Prolon Reviews: Is It Effective?

The ProLon Diet is an eating plan that claims to offer a way of “fasting with food.” On this “fasting-mimicking” diet, you’ll eat a limited number of calories over the course of five days, consuming only what’s in the food provided for you by the company. Does the diet actually work as advertised, as it claims to aid in weight loss?

Here is a primer on ProLon, including information on what it is, how much it costs, any potential drawbacks, and more.

What Is The ProLon Diet?

The ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet is a five-day, low-calorie meal plan based on plants that aim to mimic the short-term metabolic changes that can result from fasting. It’s intended to “reset your metabolism by helping your body improve its response to insulin, which is essential for optimal health and plays a role in weight loss,” explains Melina Jampolis, M.D., a physician nutrition specialist who holds board certification, is a member of the Forbes Health Advisory Board.

You simply consume fewer calories while on the diet, as opposed to completely eliminating them. You will consume approximately 1,100 calories on the first day, and between 700 and 800 calories per day on days two through five.

Five boxes—one for each day of the diet—contain all of the food you’ll consume during this time. The boxes include a variety of energy bars, soups, drinks, supplements, and snacks. Before switching back to their regular diet, users follow the diet’s guidelines for one week out of every month, but the company points out that the best results are seen after three consecutive months.

What Sort Of Food Do You Eat On ProLon?

You should strictly adhere to the diet plan if you want the most benefits from using ProLon. It’s interesting that the diet is essentially the same regardless of height, age, or weight. The amount of a specialty glycerin drink that your body uses for extra energy changes only slightly as a result of these variables. The amount of powder you add to the drink depends on how much you weigh.

The five days’ worth of ProLon meals is listed below in brief.

Soups

Your main source of food will be soups throughout the day. Lunch and dinner will both consist of soup. There are nine different soup varieties available from the company, but since you have to pick from two sets of five, they might start to sound the same. Each soup is dry and packaged in pre-measured amounts. Just add hot water, that’s all.

Soup flavors in the Original lineup include:

• Vegetable
• Tomato
• Mushroom
• Vegetable quinoa
• Minestrone

New flavors of soup include:

• White bean and spinach
• Black bean
• Butternut squash
• Butternut squash and quinoa
• Tomato

Snacks

Over the course of the day, you’ll receive a few small snacks. Fast Bars are also included in this group by ProLon. At breakfast, they are your main source of calories. In all, your snack options look like this:

• Nut-based L-bar
• Cocoa-based L-bar
• Kale crackers
• Almond and kale crackers
• Olives with herbs or sea salt

Drinks

Some specific drinks that come with ProLon are recommended for consumption. The L-drink, which has glycerin, is the most crucial of these. This beverage can provide you with additional energy throughout the day that you might otherwise lack when your caloric intake is low. You measure it according to your body weight.

When the plan calls for it, you are free to savor any flavor of L-drink or tea.

The drinks include:

• Tropical berry-flavored L-drink
• Orange-flavored L-drink
• Hibiscus herbal tea
• Spearmint herbal tea
• Spearmint lemon herbal tea

Supplements

Two nutritional supplements are provided with ProLon. The first is a powder, while the second is a capsule. The powder assists in preventing vitamin and mineral deficiencies that you might otherwise experience as a result of the restrictive nature of the diet. You receive a sufficient amount of Omega 3s from the capsule.

• NR-1 vegetable powder with vitamin and mineral supplement
• Algal oil capsules

You can eat your daily allotted foods in any order you like if you want to mix things up. Foods cannot, however, be traded from one day to the next. If it means the difference between adhering to the plan and cheating, we advise making those allowed daily adjustments. However, adhering strictly to their plan is the best course of action.

ProLon makes only vegan and gluten-free products. Everything is soy-free, with the exception of the supplement containing algal oil because the capsule contains soy lecithin.

How Effective Is The ProLon Diet?

The ProLon Diet works through what it calls “fasting mimicking,” according to Dr. Jampolis. “It’s high in fat and lower in protein and carbohydrates and, per the creator, is supposed to trick the body into thinking that it is fasting even though you are eating food throughout the day, albeit small amounts — 34% [to] 54% of your normal calorie intake,” she explains.

