What to Know About the Uber-Trendy Mono Diet for Weight Loss

Can The Mono Diet Help You Lose Weight? What Experts Want You To Know

August 12, 2021

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When famed magician Penn Jillette lost a whopping 75 pounds in just three months by dieting alone, he launched his weight loss efforts by eating only potatoes for two full weeks. And he’s not the only one who’s tried this extreme approach — which is known as “the mono diet.” Essentially, the mono diet entails sticking to only one food group, and it’s been slowly but steadily surging in popularity as a potential way to shed pounds without having to adhere to any complex rules.

A quick search on Instagram for the hashtag #monomeal will reveal more than 48K posts featuring single-food meals, from papaya to tomatoes. But it’s worth noting that when Jillette was eating solely spuds, he was following the mono diet under medical supervision. So the real question becomes: can the mono diet alone really help you lose weight? And more importantly, is it healthy? After all, eating just one food or food group, even if just for a few weeks, can mean missing out on certain key nutrients.

Whether you’re seeking to jumpstart your weight loss or simply looking for a simpler eating plan that eliminates any guesswork, here’s what experts want you to know about the mono diet before you try it.

What Is the Mono Diet?

True to its name, the mono diet involves only eating one singular food — some popular picks include eggs, chicken, potatoes, bananas, and apples. However, a looser interpretation is only eating one food group, such as fruit, legumes, vegetables, or meat.

Typically, the mono diet is only used for one to two weeks to rev up weight loss before gradually introducing additional foods.

Benefits of the Mono Diet

There are many perks to the mono diet to consider, including:

Convenience: Only needing to buy one food in bulk at the grocery store can definitely make your life easier. Plus, there’s no need to prep and cook multi-ingredient meals, which makes it more convenient, particularly if you have a busy lifestyle.

Simplicity: There’s no need to count calories or macros, measure portion sizes, track your food intake, or check ingredients labels when you’re on the mono diet. This is an attractive aspect for those who don’t want to deal with the complexities that come with other popular diets like keto, paleo, or Whole 30.

Decrease in calorie intake: You will very likely end up consuming fewer calories when only one food is allowed — after all, just how many bananas can you eat in a day? However, it’s important to point out that any resulting weight loss from the mono diet is often only temporary. Since you’re obviously not going to be cutting out all other foods forever, the weight you lost while restricting may simply be gained back after you resume your normal eating habits.

Can help to identify food allergies: “In rare cases of people with extreme digestive issues or food intolerances, temporarily following an approach similar to this could potentially have some utility in identifying food reactions and food culprits,” says Samantha McKinney, a registered dietitian at Life Time. For example, Dr. Josh Axe — D.N.M., C.N.S, D.C., founder of Ancient Nutrition, DrAxe.com, and author of the new, best-selling book Ancient Remedies — notes that if you’re only eating meat while following a mono diet, you might notice your digestion improves because you’re cutting out refined carbs, sugar, or other potentially problematic types of foods.

Does the Mono Diet Work for Weight Loss?

Whether or not you lose weight — and how much exactly you lose — will depend partly on which food you’re eating on the mono diet, how much you’re eating, and how you’re preparing it. Many people will drop pounds when following the mono diet, but there aren’t many scientific studies proving this — only anecdotal evidence.

“The greatest advantage that the mono diet has is that it’s restrictive and therefore an easy way to reduce calorie intake,” says Dr. Axe. “This means that it’s likely to lead to weight loss, often pretty quickly.”

That said, it’s important to keep in mind that since the mono diet isn’t sustainable over the long term, you may gain back the weight once you resume your normal diet.

Potential Risks of the Mono Diet

If you’ve ever struggled with an eating disorder, highly restrictive fad diets like this one could steer you into dangerous territory. But that’s not the only risk to be aware of. You could also be more prone to nutritional deficiencies.

“There are no single foods that can supply all of the macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are required for proper functioning,” explains certified dietitian-nutritionist Gina Keatley. “Moreover, this is disordered eating and it is important to determine why you would want to consume only one food.”

McKinney adds that nutritional deficiencies can be serious and may lead to multiple health issues — from cardiovascular disease to brittle bones, hormonal imbalances, and more.

For example, let’s say you’re only eating chicken. While you’ll get plenty of protein and B vitamins, you won’t meet your needs for fiber or vitamin C.

Not only are you at risk of missing out on certain essential nutrients on the mono diet, but you may also struggle to eat enough calories — which research has shown can slow down your metabolism and even cause muscle loss, thus actually sabotaging your attempts to lose weight (especially if you’re consuming under 1,000 calories a day).

How to Safely Follow Mono Diet

Across the board, experts agree that the mono diet should only be adopted for a very short period of time. For your safety, you should also check with your doctor before making such a dramatic change to your diet.

Additionally, experts say some foods may be better suited to the mono diet than others because they provide a wider array of nutrients. Dr. Axe says eggs, potatoes, and meat are all good choices since they offer amino acids, potassium, B vitamins, and protein. He also notes that organic yogurt or milk can work if you can tolerate dairy products.

“Eggs would be the best option on a mono diet,” adds Keatley. “They contain energy, protein, and fat in a very bioavailable package. They also have some of the essential vitamins and minerals we need for proper functioning.” However, Keatley cautions that only eating eggs may mean consuming large amounts of cholesterol, which can be problematic or even dangerous for some.

Overall, experts say the safest and healthiest way to try the mono diet is to take a more flexible approach. For instance, you might only eat one food group at each meal (like only bananas at breakfast, only potatoes at lunch, and only chicken for dinner).

“There’s still concern that you’ll be missing out on some vitamins and minerals, but the wider variety of foods you eat, generally the better you’ll be at covering your needs,” explains Dr. Axe. “One way to approach the mono diet in this way would be to focus on eating one type of protein food, one veggie, and one carb at each meal, so you at least boost your intake of those nutrients.”

No matter which food(s) you’re eating, Dr. Axe also highly recommends taking a multivitamin, collagen protein, and probiotics to help with digestion and maintaining healthy energy levels while on the mono diet.

And if you’re looking for a similarly simplistic weight loss strategy that isn’t quite so restrictive, McKinney suggests time-restricted eating (a form of intermittent fasting), which discourages mindless nighttime snacking. This entails limiting your eating window to 8-12 hours per day — such as between 12 p.m. and 8 p.m.

“At the end of the day – some level of meal planning and prepping is important for long term health and success for most people,” she says. “Any sustainable program is bound to include ample quality protein, plenty of colorful produce with an emphasis on non-starchy vegetables, and healthy, minimally processed fats.”

The bottom line? The mono diet is only a short-term fix, and even if it does help you lose weight, the only way to keep that weight off is to adopt healthy eating and lifestyle habits that you can actually sustain over the long term.

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