ProLon Review: I Did A 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Diet
I’m trying out the ProLon 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Cleanse and am writing this while in the middle of my fast so I can document each day as I go. While I can’t speak to the results yet, this is for accountability and diary-writing purposes. The ProLon 5-Day Fasting Cleanse isn’t actually a diet – it’s a fast, but one in which you’re not starving yourself or drinking cayenne pepper lemon water for a week. You’re actually eating some sort of breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, so you can have all the cellular cleansing & renewal benefits without any of the negative side effects. ProLon has a 1-Day Fasting Kit, but if I wanted to go big or go home.
Who Shouldn’t do ProLon
ProLon is not for you if you’re pregnant or nursing, underweight, or have a history of an eating disorder. If you have a chronic medical condition, including Type 2 Diabetes, or heart or liver disease, you should get a doctor’s approval prior to trying ProLon.
What Are the Side Effects of ProLon?
The most common side effects are mild headache, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.
What is the ProLon Fast?
It’s a patented program discovered and developed at the Longevity Institute of the University of Southern California. Using macro & micro precision nutrition to keep you in a fasting state, the program contains a specific ratio, amount, and composition of plant-derived protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates that allows the body to enter into a beneficial fasting state without triggering the cells’ nutrient sensors. ProLon actually mimics fasting while still allowing you to eat food. Think of it as fasting with nourishment.
Can You Drink Coffee?
Caffeine withdrawals are brutal so I would suggest you wean yourself off of it in preparation for the ProLon cleanse. I stopped having coffee for about 3 or 4 days before starting ProLon and I did not crave caffeine during the cleanse. But you are allowed 1 cup of black coffee each day.
Why I’m Doing the ProLon Fast
I do do fasting from time to time on my own but it’s usually only for a day when I want to reset my body after an indulgent trip or have been eating poorly. There are so many benefits to giving your body a break so the energy it normally uses to break down food can be used in other bodily processes.
This is my first time trying something that is a research-backed program sold as a “fasting formula” and one that lasts for 5 days. Bonus points, the research was developed at my alma mater USC, fight on.
Anyways, I just came back from an electronic music festival in Spain, so I thought this would be the perfect time to start a cleanse after all the food and alcohol. My goal is not necessarily to lose weight though that’s one of the main benefits of doing the ProLon program. I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds but I would not care either way. My main goal is to reap the health and rejuvenation benefits.
Each day generally follows the same ProLon meal plan with the only variety being the soup is different each day. Overall, so far this truly feels like a fast and not a meal plan, because the food is quite bland (except for the choco crisp bar and olives). The soup doesn’t taste like a soup normally does, so don’t expect a store-bought Campbells. I’m sharing my day-by-day experience with ProLon as I go through each day!
How the ProLon Fast Works
Here is how the ProLon fast works day-by-day:
Day 1: You Transition to a Fasting State
This is the “introduction day” or as we called it in college “orientation day” of the cleanse. The he body transitions into a fasting state and a fat-burning mode so that it can begin cellular clean up.
Day 2 – You Switch to Fat Burning Mode
You switch to fat burning and autophagy begins, which is the cellular clean-up phase wherein your body removes damaged cells, degraded proteins, and pathogens.
Day 3 – Autophagy & Ketosis State
Cellular clean-up continues and you’re also in a fat burning metabolic state called ketosis.
Day 4 – Cellular Rejuvenation
Cellular clean-up and fat burning continues.
Day 5 – Renewal
The final day of the fast.
Day 1 with ProLon
Day 1 has the most food and calories to help you adjust to the cleanse. At about 12pm I had the L-Bar which is their proprietary nut-based bar made of almonds, macadamia nuts, honey, pecans, coconut, flaxseed, coconut oil, and vegetable fiber inulin. It tastes a bit bland, but wasn’t too bad, almost like you made a homemade bar yourself and forgot to add the sweetener. I also had 2 packets of the Algal Oil, their Omega 3 supplements and herbal tea.
At around 2PM I had the ProLon carrot ginger soup, which is a dehydrated soup that you add water to then heat up in the microwave or stove. I’m very much a soup lover, and this was difficult for me to finish. If you’re not a soup person ProLon is going to be brutal for you to get through. The olives were my saving grace because they actually had a salty profile. The crackers were quite tough and difficult for me to finish as well. I completed lunch with the ProLon NR-1 capsules.
Thankfully I didn’t even feel hungry throughout Day 1 and I didn’t even feel like having the dinner portion. I had another L-Bar I could eat as a snack and soup for dinner with an L-Bar Choco Crisp as dessert. I just didn’t have the appetite for the L-Bar and soup so I only had the dessert Choco Crisp and went to bed.
Day 2 with ProLon
Starting from Day 2 of ProLon’s 5-Day Fasting Mimicking Diet I have to start taking their L-Drink every morning. The L-Drink is their proprietary glycerol drink to help protect your amino acids and maintain lean body mass throughout the fast. The purpose of the glycerin in the L-Drink is to provide the body with an alternate energy source to use instead of lean body mass during days 2-5 of the fast. It helps protect your lean body mass while keeping you in a fasting state, and while it isn’t necessary, your energy levels may suffer if you don’t take it.
This drink is supposed to be diluted with water and measured according to your body weight. With the L-Drink I have to use the amount that corresponds to my body weight, which is around 130 lbs so I only poured 1/5 of the drink into my bottle of water. The more you weigh the more you have to mix in. The L-Drink tastes a tiny bit citrus-y but otherwise has no taste.
On Day 2 you start to think what have we gotten ourselves into. Another entire day of eating almost nothing ahead with 3 more days to go. You really need to psych yourself up to muster up as much sheer willpower as you can.
Today we didn’t have crackers, so it feels a bit more restrictive already than Day 1. Instead I had olives with my soup for lunch. This time it was a Lentil Curry soup which I actually enjoyed, so I guess I just wasn’t a fan of carrot soup. Lentil Curry had a nice little kick to it.
Dinner was another pretty tasty pea and chives soup (finally something green!). Hunger level was about medium strong by tonight, so I kept myself busy with the 4th season of Never Have I Ever that just came out.
Day 3
Surprisingly I wake up not feeling hungry but feeling very light and clear headed. I’m also about a week without having coffee. Breakfast is again the L-Bar which I’m growing to despise. I measured today’s L-Drink according to my weight and mixed it with water. I only need about 10% of the bottle so having to throw out so much everyday feels wasteful.
It’s 5PM and this has been the toughest day to get through thus far. Day 3 also happens to be the most restrictive day with fewer snacks to eat, so I’ve been thinking about food non-stop while trying to distract myself with work.
This has been the toughest day to get through, but it’s when it really counts!
Day 4
Finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel because the end of the fast is aaaalmost here. I am quite tired of the usual L-Bar for breakfast. Not because I’m hungry, but because I just don’t like eating bars for breakfast in general.
10 am I feel so much lighter. My stomach feels great, my bowel movements have remained regular throughout this fast and I feel super proud of myself for getting here.
It’s now lunchtime and I’m really starting to feel hungry again.
