i was reading carrie's blog and her watermelon day struck me as something i should do. lots of reasons. i love watermelon. monomeals appeal but i never seem to build them into my weekly food plan so a day set aside would make that easier. i know i'm eating too much dense and fatty food and waaaay too much cooked has slipped in the past two weekends. a one day cleanse sounds just the ticket.
monomeals
also called mono-eating, a monomeal is a meal of one type of food. it doesn't have to be fruit though it very often is. the theory behind it combines basic raw food 'give your digestion a break' plus natural hygiene's food combining for digestive health. by eating just one type of food at a time your body only has to use one set of digestive enzymes to digest the food, so lightening the load on your digestion. you know people say eat melon alone or leave it alone? that's the principle. some foods combine well, others don't. it's a bit fussy, and cuts out some fabulous tasting combinations (like mandarins and walnuts at christmas but also cheese on toast is out, as are egg and chips, i'm afraid) i have to admit i don't pay much attention to it myself, but i know that i should...
fruit fasting
this is something i first came across in leslie kenton's raw energy - my introduction to raw food, some 19 (OMG, that long! next year, i'll have to celebrate) years ago. she talked about apple fasting, where you consumed nothing but apples for a whole day, once a week. you could juice them, shred them, eat them whole, whatever you wanted. i tried this shortly after i read about it and had such horrendous detox that i never did it again. but it's a short and effective cleanse for those who need it but can't go for long periods, as with a juicefast/juicefeast.
cleansing
is a fabulous way of righting yourself after straying. i've had a family weekend where, despite best efforts, while eating out part of my meal was cooked food. then i had a hankering for a couple of dishes from my cooked repertoire so, rather than pick around them, i gave in and made them. i sometimes find trying to resist a particular food tempts me to pick at similar foods so i might as well just satisfy the craving and be done with it. i'm having mostly raw most days, with a regular day looking respectably balanced except for the nuts, seeds and oils: i made crackers, bought some nut-based cake and have been indulging in rich, oil-based dressings. that's not how i want to eat as a rule, so i need to keep myself in check. any kind of cleansing pulls you back towards lighter foods, so that's another reason to monomeal.
watermelon
why choose watermelon, of all the yummy fruits out there? hmmm. when i read carrie's blog it felt right to me. she very kindly answered my question as to why she'd chosen watermelon with an in-depth study of this amazing fruit. check it out here.
so, in time-honoured fashion, i list what i ate today:
3/4 small watermelon, chopped
1 large watermelon, juiced
1/4 small watermelon, chopped
mid-morning i started to get a headache and was feeling a bit miserable because my back's aching (chiro tomorrow, hurray!) so i treated myself to my last chunk of conscious chocolate's amaaaaazing love potion no. 9. that made me feel a whole lot better! then in the evening i ate a few forkfuls of booyaa's veggie paella, which was silly and i could have/should have walked away. i guess i still haven't sorted out the whole craving thing. hmmm.
would i do it again?
i sure will. going to aim for a weekly mono-eating day. and next time, no paella binges. no promises i won't have some raw chocolate though ;)
