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Weight loss chat

A space to talk openly about weight loss journeys and challenges. Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. You may wish to speak to a medical professional before starting any diet.

The 1950s Diet

21 replies

tiggyhop · 28/03/2014 14:11

Thinking about comments from another thread about how slim people were years ago, it struck me that I would try to give living as if I was in the 1950s a go (eating, moving and drinking, I am not embracing other aspects btw...). So if anyone wants to join me I am starting today -

  • Eating with a mind to the 1950s - rationing still on so limited sugar - no processed food, no snacks
  • Drinking with a mind to the 1950s - e.g small sherry occasionally, not half a bottle of white wine every night (I'm not really going to drink sherry, but you get my gist)
  • Moving with a mind to the 1950s - i.e under my own steam where possible. Not that easy given I live in the South US, but I'll give it a go.

Please join me, I'll update periodically as more thoughts occur to me!

OP posts:
tiggyhop · 28/03/2014 16:40

Bump - someone must want to join me!

OP posts:
babyboomersrock · 28/03/2014 17:09

I lived through the fifties, OP, so here's an example of what we ate - note, children and adults ate the same food, just different quantities.

Breakfast - boiled/scrambled egg, half slice toast with butter. Milk for children, tea for adults (no sugar, often no milk). We did have porridge if we wanted it (before the boiled egg) but it was made the Scottish way, with water and a little salt/no sugar added, so I tended to miss that.

Lunch - home made (thick) lentil soup with butter beans, a few slices of cheese. Milk or tea or water to drink. One slice of bread and butter (probably half again, for a child).

An apple when home at 4pm.

Dinner - meat (beef or lamb), potatoes, root vegetables, cabbage (lightly cooked, and chopped with butter).

Followed by pudding every night - some kind of home-baked sponge (eg Eve's Pudding) or tart with custard.

When we were older, we'd sometimes need topping up before bed - so that would be a slice of toasted cheese and more milk.

No crisps, no chips, no chocolate or sweets except on Fridays when we were taken for a two-hour walk on summer's evenings after dinner. We were allowed one small bar of chocolate (the sort of thing people would buy for a toddler now) to eat half-way round. In summer we'd also have the occasional (ie once a week) ice cream cone.

My family members were all thin by today's standards, adults and children. We didn't have a car until the mid-50s, and even then my mother shopped daily on foot - the car was only used for "outings". Going to the city meant a half hour brisk walk to the train station, and half an hour uphill when one came back laden with parcels.

Oh, and in 1950s Scotland - no booze for women!

Good luck.

RudyMentary · 28/03/2014 17:13

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RudyMentary · 28/03/2014 17:14

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missmysexybody · 28/03/2014 17:22

I will join you. Im fed up of being overweight after DC & not being able to get back my pre-pregnancy size 8 figure. My youngest is 18 months and Im a stuck at size 14! I cannot continue following the pathetic Govt guidelines (of 2000 Calories per day). Im just growing. . . outwards . . .everywhere and it aint pleasant.

If this is what it takes to be slim again then so be it.

Great thread - best of luck.

babyboomersrock · 28/03/2014 17:49

Seriously, what we did was eat very small quantities of carbohydrate. Lots of protein, so we never felt ravenously hungry, though you were expected to feel hungry by mealtimes.

I despair when I see advice on here to consume lots of carbs when breastfeeding, for example - cake isn't what you need. Try meat/cheese/eggs instead, with vegetables - you'll feel better, and you won't get fat.

2whippetsnobed · 28/03/2014 18:12

I think the other major difference is the size of the portions and the size of the crockery. My granny had very small dinner plates and pudding bowls. Half the size of the crockery in my cupboards.

DebbieOfMaddox · 28/03/2014 18:32

Wasn't protein still heavily rationed until the middle of 1954?

tiggyhop · 28/03/2014 19:28

Ooh thanks very much for the replies and in particular Babyboomerstock's perspective on life in the 50s. I think 2 whippets is right about the size of the portions and the size of the crockery. I also think there was a greater awareness about making things last generally and that included both using up and being more sparing with things (if that makes sense).

Sweet rationing ended in 1953 and meat in 1954.

