Can’t Get to a Health Retreat This Year? Here’s How to Create a Five-Day Health Programme at Home

In the current climate attending a health retreat is clearly off the agenda, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get the benefits of rejuvenating mini break in the comfort of your own home.  

We’ve teamed up with some experts and created some simple tips to be used in conjunction with a five-day fasting detox, to help you create an at-home health reset and an environment for your emotional wellness to thrive. 

Get prepared

One of the main reasons people fail to follow through with any healthy routine is a lack of preparation. The old adage of ‘by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail’ applies here. Set yourself a routine. Plan to spend some time offline and include a digital detox element to your wellbeing retreat and remove the temptation of lockdown baking snaps on social media. Remove tempting snacks or trigger foods from your home. This way, you don’t have to summon willpower every time you open the cupboard or make the mistake of having a big gorge the day before your fast starts.

Nutrition

A five-day fast mimicking diet could be the perfect way to give your body the break it needs to detox, regenerate and restore vital energy. Combined with mindful practises, yoga, meditation and spa rituals, this at home reset could be the perfect way to reset and get ready for re-entry to the outside world.

Leading health retreats often use fasting as a scientifically backed way to detox the body and improve mental clarity but fasting without supervision is challenging and potentially dangerous. That’s where the Prolon Fasting Mimicking Diet, a plant-based, 5-day nutrition program that nourishes the body while not triggering our cell’s food detection sensors, comes in. It can be done at home, without doctor supervision.

 “The five-day fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) is a great way to hit the reset button. While our body is busy digesting and metabolising food, it is less focused on regeneration and repair. FMDs induce cellular processes such as autophagy and stem cell generation which have real impacts on our state of health.” says Nutritionist Kim Pearson. 

The good news is that with the FMD you don’t have to worry about going to great lengths to ensure you’ve curated the perfect detox. Everything you need is provided for you in a handy box, one for every day of the fast. “The Fast Mimicking Diet is extremely easy to follow. The specially developed foods, based on natural plant-based ingredients, include vegetable, pulse and quinoa soups, nut bars and snacks like kale crackers and olives. Your body goes into a fasted state but unlike water-only fasting, your body receives essential nutrients and it’s safer, with fewer side effects.” explains Kim. 

Mindfulness

Many people report mental focus and clarity during the five-day fast mimicking diet. This is the perfect time to download a mindfulness app and get into a good meditation practice. If you download the Calm app there are plenty of five-day programmes to tackle various issues from sleep to anxiety, so why not time one of these to align with your five-day at-home retreat?

Exercise

Light exercise is recommended with a focus on restorative activities like yoga and walks, ideally in nature. The fast is designed for rest and rejuvenation, so vigorous exercise is not recommended. “During the first couple of days of the fast, the body uses up circulating blood sugar and stored glycogen (glucose stored in muscles and liver cells) and burns more stored body fat for energy. From day three autophagy is upregulated. Autophagy is a process that helps maintain healthy cellular function, encouraging cells to repair and regenerate.” Explains Kim. During the FMD, the least number of calories are consumed on days three and five, so on those days take time to go for gentle walks and explore your area by foot. On the other days try yoga to flex and stretch your body. There are plenty of stretching and yoga apps and YouTube videos available to help enhance your regime. Try the free ’30 Day Splits’ app which has a simple, 20-minute routine to help improve flexibility with a series of stretches.  

Sleep

In individuals with balanced blood sugar levels, intermittent fasting has been shown to support improved sleep quality, so work on further enhancing your bedtime regime and promoting healthy sleep behaviours. Turn your phone off at least an hour before bedtime and have a relaxing bath with magnesium salts before bed to help you unwind. Having a regular sleep and wake time can also help to promote a stable body clock and improved sleep. 

Bathe

On the subject of bathing, a bath is a wonderful calming “me time” ritual. Lorna Veale the creator of No Secrets Beauty advises “give yourself 20 minutes in the bath and a little time to relax and gather yourself afterwards. To help you float away, try breathing in through the nose for five seconds and out through the mouth for five seconds, increasing to ten seconds for each, and continuing for two minutes. Soaking by candlelight will give you a spa-like experience! Dimming the lights and lighting a candle will also help with the relaxation process.” says Lorna www.nosecretsbeauty.com

So, what can you expect when you complete your five-day fast? In a published human trial, one 5-day ProLon cycle resulted in an average of 5 pounds of weight loss and a 1-inch loss of fat around the waistline. Not only is it’s a quick and efficient way to lose weight, a five-day fast mimicking diet will also stimulate cellular rejuvenation, support metabolic health and promote healthy ageing. Not to mention renewed energy and a sense of calm from your at-home spa experience!

For more information about the Fasting Mimicking Diet that costs £200 please visit www.prolon.co.uk