What if the healthiest retreat menu is not the same for everyone? Exploring protein, cravings, metabolic health, sustainability, and food choice.
By Dr. Kristina Dobyns, PhD, MS
The menu arrives at the first retreat lunch: a quinoa bowl, fruit platter, roasted vegetables, something involving lentils. It is real food—rich in fibre, vitamins, and plant diversity. But for some guests, it is also light on protein and heavy on carbohydrates. By mid-afternoon, one person is scanning the room for something more substantial. Another is in the familiar 3 p.m. slump. A third has been thinking about dessert since breakfast.
The Retreat-Plate Problem
I know that experience from the inside. I tend to feel best when I eat more animal protein and less sugar: steadier energy, fewer cravings, and evenings that feel clear rather than foggy. After mindfulness retreats built around the familiar vegan-vegetarian-plus-treats model, I have sometimes left with digestion off, cravings high, and a lingering question on the flight home: did that week do more harm than good for me?
For people who eat this way, the issue is not failing to request an accommodation. Often, the option simply does not exist. The menu is set, the ingredients are set, and the retreat has already decided what “healthy” looks like.
That can place yoga, meditation, and wellness retreats out of reach for guests who know a week of grains, fruit, and sweet “wellness” snacks will leave them depleted or preoccupied with food. Practices meant to support clarity, presence, and connection should not be accessible only to people whose bodies thrive on one kind of retreat menu.
Why Retreat Menus Default to Plants
There are understandable reasons retreat food has become plant-forward.
Some of it reflects modern yoga culture’s relationship with ahimsa, or non-harming, and later traditions connecting vegetarian food with spiritual practice. The classical Yoga Sūtras name ahimsa as the first yama, or ethical restraint, but do not prescribe a particular diet. Food categories such as sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic come more from later yogic and Ayurvedic traditions. In many contemporary interpretations, meat is considered less supportive of contemplative practice—an influential view, but not the only historical or philosophical one.
There are practical reasons, too. Vegetarian menus can accommodate many common restrictions at once, and produce, legumes, and grains are often easier to source and prepare in remote places than fresh animal foods. For many guests, plant-forward food is delicious, nourishing, ethical, and exactly what they want.
But “widely accommodating” is not the same as universally accessible. A menu built around one definition of wellness can unintentionally exclude people whose health, appetite, or relationship with food requires something different.
Why Some Guests Eat Differently
People choose lower-carbohydrate or animal-inclusive diets for many reasons: steadier energy, more satisfying meals, fewer cravings, and less mental real estate devoted to food. Others arrive there through metabolic concerns, autoimmune conditions, epilepsy, or professional guidance.
The ketogenic diet has been used clinically for epilepsy for more than a century; Johns Hopkins has enrolled more than 1,500 children in its ketogenic-diet program for seizure management. Research is also examining ketogenic and lower-carbohydrate approaches for type 2 diabetes, mood disorders, and inflammatory conditions.
In a two-year Virta Health study, 53.5% of participants met the study’s definition of type 2 diabetes reversal, with improved blood-sugar control and reduced diabetes-medication use. Small clinical studies have also reported improvements in depressive symptoms, serious mental illness, and psoriasis among some people using ketogenic interventions.
The larger point is simple: for some guests, eating this way is not about chasing a trend. It is about feeling stable, nourished, and at ease in their bodies.
Sugar is part of that conversation. Fruit, legumes, and vegetables are not the same as honey-sweetened desserts, refined snacks, or a steady supply of treats marketed as “healthy” because they are organic, gluten-free, or vegan. Someone whose cravings are easily activated by sweetness may experience a fruit-heavy, dessert-every-night retreat menu as a weeklong negotiation with food.
Less added sugar and more protein can mean fewer cravings, fewer energy crashes, and more freedom to focus on rest, movement, conversation, and a quieter mind.
Ethics, Ecology, and Conscious Sourcing
The question is not plants versus meat. It is how food is produced.