Rough amounts per week were (it fluctuated):

Sweets 12 oz (340 g) (per month)
Sugar 1 lb (unclear whether this was per week or per month)
Bacon and Ham 4 oz (113 g)
Margarine 4 oz (113 g)
Butter 2 oz (57 g)
Loose Tea 2 oz (57 g)
Lard 2 oz (57 g)
Cheese 2 oz (57 g)

But this isn't really about rationing, it's about thinking back to a different time, (and not just with rose-tinted glasses at all) but treating food in particular very differently, because it just wasn't as cheap and abundant as it is now.

OP posts:
DebbieOfMaddox · 28/03/2014 19:39

Yes, I'm just interested in babyboomersrock's recollection that they ate lots of protein, when my impression had been that in the early 1950s at least that wasn't really an option because of rationing. I wondered whether there was some good unrationed protein source or if there was under-the-counter trading going on.

specialsubject · 28/03/2014 20:44

babyboomers, the advice to eat carbs does not mean guzzling cake. It assumes that people paid sufficient attention in school to know the difference between complex carbs (good, slow release) and simple sugars. Veg contains complex carbs.

as for the thread - eating less and moving more. Check out the rations.

TortoiseshellMillie · 28/03/2014 21:05

I found this blog-looks interesting! Not sure if the link will work... 1940sexperiment.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/wartime-cauliflower-cheese-with-bacon/

That link seems to go to one of the recipes, but there is lots of information on the home link x

tiggyhop · 28/03/2014 22:44

Specialsubject - exactly, eating less and moving more. It isn't rocket science but i am thinking more of trying to adopt a 50s mindset - particularly with regards to alcohol and processed food

OP posts:
babyboomersrock · 29/03/2014 00:29

We lived with my grandpa who kept hens and grew vegetables (while working down the pit) - I suppose that helped. Bacon was not regarded as proper meat - more of a rare treat - so it was mainly mince or stewed steak. Oh, and fish. Herring and haddock. I was born in the late forties, so my memories may be of the mid-fifties, of course.

I do remember fruit being regarded as a huge treat too; vegetables were a daily occurrence but fruit tended to be an apple or a banana. Cod liver oil, Virol (for Vit B?) and "clinic orange juice" was force-fed each evening.

It's possible that we were luckier than most. My mother had a business (not food) so there were three wages coming in, and my mother was a good cook and baker. I did know children at school who weren't fed so well.

As someone else said, plates were smaller - I recently bought some new side plates, and even they are enormous.

And specialsubject - the only reason I mentioned cake was that invariably when someone mentions calorie intake while breastfeeding, another poster will say it's a great excuse to eat cake.

I know not all carbs are bad, but there is something far wrong with many people's perceptions of healthy food today. Education about healthy eating is patently not working or we would not have the obesity problems we have.

Elefant1 · 30/03/2014 15:05

This sounds very interesting, I don't need to loose much weight (about half a stone) but if I keep going the way I am it will be more! My dinners aren't too bad as I have a gluten intolerance so can't eat much processed food but lunches and snacking are my downfall. I should be able to eat a lot of 1940s food.

bruffin · 30/03/2014 15:08

I thimk you have to remember that in those days most people didnt have central heating. We use a lot of calories just keeping warm.

morethanpotatoprints · 30/03/2014 15:13

Housework was really a chore with no gadgets to make life easier as we have today.
Will you be pulling carpets up and beating them outside. washing was done with a twin tub if you were lucky and a mangel. Ironing was an iron placed into the fire to heat, no electric ones.
washing up by hand, no dishwashers.
I think the slimmer waists were due to this, not diet.

FairPhyllis · 30/03/2014 15:28

Do you remember that Channel 4 programme that recreated a 1950s grammar school? All the kids lost weight despite eating a lot of sponge pudding and custard - probably because they had very little processed food and did a lot of games.

I read recently that during the war the average civilian diet (unless you were in a job where you were given extra rations) was about 1500 cals a day. So by the mid 50s it might have been somewhere around 1700 cals?

specialsubject · 31/03/2014 10:41

babyboomers quite right - as seen repeatedly on here with all those who are devotees of the diet industry 'it works for me, I use it whenever I get fat', those who eat low-fat foods, those who don't know the difference between good carbs and cake, those who believe in juicing, detox, celeb diets, etc etc...

we have universal education, but it appears that so many are just not listening.

keeponkeepinon · 06/04/2014 08:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

brettgirl2 · 06/04/2014 11:25

Its about portion sizes in my opinion. It doesn't really matter what you eat in terms of weight as long as you don't eat too much.

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