Barely four months into her marriage, Srishti Arora found the clothes from her trousseau no longer fit. Frustrated by her weight gain, she consulted Insta-famous health coach Gunjan Taneja on changing her unhealthy food choices. A couple of weeks of strict dieting after, she plateaud. Taneja then suggested a secret weapon – the mono diet. She told Arora to eat only moong dal based dishes for all three meals. The logic behind her advice: “Mono diets can be helpful to keep the scale moving when it stops.”
The idea is simple: to eat only one type of food per meal or even per day. “Mono diets are body-stimulating diets where you eat a single type of food for one day or a couple of days,” describes Kanika Malhotra, weight loss expert, nutritionist, and founder of healthastronomy.
“Mono diets limit the calorie intake and may boost the metabolic rate to go higher, which leads to weight loss in the short term.” Rahul Kamra, a keto coach and founder of Ketorets, adds that the concept is based on digestive simplicity, which is the idea that the body processes single foods more efficiently when it doesn’t have to deal with the complexity of digesting mixed meals.
Popular options for those following a mono diet include eating only fruits like bananas, apples and grapes; starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes; animal-based foods such as eggs, chicken, fish; and grains like rice or oats. The concept isn’t new. Harleen Kaur, a homemaker in Delhi, recalls visiting a popular nutritionist many years ago who was famous for his ‘tasty diets’ based on monotrophic principles. He would recommend eating only potato-based dishes all day (air fried potato patty for breakfast, potato raita for lunch and sautéed potatoes and vegetables for dinner), or he would recommend a McDonald’s burger for lunch for an entire week, with very low- calorie meals for breakfast and dinner. The night before her next weight check appointment, she was told to eat only ice cream as a salt-free meal. “These diets were fun to follow, and I did lose a few kilos, but once I stopped going to him, it all came back!” she laughs.
The biggest problem with mono diets is their unsustainability in the long run. “Having only one food item or food group in a day will deprive you of the nutrients that your body needs daily,” says fitness coach Rachel David.
Kamra highlights other disadvantages like nutritional deficiencies leading to fatigue, hair loss, and weakened immunity. He advocates following a ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, and understanding one’s hunger cues to prevent overeating, instead of resorting to fads like the mono diet.