Resetting body and mind at Combe Grove Centre of Health and Wellbeing in England
Karen Hockney attends a metabolic health retreat in Bath, Somerset and discovers the joys of taking a life pause, time-restricted eating and 10-hour sleeps
Little did I know when I arrived for my week on the UK’s first metabolic health retreat just how much I was in need of a deliberate life pause. Some stressful months hunched over my PC on a book deadline had bestowed on me a painful and persistent lower back issue, causing my usual, somewhat frenetic exercise-every-day routine to be abandoned. I’d reached a point where even getting out of bed was becoming a physical challenge. So the idea of a complete mind, body and soul reset without having to jump on a plane was nirvana to me.
On arrival at Combe Grove, a Georgian pile set in 70 glorious acres of wild woodland and meadows, even the driving rain couldn’t dampen my excitement at the thought of eight whole days devoted to focusing on me, just me, with work deadlines, inbox, even family contact all put on hold.
“Combe Grove focuses on the five roots of metabolic health – nutrition, movement, sleep, mindset and environment.....with the aim to restore normal blood sugar and blood pressure levels and return you to something approximating optimum health in the space of a week”
As I sat reading in the cosy drawing room by a roaring log fire, a smiley, joyful soul called Jos, who was sitting opposite, asked: ‘Are you here for the retreat?’ We struck up an easy, laughter-filled conversation as she shared her experience of the previous week’s retreat with me, which ended with her declaring: ‘Karen, you will not believe just how much this week is going to change you.’ How right she was.
Entrepreneur and Buchinger veteran Helen Aylward-Smith has taken the most impressive elements of leading European medi-spas to create this pioneering British preventative health centre. And there’s no stark clinical feel or watery thin broth in sight.
The promise is big. Led by Dr Campbell Murdoch, a GP with a special interest in metabolic health, and a team of nutritionists and holistic practitioners, Combe Grove focuses on the five roots of metabolic health – nutrition, movement, sleep, mindset and environment. Everyone undergoes insulin resistance and Accuniq body composition analysis on arrival, with the aim to restore normal blood sugar and blood pressure levels and return you to something approximating optimum health in the space of a week.
With chronic conditions such as prediabetes, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes exacerbated by blood sugar inflammation, the team believes we can mitigate and, in some cases, even reverse our risk factors by following certain wellbeing principles, chiefly TRE (time restricted eating). A two-course brunch and two-course supper are eaten at 11am and 6pm (so within an eight-hour window), before fasting overnight for 16 hours.
Having experienced highly restrictive food intakes at other retreats, where I’d go to bed on a stomach rumbling with hunger and an overwhelming urge to chew my arm off, it was a huge relief to find that the food at Combe Grove is wholesome and plentiful. I ate more on this retreat than I would at home.
Delicious, innovative menus featuring local, seasonal meat, fish and plant-based dishes devised by celebrated Bath chef Marco Appel seemed to hit the spot with my 21 fellow retreaters, including a former colonel in the paras, a food scientist, NHS doctors and psychotherapists, an award-winning florist and a baroness. And communal meals in The Orangery enabled us to get to know each other in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Seminars led by nutritionists Oliver Pratt and dietician Dr Rebecca Hiscutt went deep into the best fats, how to build a balanced plate of carbs, protein and vegetables, as well as optimising sleep and exploring the roles mindset, movement and environment play in overall good health. While some of the medically-guided advice seemed to me to be common knowledge, other aspects, like the outsized benefits of eating a small salad before each meal, were less well-known.
Then there was The Coach House, equipped with a gym and studios offering everything from HIIT sessions to candle-lit yoga nidra as a night-time wind-down. Just magical. There’s an indoor 17m indoor pool as well as a 12m outdoor pool, heated to a balmy 27 degrees centigrade, making November morning swims far more enjoyable than my usual cold water forays.
The small details counted most. When asked in advance which root I wanted to focus on during my stay, I chose mindset, and when I checked in, my Scandi-luxe style orchard room suite – picture sisal carpets, calming zen neutrals, natural wood accents and cotton linen as well as a terrace overlooking the grounds – was kitted out with calming lavender in many forms: essential oil, massage oil, a hanging sachet to place with my clothes, a diffuser which filled the room with fragrance as well as a selection of mind-calming Pukka teas.
Within a couple of days, my sleep had improved to the point where I awoke one morning at 8.15am to discover I’d slept undisturbed for over 10 hours, a feat I’ve not accomplished for many years.
I suspect the newly discovered sense of calm which enveloped me as the days passed had much to do with Combe Grove’s 12 holistic practitioners, who offer everything from emotional freedom technique and homeopathy to myofascial release, kinesiology and shiatsu.
Almost two hours of reflexology in the incredible healing hands of Rosalind saw me walk out with a spring in my step that I hadn’t felt for almost two months. Brian built on this progress during my acupuncture session using moxa made from mugwort to heat up trouble spots in my back and, together with the assortment of needles strategically placed in my feet, hands and wrists, I felt an indescribable sense of calm and relief.
The long, sweeping strokes of Oscar’s aromatherapy massage further relaxed any remaining back niggles while cranial sacral osteopath Bella confidently assessed where I was holding stress – in my kidneys and my 12th rib – and manipulated my body to soothe and expel tension.
Full disclosure: it’s been over a month since I left Combe Grove and I’m back to my normal, upbeat and pain-free self once again. Pure joy.
