Supersizers Go
I was in college when the Supersize Me movie came out. At the time you could get your meal at McDonalds "super sized" For 39 cents extra. You got a bigger coke and fries for a few pennies. They would ask you after you ordered if you would like to supersize the meal. Spurlock's whole bit was eating McDonalds for breakfast/lunch/dinner for one month to see what would happen to his body. If the McDonalds worker asked if he wanted it supersized he had to say yes. Not surprisingly, his health was in shambles by the end of it. Unfortunately for him, and the experiment, we have no idea how much damage was caused by the diet and how much was Spurlock's alcoholism.
Cut to 2007 and a new, far more entertaining version of this experiment was created by the BBC. Supersizers Go. Rather than have the hosts throw back burgers and fries every day, they would spend a week eating, drinking, sleeping, and dressing the part of some historic time period in the UK. They do their best to be as period correct as they can for each episode.
Each episode began with the hosts, Giles Coren and Sue Perkins, heading to their local doctors office for a checkup. They would get the standard weight and bloodwork done to establish a baseline. Then they would meet up at some historic location - a Victorian house, a castle, a house from the 40's, and get started. They would have to wear period accurate clothing, eat period accurate food, and perform common tasks that someone their age or status would have done for one week. Sue has to wear massive dresses and corsets, Giles has to wear a codpiece and silly hats.
Once they arrive at the location and are dressed, a huge table of food is laid out to show what they would be eating and drinking for the week. Some episodes like the Regency period would have grand feasts while others like WW2 would be examples of war rationing. The 1970's had TV dinners and instant pudding. The Medieval episode was void of coffee, tea, or even water. More than one episode required them to drink small beer and wine only for the week.
The results were wild. Some episodes had such poor food options that they lost weight despite drinking all day and eating meat. Other episodes had them gaining weight due to eating tons of food and not leaving the estate for a week. The show brought in chefs to prepare the meals according to the original recipes and methods from the time period.
If you're a fan of Bake Off, Mary Berry cooks for them during the WW2 and 1950's episodes. The scroll down visuals of the menu for each meal is narrated along with drawings of the dishes similar to the way Bake Off shows what the cakes are supposed to look like before the bakers attempt them.
By the end of the week the hosts would go back to their doctor and have all the same tests run again to see how well their bodies did with the diet and lifestyle. Not being able to drink water or tea/coffee during certain episodes left them dehydrated and irritated. Drastic changes in their diet did have effects.
Because this was filmed in 2007, having political polar opposites host a show wasn't as big of a deal. Coren and Perkins would bicker and poke fun at each other the entire episode not unlike the married couple they were typically playing in the episode. After a bottle of port for breakfast everyone is your best friend. I doubt they speak to each other these days, but watching the two of them attempt to eat boiled sheep heads or jellied eels while dressed like they are in a Jane Austen novel is peak television.
Because I'm in the US, I can only watch it on bootleg uploads from YouTube, but it's worth the watch.