What is the Bondi Cleanse, the intense detox documented in Celeste Barber's Wellmania

How extreme is too extreme?

Wellmania delves into the complexities of extreme wellbeing trends. Image: Wellmania

Celeste Barber's latest Netflix show, Wellmania, explores the extremities of the wellness industry, spotlighting fad diets and trends such as the 'Bondi Cleanse' that ultimately evoke more harm than good.

If you’ve caught a glimpse of Celeste Barber’s latest TV project, Wellmania it’s likely you’ll have heard the term Bondi Cleanse.

Loosely adapted from Wellmania: Extreme Misadventures in the Search for Wellness, a memoir written by Australian journalist, Brigid Delaney, the Netflix series follows the story of a middle-aged woman as she adjusts her entire lifestyle in light of a health crisis.

Between Barber’s character’s attempts at exercise and dieting, the show delves into the world of wellness, unpacking the invasive and disturbing trends that take an aggressive toll on the human body. Namely, the Bondi Cleanse.

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What is the Bondi Cleanse?

The Netflix show explains the Bondi Cleanse as a “four-day regime or fasting, herbal laxatives, [and] acupuncture,” among other things. And it’s not too far-fetched from the real thing.

Author of the memoir that inspired the TV show, Brigid Delaney, outlined in her book that when she was asked to complete the cleanse, the rules were: no eating for two weeks, drinking only water and black tea, along with a “concoction of Chinese herbs”.

The request came to her as a ‘try and tell’ story to detail the cleanse which was said to be the regular regime of the then-serving Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

There have been variations of the cleanse, but the one that Delaney completed seems to be the most common: two weeks of eating absolutely nothing.

The 101 Wellbeing Program omits all food in replacement of Chinese herbs. Image: iStock

Where did the Bondi Cleanse come from?

In a piece she wrote for The Guardian back in 2018, Delaney makes mention of the 101 Wellbeing Program, a weight loss guide that stems from an acupuncture clinic in Sydney led by herbal medicine doctor Shuquan Liu.

The clinic’s program of a predominately Chinese medicine diet helped many patients to lose weight, with the average client losing five to eight kilos in the first two weeks. However, the program was never advertised outside of the clinic, but rather disseminated through word of mouth.

Sure enough, as clients started seeing desired results in their weight loss, the program began attracting high-profile names to the clinic, including former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Eddie McGuire.

The Bondi Cleanse is linked to The 101 Wellbeing Program. Image: iStock

So, does the Bondi Cleanse work?

Delaney admits that not eating any form of food was incredibly effective as a weight loss tool, which isn’t a shocking revelation. What was shocking was Delaney’s weight recording which noted that she lost at least one kilogram every day by following the program.

Following the strict program, Delaney said that substituting every consumable item aside from water and tea with Chinese herbs effectively helped her achieve impressive weight loss, however, it came at the cost of her livelihood.

"I just felt completely depleted. I didn't quite hit [rock bottom] but I could see the bottom," she told No Filter in 2017. 

"What you're paying for is for the absence to be enforced. I would go to this fasting clinic every day. I would be weighed, I would have acupuncture, and I'd have this very rough massage, it was a massage on my organs." 

Unsurprisingly, with consistently depleting energy levels, Delaney spent the majority of the cleanse in her bed, sleeping, and with little contact with her social network.

"When you take away meals, you take away a whole lot of life that is really essential, so socialising, enjoyment of food, ritual, the way that our time is organised - it's often organised around meals," she explained. 

On top of this social isolation, the cleanse caused some uncomfortable reactions in her body, including the desire to chew food, animal instincts such as following smells, and physical sensations that felt as if her body was chipping away at itself.

"I had a lot of strange sensations, including chest pains, which were most likely my body eating my heart muscle," she said. 

When it came to breaking the fast, Dr Liu advised Delaney to reintroduce food slowly, starting off by eating half a cucumber on the first day and working her way up to consuming 50 grams of protein.

It was at this point in her cleanse that the positive changes in her body started to reverse back to a pre-cleanse state.

“I put the weight back on when I started to eat normally again. Such extreme diets are totally unsustainable.”

Is the Bondi Cleanse still being practised?

Forms of the cleanse and other restrictive diets are still very common in the world of wellness, but there is a limit to how far the industry can stretch its use of the term wellbeing.

While implementing such extreme diets and rituals may eventually lead to a state of optimum wellbeing, the process of getting there is far from nurturing for our bodies. Fads such as the 101 Wellbeing Program and the Bondi Cleanse paint the exact same picture of health, and yet the entire journey forcefully goes against the nature of our body to feed for fuel.

This is why it was unsurprising to hear that in 2017, Dr Liu was deregistered as a medical practitioner and the 101 Wellbeing Program was effectively shut down.

Wellmania is now streaming on Netflix. Image: Wellmania

Wellmania’s full circle

Wellmania has subsequently welcomed the 101 Wellbeing Program back into popular culture, but hopefully this time, for the right reason.

The Netflix series, while based on Delaney’s experience with extreme wellness trends, takes a welcomed turn, offering transparent observations of the way in which the wellness industry has altered the true meaning of wellbeing, while simultaneously exposing the earnest truth behind such fads.

Wellmania is currently streaming on Netflix.

Originally published as What is the Bondi Cleanse, the intense detox documented in Celeste Barber's Wellmania