A vegetable-forward meal is not automatically low-impact, and animal foods are not automatically harmful. Large-scale monocropping can deplete soil and contribute to habitat loss; well-managed, pasture-based animal agriculture can support soil health, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and perennial grasslands. A 20-year assessment at White Oak Pastures in Georgia found its multi-species grazing system built soil carbon and had a modelled greenhouse-gas footprint 66% lower than the conventional commodity comparison.
For travellers, conscious eating means looking past labels: Where does the food come from? How are animals raised? Is it whole, thoughtfully sourced, and supportive of both the land and the person eating it? Health, ethics, culture, and sustainability do not always lead everyone to the same plate.
Room for More Than One Plate
A growing number of retreats are making room for more than one definition of nourishment.
One example is Meat & Movement, held in Uvita, Costa Rica, from February 28 through March 6, 2027. The retreat combines yoga, movement, rest, and nervous-system support with animal-inclusive, lower-sugar, lower-carbohydrate meals for guests who feel best eating that way.
“Lower-carbohydrate” does not mean a joyless plate or a retreat spent counting macros. A typical lunch might include 100% grass-fed, sustainably raised beef, fermented vegetables, and fresh organic fruit. Guests can take what works for them: a protein-forward meal, vegetables and fruit, or a combination that feels satisfying and supportive.
This is the kind of accessibility wellness travel can offer: not a demand that every retreat serve the same food, but recognition that animal-inclusive, lower-sugar eating deserves a place in the landscape too.
Ahimsa asks us to take non-harming seriously. That can include care for animals, ecosystems, food workers, and the person doing the eating. A retreat should not leave someone depleted, ashamed, preoccupied with cravings, or unable to participate fully because its version of “healthy” has no room for their body.
Wellness travel has spent years perfecting the green smoothie. It can make room for the guest who wants a ribeye and a quiet mind, too. Nobody needs to declare a winning diet. Everyone deserves a seat at the table.
If this approach speaks to you
Dr. Kristina Dobyns is hosting Meat & Movement in Uvita, Costa Rica, February 28 to March 6, 2027. Creative vinyasa flow, yoga nidra, somatic movement, breathwork, on-site waterfalls, and protein-centred, low-sugar, low-carb meals. Come feel nourished in mind, body, and spirit.
For travellers looking for a wellness retreat built around this kind of nourishment, it may be worth exploring.
Details and booking: MeatAndMovement.com
Dr. Kristina Dobyns is the founder of Beyond Binge Eating, an integrative recovery platform supporting women navigating binge eating, compulsive food behaviours and sugar addiction. She holds a PhD in Somatic Psychology and a Master’s in Exercise Science, and is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, with additional training in Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, Mindful Self-Compassion, and other body-based and behavioural approaches.
Her work focuses on the intersection of nervous-system regulation, metabolic health, somatic practice, and compulsive eating patterns. Her approach is embodied and grounded in both neuroscience and compassion.
References
- Yoga, food choices, and lifestyle: Telles S, et al., “Yoga Practice and Choices of Foods, Physical Activity, and Lifestyle,” International Journal of Yoga (2023). Read the study
- Ketogenic diet therapy for epilepsy: Johns Hopkins Medicine, “Ketogenic Diet Therapy for Epilepsy.” Learn more
- Two-year type 2 diabetes outcomes: Athinarayanan SJ, et al., “Long-Term Effects of a Novel Continuous Remote Care Intervention Including Nutritional Ketosis for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes,” Frontiers in Endocrinology (2019). Read the study
- Ketogenic diet and depression in college students: Sethi S, et al., “A Pilot Study Examining a Ketogenic Diet as an Adjunct Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder in College Students,” Translational Psychiatry (2025). Read the study
- Ketogenic diet and serious mental illness: Stanford Medicine, “Pilot Study Shows Ketogenic Diet Improves Severe Mental Illness” (2024). Read the Stanford Medicine report
- Very-low-calorie ketogenic diet and psoriasis: Castaldo G, et al., “Effect of Very-Low-Calorie Ketogenic Diet on Psoriasis Patients,” Journal of Proteome Research (2021). Read the study
- Pasture-based livestock and environmental impact: Rowntree JE, et al., “Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System,” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (2020). Read the study