"Love Your Liver Retreat"
12th August to 15th August 2023
Kshemavana, SDM Institute of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences, Nelamangala, Kunigal Bypass Road, near Sambrama Hotel, Mahadevapura, Karnataka
As mentioned in my
Mom Power 360 Conference post, Kshemavana was one of the sponsors of the conference and guess what I had won a stay option at Kshemavana as part of their lucky draw. Post the conference I was contacted by Kshemavana marketing team and they informed me about their retreat which was scheduled from 12th to 15th August, which was Independence day long weekend. As 11th was a second Saturday and I had off, I thought of planning to attend the retreat. It was "Love Your Liver" retreat. I was not sure whether that would be of any help to me, but the team assured it need not be attended by people with liver ailments only and anybody could attend to experience the service they offered. So I planned to attend the 4 days retreat.
The retreat was with 12th morning check-in and 16th morning check-out. I took metro to reach Nagasandra and had booked Kshemavana pick-up service from Nagasandra metro, as Kshemavana is on the outskirts of the city and I didn't want to travel alone in local cab. By the time I reached Kshemavana, the property tour was already done and the introductory session with Dr. Narendra Shetty was going on. I checked in and Dr. Manohar gave me a brief about the retreat and handed me over with schedule for the 4 days and also a journal to record the session and stay experience.
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| Kurma, the yoga block |
The retreat is beautifully curated with lectures, treatments which included acupuncture, reflexology, massage, mud bath, amena, liver pack and more. Our day would start at 6 in the morning with yoga and kriyas, followed by treatment, breakfast from 9:30 to 10:00 which would be smoothie/herbal tea. First half of the day would be for lectures, lunch at 1PM, resting, treatment, followed by session. At 4PM would be evening drink, which would be smoothie, yoga/bhajan by 6PM, dinner at 7PM followed by relaxing yoga/meditation and end the day by 9:30PM. 4 days were completely packed keeping us engaged in the activities throughout the day. The diet pattern is curated based on the retreat goal. Its very challenging to cope up with hunger for first 2 days, but by the end of the retreat we were all so used of the diet and didn't want to even come back to regular food. The take away on diet by our doctor was to replace one meal completely with raw, other 2 meals need to have at least 350gms of raw, which helps with portion control on your meal. Also to include fruits/raw mid meal. 25 varieties of fruits and vegetables( together) every week, its not challenging at all, if you start listing the varieties of fruits and vegetables that are available in India, and I still stick to local ones and not exotic. 7 varieties of millets for 7 days of the week.
Its been 9months since I attended the retreat and I have never come back to regular eating habit during weekdays at least. I have stopped wheat and included brown rice and unpolished dal, along with the varieties of fruits and millets as instructed by doc. I lost 6kilos in the first 2 months and have maintained the same since then. Since I also reached 40 this year, it was much needed for me to make a lifestyle change to combat hormonal changes. Diet with early dinner by 7PM, yoga/meditation in the morning, walk in the evening, makes me feel lighter, more energetic, sleep better, lesser mood swings.
I would highly recommend the retreat to everyone, for those who want to make lifestyle changes for better or have any ailment to be treated in particular. Attending the retreat would motivate you to have a check on your physical and metal well being, especially when you go off track your food, sleep, physically active life.
