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Ohsawa 7 diet - the brown rice cleanse

18/6/2014

10 Comments

 
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I've recently completed this 10 day cleanse with five other spiritual friends while doing Module 1 at the Hridaya Yoga Centre and loved every moment of the process.

The Ohsawa 7 diet originated from George Ohsawa, the founder of Macrobiotic philosophy. It has been known to cure cancer and other dis-ease and is popular amongst the yoga community to balance the physical and emotional bodies.

It consists of eating brown rice (or other grains such as wheat, buckwheat, millet, oats, barley, bulgar or spelt) for 10 days. The intention of this cleanse is to balance the yin and yang aspects of our being, bringing us into a more harmonious state, physically and emotionally. It is believed that in today's society, we are very yin, so by shocking our bodies with yang based foods (brown rice is very yang) we reset our bodies back to their natural equilibrium. Also, the blood, which plays a huge part in detoxification, purifies 10% each day so at the end if the 10 days you have reset your system.

Having experimented with many fasts over the years, I have to say that other than one day where I felt a little nauseous (which I put down to emotional purification), I found this incredibly easy. It helps that I love brown rice! Having the support of friends and eating all our meals at the school was also an advantage.

I was averaging 4 - 6 bowls of rice per day, you can eat as much as you like and are allowed to have dry toasted sesame seeds and Himalayan rock salt for a little flavour, and I was never hungry.

My meditations got much deeper due to the fact that the rice is also very sattvic (no spices or stimulants to activate the mind) and some days I felt so much joy bubbling inside of me that I would have to stop myself from laughing out loud in the meditation hall! All of us were feeling very elevated, glowing, and full of love supporting each other along the way. Due to my digestion not having to work too hard, I was also only needing 4-5 hours sleep every night.

The biggest benefit for me though was losing my attachment to food. I realised I used to spend a lot of time thinking about food, mentally planning what I was going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner (especially when my tummy rumbled during meditation). When brown rice is your only option, there isn't a lot to think about!

At the end of the 10 days, all of us entered into a silent retreat. This meant that when enjoying our first non brown rice breakfast on day 11, we were in silence, unable to communicate with each other. Silently, I wished everyone buen provecho, and savoured the sweet flavours of mango and papaya.

If anyone has had any experiences with the Ohsawa 7 diet, I would love to hear them.

Love Lili x

10 Comments
Karuna
17/2/2017 05:15:52 pm

Dearest friend,
One grain, ten thousand grains. This is what I learned from Cornellia and Herman Aihara @ the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation in Chico, CA. When we receive the gift of health from one person, we should share the gift with 10,000.
Thank you for sharing yours. I was about to give up this my body because of a severe infection, UNDENIABLY caused by bad eating, but got the good news about 10 days brown rice. Fascinated, I tried it at once, and have never lost my health after changing my diet. It took a few years actually to come into complete balance, but I need to shout it out...This is a wonderful way to cook & eat your way to health.
Love always, Karuna

Reply
Tu nguyen
13/5/2018 02:25:28 am

I love it and i lost 10 the first week feeling amazing still eat until 49day

Reply
XUAN QUYNH
13/5/2019 07:42:38 pm

Dear Tu Nguyen,
Why did you have this rice monodiet during 49 days (and not only 10 days)?
Thank you for your explanation

Reply
Angel
21/4/2020 05:38:07 am

Thanks for sharing. Funny thing, I also did module 1 at Hridaya and that’s how I found out about this diet, but during the course the only thing I did was Shanka and I repeated again this year. I want to do the diet 7now as I found this is the right time, my work is very physical and I can’t never manage to do things like that during regular life. I have been reading a lot of other blogs as well, I just have a few question and maybe you could help me, do I need to stick to one type of cereal? Or can I eat brown rice one day and bulgur another day? Other thing I read is some people saying too keep active life low key specially exercises, so Hatha yoga is fine then? Just cardio and extreme sports right? One of the hardest thing for me will be not going rock climbing for 10 days 😬 thanks again 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Reply
Lili Wyant
26/4/2020 08:42:59 am

Hi Angel, that's awesome you have also been to Hridaya. I went back a few years ago and did Module 2 as well. I would like to return one day and do Module 3, but given how far Mexico is and with COVID-19, I won't be travelling anywhere for a while!

I have also performed Shank many times, in fact I plan to do it next week as we come to the end of our lockdown!

As for the Osawa #7 it is my understanding you can use another grain other than rice but that you stick to the same grain for the 10 days. All grains will have different properties and the point of the diet is that it is a mono diet, you body gets used to receiving the same food and your digestive system gets used to processing it efficiently. This frees up energy for your body to focus on healing what needs healing rather than digesting food. I found I had lots of energy, but was only doing hatha yoga and swimming in the in ocean :) I'd stay trust your intuition and how you feel. If you feel energetic while doing the diet and able to exercise then do it! if not, take it easy! Good luck and enjoy! oh and I Have also done the kitchery cleanse a few times too....similar to this but only eating kitchery.

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Angel link
27/4/2020 05:52:18 am

Hi Lili, thank you so much for your message. I went to Hridaya France last year for a 10 days silent retreat with Sahaja and it was really amazing, I was planning to do module 2 at the same some but the course wasn’t confirmed when I had time, and when it got confirmed I didn’t have the time anymore 😞 I want to go back this year but at the moment is hard to plan anything. They are offering an online silent retreat in France and Mexico starting May 1st, so I am going to do that and also gonna do the diet number 7 at the same time. I’ll let you how it goes. Thanks again for your kind message. Stay safe, Angel.

Klara Levine
1/12/2021 10:42:33 pm

On day 4 of the diet, doing it with others. Going well for me. We've had a few macrobiotic teachers chime in, and their biggest warning was to be careful going off the diet, to do it slowly. Seems to me (although I don't know where you live), having any fruit, and especially tropical fruits, would be way too yin after these 10 days.

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Sunneva
25/7/2022 09:10:55 am

I saw a video on youtube - were they say it´s best to ad cooked veggies with the rice to break the fast, and slowly ad some other ingredients.
but maybe you can inform me - I have no clue, what was your experience with breaking the fast. Im now on day 7 :)

Reply
Noelia
4/8/2022 04:41:46 am

I’m also interested on how to break the fast. Thanks so much, right now on day 3

joseph guay
13/2/2023 05:36:18 pm

Thank you for this. I'm going to do a ten day fast starting Tuesday. Tomorrow I visit my grandaughter fo rthe day and then, ten days. Brown rice.....anyhting else ok? thank you, thank you.....Joel

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