Specifically, ProLon claims that the following occurs during the five-day cycle:

• Day 1: Your body moves into a fasting and fat-burning state, preparing for “cellular clean-up,” where nutrient-sensing pathways are reportedly cleared
• Day 2: Fat-burning in the body ramps up, initiating ketogenesis, or ketone production, which helps turn glucose into energy
• Day 3: Fat-burning and ketone production continue, increase
• Day 4: Cellular cleaning and renewal, and fat-burning continue
• Day 5: Fast is completed, and cellular cleaning temporarily continues

Especially if you want to lose weight, the ProLon Diet is not a one-and-done fast. “For weight loss, it is meant to be done once a month for at least three months to ‘reset’ your metabolism, and to maintain the health benefits, you must follow the diet every 1-6 months,” Dr. Jampolis says.

The company also provides a one-day fast called the ReSet by ProLon for shorter fasting intended to support intermittent fasting. However, if you’re looking to lose weight, burn fat, improve metabolic health, or jumpstart a healthier lifestyle, ProLon’s five-day fast is what you should try.

Foods You Can Eat And Avoid On The ProLon Diet

You have a restricted diet while following the ProLon Diet. You receive a box from the company with everything you need to eat during the fast. It is vegan, gluten-free, and lactose-free and made with whole foods.

Foods You Can Eat

The five-day fast includes one box for each day with:

• Plant-based energy bars
• Soups (flavors may include vegetable, minestrone, vegetable quinoa, tomato, and mushroom)
• A variety of snacks, drinks, and supplements

You receive different amounts of food every day, with Monday having the highest amounts and Wednesday having the lowest amounts. However, the information is intended to benefit you. Glycerol, which Dr. Jampolis says is “supposed to support you when your body has depleted its carbohydrate stores (glycogen).”

The ReSet by ProLon option includes:

• Breakfast: One Fast Bar, herbal tea, and algal oil packet
• Lunch: One tomato soup, almond and kale crackers serving, and two NR-1 packets
• Afternoon: One olives packet and herbal tea
• Dinner will be a single serving of butternut squash soup and an I.F. of the program. Bar

Foods To Avoid

During the ProLon Diet, you’ll avoid the majority of foods, ideally only eating what is in the boxes you are sent. The company states “​​additions are discouraged to minimize the risk of breaking the fast.”

However, ProLon does allow you to make a select few additions to what is included:

• Unlimited herbal teas (unsweetened and caffeine-free)
• All types of sparkling water (though no sweeteners of any kind are permitted)
• Caffeine (up to 140 milligrams per day)
• Dried herbs or spices added to soups or other foods in the diet (up to one tablespoon per day)
• Sea salt (up to one tablespoon per day)
• Lemon, squeezed, not eaten (up to two slices per day)
• Sugar-free gum (up to two slices per day)

ProLon specifies you should add food to the diet “only as a last resort if you are so incredibly hungry that you feel like you are going to break the fast.” In these cases, suggested additions include “a slice or two of apple, one stalk of celery or one small Persian (“baby”) cucumber of 5 to 6 inches in length per day.”

Benefits Of The ProLon Diet

Possible benefits of the ProLon Diet, in Dr. Jampolis, include:

• Possible reduction in belly fat: This is likely one of the most important possible benefits of the diet, as a reduction in belly fat “leads to weight loss, reduction in blood sugar and cholesterol [and] reduction in inflammation,” notes Dr. Jampolis.
• Potential to improve aging: In reality, rather than being designed to help people lose weight, the diet was made to improve aging, claims Dr. Jampolis has the capacity to achieve that. The possible reduction in belly fat “may help support healthy aging by inducing a process called autophagy in which older cells are replaced by new, healthier cells,” she explains.
• Realization of gluten or lactose sensitivities: You might be able to identify a food sensitivity more easily if you avoid most foods for five days. During the ProLon diet, if digestive problems like gas, diarrhea, or pain in the abdomen develop, consult Dr. Jampolis advises speaking with your doctor and possibly attempting a larger-scale elimination diet.

Drawbacks Of The ProLon Diet

There are also downsides of the ProLon Diet to consider, including:

• High cost: The ProLon Diet is pricey. Despite possible discounts, the five-day fast box costs $249, especially if you’re doing your first ProLon fast or purchasing multiple boxes. Discounts might be available, but the ReSet by ProLon box costs $44.99 overall.
• Limited body changes likely due to the short-term nature of the diet: Because of the ProLon Diet’s ability to cause a brief state of ketosis, which aids in muscle preservation, Dr. Jampolis says that “body composition changes are likely limited to mainly belly fat.” She also says “there is no evidence that this method is superior to other methods of fasting or even long-term caloric restriction.”
• Low-calorie intake may not be suitable for all: The ProLon Diet has a very low caloric intake, so it might not be suitable for everyone.

