Friday, June 22, 2012

Fruit Detox Report

We all can remember that gluten free sucks, right?  Also right now Fruitarian is all the rage.  I really like seeing the trend towards more whole, natural foods and away from processed stuff.  I've been finding and reading a lot of blogs about whole, raw, & fruit based eating, and it's getting really interesting.  So I've decided to try a little experiment with Mondays.
Supposedly this is from 1917, stole it from facebook
 The fruitarian picks one fruit and eats only that fruit each day.  His theory is that in nature you wouldn't visit a peach orchard and an apple orchard in the same day.  So he buys his groceries in bulk from a restaurant supplier, has 4 refrigerators at home, and stocks them heavily with fresh fruit.  Today's eats might consist solely of a 40 lb watermelon.  Tomorrow might be 10 lbs of apples.  He eats massive quantities of fruit every day, all raw and natural.  And he wins 100 mile ultramarathons.  We cannot question his methods.

Scott Jurek's new book Eat & Run is getting very popular, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.  He promotes a vegan lifestyle with proper training and he's been winning ultra's for years now.  I will read this before my first ultra in December.

I also found this great documentary called Pure Fruit if you've got an hour to watch it.

I'm totally sick of reading Wheat Belly, but determined to finish this incredibly boring read.  It does a really good job of putting me to sleep at night, but the theories are sound and medically based.

If you choose to eat nothing but fruit as a lifestyle, that's called Fruitarianism.  Fruitarianism also allows some nuts and seeds.  If you stick to only fruits for 1-3 days, it's called a "fruit fast", and if you only go all fruit for one day it's known as a "fruit detox".  I'm going to start taking Mondays as Fruit Detox days, starting this week.

You learn different things trying a fruit detox like this.  I decided to take the Fruitarian's approach and start out with an apple day.  Figuring that you could have multiple varieties of apples in the same orchard, I went out Sunday night and bought a shitload of apples. 

There is no concept of timed breakfast, lunch and dinner when you eat all fruit.  You just eat more fruit whenever you feel like it. I still drank coffee all day.  I still drank a bunch of water.  But whenever I got hungry I grabbed another apple.  Monday night I hit the gym for some weightlifting and an hour on the stationary bike, just like every other monday.  The workout just happened to be fueled on apple power.

I also learned that apples are very acidic.  Towards the end of the day my teeth really started to hurt when biting into the apple.  So I switched to a banana before and after the workout, and had some nuts about 10 pm as well.  Overall I still ate about 2000 calories on the day.  Aside from the painful teeth there were really no negative effects.  But on the positive side, we can start by comparing weights:

MMNW: 184.8 lbs, 22.7% body fat
Tuesday's MNW: 181.4 lbs, 20.8% bf

When you multiply that out, I lost 4.2 lbs of pure body fat, and 3.4 lbs overall so I must have retained some water.  But that was only in one day!  One day people!  The theory is that when you only take in food that contains less than 5% fat, the "you are what you eat" rule dictates that you will then have less than 5% fat.  The effects were residual too, as 181.4 is the highest I've weighed since tuesday morning.  I went right back to eating natural, unprocessed foods for the rest of the week. So that fat melted off of me and has stayed off so far.

So I was full the whole day, ate as much as I wanted to, ate constantly the whole day, had plenty of energy, got in a great workout, and melted away bodyfat.  What would I change?

I still don't want to try and sustain eating only fruit all the time.  For a one day detox it worked great, and I'm really looking forward to next monday.  But one day a week is enough.  Eating only one type of fruit for the whole day is also a really bad choice.  I got so sick of apples by the end, ugh.  I can see having a primary fruit with some secondary stuff to back it up.  But you need more variety in the day than just that.  It's supposed to be seasonal fruit anyway.  Apples were a bad choice for the one fruit I was limited to, they are really too acidic.

I'm already looking forward to doing this again next monday.  You never know, I might just eat 30 bananas.  But mango's are in season right now too, and the berries are starting to come in.  So there will be a variety of fruit, and we'll have to see how that detox turns out.

10 comments:

Rose @ Eat, Drink, and Be Meiri said...

I'm pretty sure it's not possible to lose that much body fat in one day, scientifically speaking.

Also, Fruitarianism seems like a great way to shit your pants.

Not to be Captain Skeptical. But, yeah.

Carly said...

Interesting. That is one I cannot try because I am allergic to most fruits and nuts.

I agree with you about the Wheat Belly book. the whole book could be summed up into about 2 chapters.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Eat & Run right now and I really like it. A) his life story is relatable to me since we both have handicapped moms, and B) the recipes are really interesting and I can't wait to try them.

I have currently pulled my daughter off wheat and it seems to helping that whole shitting her pants problem.

I could easily eat a mix of fruit all day, but no way could I eat the same exact one.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Eat & Run right now and I really like it. A) his life story is relatable to me since we both have handicapped moms, and B) the recipes are really interesting and I can't wait to try them.

I have currently pulled my daughter off wheat and it seems to helping that whole shitting her pants problem.

I could easily eat a mix of fruit all day, but no way could I eat the same exact one.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Eat & Run right now and I really like it. A) his life story is relatable to me since we both have handicapped moms, and B) the recipes are really interesting and I can't wait to try them.

I have currently pulled my daughter off wheat and it seems to helping that whole shitting her pants problem.

I could easily eat a mix of fruit all day, but no way could I eat the same exact one.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Eat & Run right now and I really like it. A) his life story is relatable to me since we both have handicapped moms, and B) the recipes are really interesting and I can't wait to try them.

I have currently pulled my daughter off wheat and it seems to helping that whole shitting her pants problem.

I could easily eat a mix of fruit all day, but no way could I eat the same exact one.

Unknown said...

I'm reading Eat & Run right now and I really like it. A) his life story is relatable to me since we both have handicapped moms, and B) the recipes are really interesting and I can't wait to try them.

I have currently pulled my daughter off wheat and it seems to helping that whole shitting her pants problem.

I could easily eat a mix of fruit all day, but no way could I eat the same exact one.

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

That is interesting! I would be SO sick of apples by the end of the day, too. Those results are pretty impressive, though. It will be interesting to see how much you lose when you do this on Monday again!

Calyx Meredith said...

My body feels best when I eat fruit and only fruit until noon - but it is a bit of a chore for me. I'm one of those weirdos who is salt oriented and fruit is either too sweet or too sour for me to truly like. I could eat vegetables all day long - and frequently do :) - but not fruit. I also question the eating only one kind of fruit at a time idea based on the fact that we wouldn't naturally or easily or whatever visit different orchards all in one day. My mom grew up in Southern California and they had like six different types of fruit in their back yard! (Oranges, strawberries, apricots, plums and I think something like nectarines and pomegranates - but I don't quite remember - possibly my mother's pomegranate obsession came later in life.) Anyway - all that fiber and water and nutrient dense stuff is way more better for you than cheetos and cookie dough. I will be interested to see how the Monday plan goes forward!

hebba said...

i just saw "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" and have been considering a fast in my upcoming vcation