Nutrition

What’s the first thing you drink in the morning?

Tastes vary. A glass of juice for some, a cup of tea for others? We usually used to have a sip of water and then get stuck into the caffeine!

But for the last couple of years we’ve been enjoying something else, and it’s been working so well for us that we’ve been encouraging all of our clients at Inspirit Retreat to give it a go.

What is this wonderful secret? All it is is a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, a pinch of Himalayan pink sea salt, and some filtered water.

It’s a simple mix, but it’s full of benefits. Lemon and lime are both very friendly to the liver, as well as good for the digestive system. The better your liver works, the easier it is for you to drop body fat. Meanwhile, if your digestive system is working well then it is less likely you’ll feel bloated, sluggish or tired during the day.

The Himalayan salt helps restore good electrolyte balance in your body, which again means less bloating as you’re less likely to ‘hold’ water.

Why not give it a try? We think you’ll soon notice a difference.

As a general point, remember that dehydration makes it harder to drop stubborn fat, so make sure you drink plenty during the day. You can add sliced lemons and limes to your water to make it a bit more interesting. We recommend one litre per 50 pounds of body weight, and more on days when you exercise.

Have you ever noticed how much pressure people tend to put themselves under when they decide they want to make changes to their body?

They’ll hurl themselves into a restrictive diet or an intense bootcamp regime, suffer like crazy, and maybe it’ll work for a while in a limited way. But what they’re doing is so unenjoyable, so extreme, that there’s no way of sustaining it indefinitely. And then it all stops – and slowly but surely the problems begin to pile up again.

That’s not how we believe in doing things at Inspirit Retreat. If you want to look and feel better you don’t need a chicken and broccoli diet while living year-round at the gym. You just need to make a few small changes and learn some useful habits, and the incremental changes will soon start to build.

The point is that if you’re enjoying a few small improvements and not slavishly sticking to unpleasant things you know deep down aren’t going to work, the way forward becomes much clearer, and you’ll notice the change. Losing a pound a week really is no big deal – keep it up for a year, suddenly you’re 50 pounds lighter, and you haven’t put yourself under too much pressure.

If you come out on an Inspirit Retreat, you’ll find we focus a lot on your individual tastes and habits, because lasting change is much more likely if it fits into a lifestyle that suits you and that doesn’t need enormous effort to accomplish. We’ll work with you to set you on the path towards greater wellbeing, but it’s a path you should be able to walk with confidence, and maybe even enjoy the view.