The Price Of ProLon

ProLon is unquestionably more expensive than other at-home diet programs. These other plans, however, usually involve long-term commitments. It’s better to consider ProLon as a way to kick-start a diet you’re about to start or to revive a diet if it’s reached a plateau. The subscription system is what we favor because of this. You can choose five days out of every month to complete the program, and it has the best price.

Here’s a look at ProLon’s costs and how bundling or subscribing can save you money:

• Single box – $187
• Single box subscription – $179/box
• Double box (great for couples) – $340 ($170/box)

ProLon additionally sells fasting bars. Theoretically, you could eat these bars without compromising your fast. They have been tested in clinical trials with the ProLon system, but as of yet, they haven’t been tested independently. It’s difficult to say that these bars deliver on their promises without additional clinical testing given our understanding of fasting science and biology.

Larger purchases result in lower bar prices, and subscribing will result in even greater savings. Here’s a look at the lowest possible costs for each flavor:

• Nuts and Honey – $2.28/bar
• Nuts and Dark Cocoa – $2.28/bar
• Nuts and Cacao Chips – $2.28/bar
• Blueberry Acai – $2.85/bar
• Lemon Berry – $2.85/bar
• Variety Pack – $2.66/bar

ProLon Vs. Other Types Of Fasting

In contrast to intermittent fasting (such as eating only 500–600 calories on two nonconsecutive days of the week) and time-restricted feeding (such as limiting your eating window to 4–8 hours per day), ProLon is regarded as a form of periodic fasting.

Given that the plan is only five days long, the studies on ProLon’s results are quite astounding. One study published in Science Translational Medicine in 2019 compared a control group with no diet intervention to a group that followed ProLon for three months on five days per week.

Body weight and belly fat were reduced while lean muscle mass was preserved in the ProLon group. In addition to a rise in stem cell production and lower levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), a hormone linked to an increased risk of cancer when elevated, they also experienced decreases in blood pressure, cholesterol, and CRP, an inflammatory marker.

Scientists claim that these health-protective effects do not appear in other periodic fasts, such as a juice cleanse, or even a longer-term keto diet, but rather seem to be specific to the ProLon plan’s precise formulation. The latter has actually been demonstrated to result in negative effects such as constipation, vitamin and mineral deficiency, and elevated cholesterol.

The majority of ProLon results were also maintained even after participants resumed their regular diets. For instance, 115 days after the protocol, 60% of the weight loss and waist-measurement reductions were still present.

ProLon has also been shown to improve stress tolerance and cognitive function, as well as lower blood pressure, glucose, insulin, triglycerides, and other blood-related markers.

Customers Reviews

• Items from days four and five were missing from my box, which was not sealed. I’ve called four times and left four messages, but you haven’t called me back.
• I noticed that after eating the soup, I would get hungry again. Once again reading the ingredients, I discovered that you had used yeast extract. which is another name for MSG. It makes me sensitive, which leads to cravings and water retention. Unfortunately, the remaining products have very pure ingredients.
• I tried numerous times and was successful in losing several pounds that I was able to keep off. Would recommend. The downside for me is headaches
• I’ve been using ProLon for two months now. Extra soups and bars were included in my order along with two 5-day fasts that I bought.
• The website was simple to use, but it wasn’t clear whether a water bottle was included with the kit, and the promotion I ordered wasn’t what I received. (Although it has taken a few emails and I am still in conversation with customer service, I still haven’t received what I thought I had ordered.)

Is The ProLon Diet Beneficial For You?

It goes without saying that some demographics will gain more advantages from this diet than others. ProLon is typically safe for the majority of healthy people, but it is advisable to consult a doctor before starting any new diet.

If you exercise vigorously or engage in an intense aerobic activity that burns a lot of calories and are unable to stop in order to observe your fast, this may not be the best option for you and could make you feel tired or dizzy.

This might be challenging to maintain if you’re a coffee addict who drinks coffee every day. Fortunately, energy drinks, also known as L Drinks, are included in the ProLon kit. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or have a history of eating disorders, you shouldn’t follow this diet.

Conclusions

ProLon’s suitability for you will depend on a few variables. People in excellent physical condition will probably experience less dramatic changes than people with higher blood pressure, more body fat to lose, etc. But you shouldn’t limit yourself to superficial considerations because fasting has important anti-aging and immunity benefits.

People with pre-diabetes, people with diabetes who have excess belly fat, and people who are generally healthy and want to start a health plan may benefit the most from the ProLon Diet.

While there have been many studies on the advantages of intermittent fasting, more study is required to determine the ProLon diet’s long-term advantages.