I have to admit to doing something a little extreme recently. I am not going to recommend it to anyone as I can’t confirm any scientific grounding to it and have heard both good and bad opinions surrounding it. All I will say is I thought that I really wanted to try it and was pretty certain it wouldn’t do me any real harm but hopefully might actually do me some good. So I took a long time weighing up the options and I did a LOT of research and investigation before undertaking this which I would advise anyone else interested in the idea to do the same. After this caveat I will stop being so cryptic and get down to business. So what was it that I did…….a three day mono diet where I only ate apples!
The idea is that eating only one item stops the feeding of the bad bacteria in your stomach and gut and kills them off letting the good bacteria flourish whilst at the same time letting your intestines cleanse themselves. I think it is supposed to take a lot of the pressure off your digestive system and give it a chance to recuperate whilst also getting rid of anything that gets stuck in the folds and creases of your intestines. As you can tell I am no doctor, and definitely no expert, but over the last few years I have experienced so much bloating after eating and sluggish digestion that after taking loads of pills and yoghurts and live bacteria and every other supplement that is supposed to help remedy this I decided to try the mono diet and see if it worked. I had read in many places that the best choice of food was apples when undertaking this diet as they have the best cleansing properties and for me personally there is such a selection of flavours ranging from sweet to sour I decided that I would get the least bored over the three days.
So I set off to the supermarket and searched for as many organic apples as I could find as everyone advised not to use pesticide covered apples for obvious reasons. I will admit that I got a mixture of the two as the selection of organic was not as great as I would have hoped and I would just do a lot of washing and polishing hoping to remove as many nasties as possible. I literally had a huge bag full with every flavour and type of apple you could imagine and returned home ready to begin the experiment. I awoke the next day and began devouring apples from the offset as the idea is to not get hungry and then crave food and miss eating as that makes you much more likely to give up. Obviously all I could drink was water, green tea or apple juice in this period too but only fresh apple juice without any addition of sugar or even citric acid. One point I will make is that it is highly advisable to attempt this mono diet on days where you are not too busy so you are not risking exhaustion at work or promotion after years of hard strife!
However I will say that I actually didn’t feel that bad at any point throughout the three days. I actually felt quite light and fresh and kept energised by the apples. I made sure to stay very well hydrated all the time and to keep my hunger at bay by continually snacking all day rather than having set meals of apples. My boyfriend was still going to meetings and doing work and he also never felt too exhausted but did have a hard time walking past fast food restaurants pumping their smells into the street!
The main ramifications we noticed after the three days was that our ahem……unmentionables…….had changed consistency quite dramatically and seemed to be far closer to how the descriptions of the most healthy………unmentionables……should be! This lead me to believe that the experience was really worthwhile. I have noticed that since going back to a normal diet my portion size has decreased as I think my stomach shrank slightly. I am also now much more put off by any food that is oily, fatty, or generally unhealthy. All I have been craving to eat now has been healthy vegetables and what I can only describe as clean food. Even when I had some fried chicken the other day I just didn’t want it even though it was proper homemade organic fried chicken which normally I would adore as a very naughty cheat meal! Whilst undertaking my research I read that a lot of people felt nauseous or had headaches throughout the 3 days but I didn’t experience any ill effects whatsoever and didn’t find the 3 days any where near as hard as people had predicted. Even with the mixture of apple flavours I did get a little bored of eating them the entire time as you can imaging but another great point to them is that you can diversify the cooking somewhat. It is totally fine if you cook them in oven or make stewed apples just to give yourself a different consistency and break up the monotony.
I really do think this three day cleanse helped my digestion quite a lot but I still feel like only about 50% cleansed and want to repeat the process in about 6 months. However as I have stated I have no scientific proof or anything except anecdotal evidence to base this on. After the 3 days it is recommended to avoid eating any animal proteins for at least another 3 days. It seems that once the digestive system clears then it is much better at extracting both the good and the bad from the food that you eat. Therefore it is advised that you try to eat as healthily as possible for as long as possible to cleanse your entire body. I really found that i didn’t miss meat at all and didn’t actually eat any for more than a week. Even now lots of things I enjoyed before the cleanse I seem to have gone off quite a lot, particularly sugar and sweet things as well as oily greasy foods and meat in general. I must note that I didn’t feel this amazing sense of happiness and well being that many others claimed to experience after this process but all I will say in regards to that is I know how powerful the placebo effect is and perhaps this was playing it’s part. Some of the reports seemed to be wildly over exaggerated to the point of disbelief.
If you do want to try the same then I would love to hear about your experiences but as always with things like this please do consult with your doctor first as I don’t want any irate family members coming after me if you pass out from malnutrition. Tell me what you found and how it went so perhaps we can get a bit closer to ascertaining if this truly does help your digestion and general well being.