What’s in a wellness retreat nutrition consultation?

What can you expect from your nutrition one to one while on your health retreat with us?

What’s our aim for you?

The aim on our wellness retreat is for each guest to leave healthier than when they arrived. You’ll enjoy delicious, nutrientious meals that our chef prepares for you each day and you will also have a private consultation with one our nutritionist during your retreat. Our aim is that you leave our retreat buzzing with energy and feeling vibrant, strong, clear-headed and positive. It is that amazing physical feeling and mental clarity that leads so many of our lovely guests to come back time and time again!

While much of that feeling comes from the exercise and the rest during the retreat, so much of the benefit comes from the wonderful healthy food that we feed you.

What happens before your wellness retreat?

Before you arrive on your wellness retreat with us, you’ll be asked to complete a short questionnaire that provides our wellness team with some initial information about you, such as what you are hoping to get from your retreat with us and whether you have any particular injuries or allergies and what you consider your overall fitness level to be currently.

And during your health retreat?

On the health retreat itself you will have a nutrition form to fill in, when you can elaborate on any health concerns, conditions or symptoms you may be experiencing. Here you can list any medications you’ve been prescribed, any supplements that you’re currently taking and what a typical day looks like for you in terms of food and drink.

Your personal nutrition session will last 45 minutes on our retreat and is typically broken down into three parts; information gathering, explaining and educating and finally, negotiating the programme you’ll take home.

When it comes to nutrition and optimal health, there is no one-size-fits-all and our nutritionists will put together an individualised programme for you to help you achieve your health goals, whether that be to address a few health symptoms or just to promote healthy ageing, or anything in between.

What happens during a nutrition consultation on my wellness retreat with in:spa?

The session on your retreat typically begins with a confidential discussion about your health history and your current diet and lifestyle. This allows our nutrition practitioner to get a better understanding of who you are, your health background and your food and drink preferences. With some skilled questioning they’ll start to get a picture of any potential underlying imbalances that may be contributing to a set of symptoms, or the obstacles that may be preventing optimal health and vitality.

Finally, at the end of this initial fact-finding stage, you will agree your health goals for the session.

From here, the consultation shifts gears and our therapist will take the time to explain things to you so that you come away with the knowledge and understanding about how your body works, helping you to make the connection between your current state of health, the role that nutrition plays and the diet and lifestyle choices you can make and how they relate to your health goals.

The consultation on your retreat with us ends with you working together to figure out how to fit the diet and lifestyle changes that you have agreed to into your routine back home. This is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, and there really is no one-size-fits-all. We all have different routines, different tastes and preferences, and different schedules to keep and our nutrition expert will work with you to navigate the obstacles so that you have a programme that works for you.

What do I take home?

You will take home a set of personal recommendations from our nutritionist, such as which foods may be best to reduce and which to eat more of. You might be given advice on timings of meals as well as how much protein to include in your diet. If you are hoping to lose weight, then particular advice on how to structure your portions as well as how much time to leave between meals will be offered too. Often, specific nutritional supplements may be recommended to support your health and these are always carefully considered with safety paramount.

And after the wellness retreat?

Our ultimate aim is for you to not only leave your wellness retreat with us feeling healthier than when you arrived but to also empower you with the knowledge that you need in order to take a little bit of in:spa home with you. You will feel so energised and vibrant at the end of your wellness retreat, that feeling so good (while also knowing that the change in your diet on this retreat away has brought about so much of that feeling) will be all the motivation you need to carry on with the same great habits when you get home.

Mike Murphy, in:spa nutritionst