast dinner for herself using the rations on the Sunday and she even used some of the ingredients to make a sweet treat cake.
At the end of the eight day experiment, the content creator revealed she had eight tea bags left, a small bit of jam, no milk, no meat and no butter.
She said: 'I understand why people would wake up early to collect rations, by now I would be very ready to go and collect the next batch of rations.'
Reflecting on her experience, Hannah said the results took her completely by surprise.
She explained that she had not only lost 5 Ibs in weight, with zero exercise or gym, but she also got used to feeling hungry again, she started to enjoy cooking again and became conscious of what she was eating.
She revealed that she didn't waste any food and eat lots of carbs with little protein but she had more energy than she usually would.
She explained: 'I feel like this challenge has taught me a lot about my relationship with food particularly cooking and it's made me realise that I probably don't cook from scratch enough.
'I've gotten used to feeling hungry throughout the day, it's not an unmanageable level of hunger but I do feel hungry and where I may have just grabbed a snack before, I've kind of had to discipline myself to kind of work my way through the hunger.
'It made me very conscious about what I was eating and what I was actually putting into my body and I think cooking from scratch really helped with that because you know exactly what is going into your food and because everything was planned out, and I was very organised with it, I was really really conscious about what I was actually eating.
'I had to be inventive because I had so little to work with it, which made me not waste, I didn't waste a morsel of food, every inch of food I was scraping to make sure I used all of it and that's something that is a take-home point for me, that I didn't waste a thing, anything that I didn't use or I had too much of would have been used the next day.
'I was a lot more conscious about not throwing literally anything away which I think is something I'd like to adopt a lot more in my life in general.
'There's not a lot of protein in a ration and wartime diet that's one thing I've realised there's a lot of carbohydrates in the evening, which makes sense because they're slow burning so they keep you going but there is a distinct lack of protein.'
Finally she concluded: 'I would the ration diet gave me a lot more energy, which I did not expect, I had more energy in the last eight days than I usually do.
'I could stay up later, I could get up earlier I had the drive to get more things done and that was a really big surprise and I don't really know the science behind that but that is something I noticed.'
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