The Morning Banana Diet Plan

Discovered by Sumiko Watanabe, pharmacist and her husband Hitoshi Watanabe, Morning Banana Diet plan is one of the most popular fad diet plans prevalent in Japan.

Mrs. Watanabe herself lost massive 18 kilograms (almost 39 pounds) by using the weight loss plan.

The diet plan allows you to consume as many bananas as you want. After making a healthy beginning of the day with bananas, you can have anything you want in your lunch and dinner.

She-Lost-18-Kilograms

That being said, should you want to melt weight, instead of having high-calorie foods such as pizza, burger etc., eat low calorie and highly nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables.

If you are longing to consume something sweet, you can have that in afternoon snacks only, not after that. The only thing you have to be very careful is, you have to have your dinner before 8 PM.

And you are not permitted to eat anything after your dinner, even desserts such as ice creams, alcohol, dairy products etc. are not permitted after dinner.

One factor of this diet that has many people going bananas is that there are no exercise requirements. While exercising is not prohibited, they advise to do it only if you want to. And if you do exercise, they suggest that it be done in a manner that is the least stressful.

Why Bananas Have Been Chosen in the Diet Plan?

Since banana has been considered the main fruit of the diet plan, the whole plan seems to revolve around bananas, which is also evident from its name. Bananas inevitably are opulent in potassium and many other essential nutrients.

Their fiber and water content being very high render them amazing capability to keep you contented for longer duration. High fiber property of the banana enables them to absorb numerous calories before passing to the digestive tract.

Besides that, special enzymes in bananas strip off several pounds from your body and bring you in perfect shape. Bananas also have resistant starch, which not only keeps you contented for longer but also assists your body in burning fats.

Morning Banana Diet Rules

Eat a banana for breakfast

• You can eat more than one, and in fact the inventor of the diet often ate four (smallish Philippines) bananas in the morning, but don’t stuff yourself to the point of fullness or discomfort.
• Eat only raw, uncooked, unfrozen bananas.
• Other fruit may be substituted.
• If other fruit is substituted, some variants require it be restricted to one type of fruit per meal.
• If you are still hungry 15 or 30 minutes after your banana, you can eat other food (the Japanese inventor of the original Asa Banana Diet sometimes ate a rice ball two and a half hours later, about 200 calories worth; Morning Banana forum members have suggested oatmeal, although it’s not as portable as a rice ball).

Eat normally for lunch and dinner

• Dinner must be eaten by 8 p.m. at the latest (6 p.m. is better).
• There are no explicit limits on the types of food you can eat for lunch and dinner, or the amount. But in practice dieters report on Mixi that they try to cut the amount of rice they eat and find substitutions for fried foods. As with many diets, the mere fact you have decided to go on a diet tends to make you more aware of what and how much you are are eating and how healthy it is. The diet avoids strict food rules to prevent a sense of deprivation.
• However, you should not eat a dessert with dinner or any of your meals; you’ll need to satisfy your sweet tooth during a snack, but we’ll get to that later.
• At all meals you should eat only until you’re satisfied but not full or stuffed. The Japanese have a proverb, Hara hachibu ni isha irazu, “A stomach eight-tenths full needs no doctor.” American dietitians define this level of fullness or satiety as a 7 on a 1-to-10 “hunger scale,” and they teach their clients to recognize this feeling.

Drink only water

• The only beverage allowed at most meals is water, preferably mineral or filtered.
• The water must be at room temperature, not chilled or hot. The water should be drunk in small sips and not used to wash down food.
• There is no quota of water to drink, and you should not drink it in excess.
• Outside of meals non-caloric beverages like tea, coffee, and diet soda are generally allowed but somewhat frowned upon, and in general water is encouraged as much as possible; frequent consumption of milk products is discouraged.
• On social occasions you may drink beer or wine.

Eat your food mindfully

•  Chew your banana and other food thorouoghly and be mindful of its taste.

You may eat an afternoon snack

• A sweet snack of chocolate, cookies, or the like is allowed at about 3 p.m.
• Ice cream, a donut, or potato chips are not recommended.
• Some substitute fresh fruit for their snack, but if you want sweets you should not deny yourself.
• Some Japanese who like salty snacks eat salted konbu (seaweed) snacks and some Japanese who are very hungry in the afternoon substitute a filling, fist-sized rice ball for sweets.
• A good alternative if a salty or more filling snack is needed is popcorn according to Morning Banana forum members, but watch out for excessive fat content.
• If you are hungry after dinner, you may have a second snack of fresh fruit, but this should not be a habit.

Early to bed

• Go to bed by midnight. If you can manage to go to bed earlier, all the better.
• Try to aim for a four-hour period between your last meal or snack and bedtime (which is why 8:00 p.m. is the latest you should eat dinner).

Exercise only if you want to

• Put no pressure on yourself to exercise.
• If you want to exercise, go ahead: the test is to do what puts the least stress on you.
• But try to get some walking in every day if possible (but again, don’t force yourself if it stresses you out).
• If you want a traditional Japanese light workout, consider taking up the kendama.