Banana Island

So a lot of you seemed to have sparked in an interest in what this banana island nonsense was all about. And after five days on the island, I’m ready to report back on what I ate, how I felt and whether or not it was worth giving up all other foods.

First and foremost, I have to say that, overall, I really liked this cleanse. As much as I enjoy juice cleanses, I truly do enjoy the act of eating. I never felt like I was really missing out, and still having solid food as opposed to just liquids, made it easier to get through. I wasn’t super strict on eating ONLY bananas. Many other bloggers and health enthusiasts who’ve gone to the island have included other fruits, greens and nuts, so I did the same. Here’s a rundown of what I ate for the most part:

Breakfast: Banana ice cream-Frozen bananas blended with either nut butter and raw cocoa and spinach, or other fruits and greens. I generally topped it off with some type of nuts, hemp seeds, chia seeds or raisins.

Snack: Dehydrated maple banana chips or mix of bananas and melon

Lunch: Chopped fresh bananas with nut butters, nuts, seeds and dried fruit

Snack: Citrus smoothies of some variation with frozen bananas, mango and/or pineapples

Dinner: MASSIVE smoothie batch with pears, cucumbers, kale, avocado and frozen bananas

And that was it!

I know, I know. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but the bananas are surprisingly, SUPER filling and satisfying. The green smoothie for dinner ended up being my absolute favorite meal of the day. I think I looked forward to getting away from all the sugar and the kale turned out to be the treat, oddly enough. Considering, I’m big on salty snacks, rather than sugary ones, I think the hardest thing to get used to was all the sugar. Granted, it was mostly fruit, but still, sugar is sugar, and my body wasn’t used to it. It never upset my stomach or made me sick. In fact, disgestively speaking, my tummy had never felt flatter or happier. I never got a stomachache, never felt tired from eating and lost about five lbs. overall. I think the lack of gluten and alcohol made the biggest difference.

One thing I did notice was how emotional eating can be. It was extremely freeing to not have to think about what I was going to cook for myself and not having to invest hardly any kitchen time for making banana meals was a nice break. But, I also noticed that when I got upset or stressed, I didn’t feel comforted just eating bananas. The only time I really missed other meals, was when I was emotional. Savory, salty foods are my comfort foods, and the sugary bananas just didn’t cut it. This might be fine for someone who runs to desserts and sweets for comfort, but I am not that person.

The only other downside, was the same issue I had with my juice cleanse. I was crazy itchy! Especially my face and chest. I suspect this is a result of toxins exiting the body, which is obviously a good thing, but not particularly comfortable when you’re in the midst of it. It wasn’t constant or extreme, but did leave my skin looking a bit lackluster.

Other than that, I enjoyed my time on banana island! I would 100% do it again, and now know that I REALLY need to cut gluten out of my diet completely (sorry beer). I would probably only do it for three days next time, just because I can;t with that much sugar for much longer than that. Plus, it gave me plenty of chances to make some unbelievable new smoothies with the Vitamix that I’ll be posting soon!

Do you think you could survive on banana island?