There is a new weightloss craze going on – well it appears to be new!!

That new craze is mono dieting ! This basically means that you eat just one food!! There are a few extremes – the most extreme I have read about is Bananas all day and every day until you reach your goal weight, some people have stayed on this for weeks at a time!!
The other – not quite so extreme but it is still very restricted is mono meals – say bananas for breakfast, apples for lunch and strawberries for dinner.

The more user-friendly end of the scale – but still mono diet – is where you have a single food group at each meal, say eggs for breakfast, fruit for lunch and a vegetable at night – still only one (no mixing your veggies like a salad!) This last one could work, if you really know your nutrition and you follow a very rigid plan. However, it does take all the fun out of food.

On all these programmes you will lose weight, quite simply because you will be restricting intake. However, it is not only boring, but lacking in nutritional variety. When you do a programme like this your body will let go of fat, but what it will also do, is believe that you are going into famine time. So, when you do resume eating as normal – which you will do because you will get bored – your body will save up all the excess and store it away as fat, so you end up being heavier than you were to start with.

I think it works well for some, in the short term, because it takes the choice out of what to eat, you don’t have to think about it. You just have that one food, all day every day!! But what you won’t do is learn. Learn how to eat right for YOU or how to moderate your eating so that your body stays in balance. When we are in balance we won’t over eat, plus we make good food choices because it feels good to do so.

I say in my introduction that this appears to be new, but it isn’t.
Mono dieting been a part of my dieting life – as a constant dieter from the age of 13 up until I discovered Fast Track to health 10 years ago – So, for 37 years I went through a variety of different “mono” diets. In my late teens, I tried carrot only days – yes lost weight after 5 days of only carrots, my skin also went a very appealing orangey colour!!  But once I started eating a couple of very light meals, after just 1 day my weight was back to where I started.
After a while I came across another trendy program, I went onto the fibre only diet which left me very bloated most of the time, with NO weight loss.

Then came Apple only days, result, the same as carrot. I did do this particular one many times as I thought it would work better this time and each time the same outcome! Nosuccess!

Food combining, which for those of you who don’t know is not mixing fruit, protein and carbohydrates together. This one probably isn’t considered mono dieting but it is working on the same premise. The premise is that our bodies can’t cope with all the different food groups in one meal. Well that really doesn’t make sense when you think about how we, as humans have been eating over the last few thousand years, we have always mixed, protein, fats and carbs in one meal, after all we didn’t have a choice of what to have. It was what was available

Then the next extreme was juice only (same result as carrot and apples) Did that for a month!

Need I go on – this type of eating has been around for many a year. It hasn’t stayed around because, yes it works, but it is very temporary, plus it has health repercussions that you really don’t want to experience.

I can’t prove that the extreme dieting I did as a teenager and adult had anything to do with the extreme fatigue I experienced for a very long time from my mid-twenties onwards. But it wouldn’t mind betting that it had a lot to do with it!

Because your body thinks that you have been starved, your hormonal system will be out of balance, even more than it was before you started. I believe, that, if you put on weight it is because your hormonal system is out of balance, so you are doing more harm to this vital system.

The damage that mono-fasting can do to the rest of your body includes muscle wasting, foggy brain, constipation and bloating to mention just a few.

I know there are going to be those who love this sort of eating and say they have healed themselves of a variety of ailments. Well that is what they are saying on the blurb they write. But I am not convinced! I believe we need a variety of nutritious foods to keep us healthy and energised. I am not saying that you need loads of variety in each meal. But we do need to keep those taste buds happy. If you do, cravings will go away, then we will be balanced in every way.

Plus, I don’t know about you but I love food! I love the variety I am now able to enjoy. I no longer worry about my weight, as I am balanced and if I feel myself craving my unhealthy foods. I put myself onto one of my programmes for 10 -20 days and voila I am in balance again and making healthy food choices.

How do you do that?

Well you need to change lifestyle and eating habits if you are to make lasting changes in your body.

I found that by doing intermittent fasting you get the benefits of fasting – giving your body a break from food so that your body can start the healing process by having 2 meals with a balance of protein and variety of vegetables. Have this along with 2 pieces of fruit a day and some selected nutrients you can stop overeating. We do this with our programmes, Kickstart, FastTrack2Health and Enlightened Hormones. You will learn what foods your body loves – so you can eat every day plus the ones your body is not so keen on so that you have them maybe once or twice a week.

If you would like to know more click here to contact us