**Warning: This is really long. 😦 I’m only posting the first part of three at the moment because we are unable to upload images at this location. If I posted ALL of it without pictures, it would be an unnavigable wall of text! If we are still unable to upload any pictures by tonight/tomorrow, then I will go ahead and post the other parts sans images.**
**Also: This entry covers 8 days at the New Body & Mind Detoxification Retreat, on the Fasting program. It is transposed directly from my journal as I wrote it, day by day.**
Day 1 – First Impressions
OMG. I am so overwhelmed and intimidated by being here. I don’t feel I deserve it. This is for rich and or beautiful people.
I am neither.
At least they keep me busy. The first forty or so minutes were full of paperwork and friendly introductions, but after twenty hours of travel, I fancied a shower. They let me weasel away for a quick one, but I came back to the sobering reality of tape measurements, fat percent count (44.7% for the record, if it’s to be believed), weight, etc. I was nearly in tears. I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. They’re all very friendly, please don’t misunderstand me, but they are “they.” And I feel lost.
My Thai massage was next as apparently I’m expected to fall neatly into the existing routine. I’m doing my best. For the record, Thai reflexology is closer to a really slow and painful martial art than a relaxation technique. Yeowch!
Next came a few shakes. I use the term loosely. One tastes like raw seaweed (2x daily), one like burnt charcoal (5x daily, omg), plus a nutrition/spirulina drink and epsom salts. All taken with water. All tasting so abominable that water, plain and warm even, tastes impossibly sweet and delicious.
Then, pilates – 90m of it! While I don’t think I’ve ever been to an official Pilates course before, I feel fairly confident in saying it’s essentially yoga, except more repetitive and faster.
After 90m, I finally had an hour to breathe – but just one. It’s a schedule 60m of “free time” bliss. I did a little unpacking, swam for almost thirty minutes in the ocean (Ko Samui’s clarity < Tioman, but I love the ocean so), and wrote this, barely. The 5pm bell just sounded, calling people to gather for our daily workshop. Tonight’s is sort of an intro for the newbies, since two of us just started – me and an older, also out-of-shape Dutch woman named Lily.
The room is lovely, by the way, if basic. Two twin beds, fan, gift basket with loofahs and other skin-scrapey things (I was never terribly girly, so I don’t know all the names). There’s even a tool for your tongue.
Dinner is veggie broth and another terribly good-for-you shake. Then an herbal steam bath, which appears to be a stinky, wet sauna – a good “herby” kind of stink, I suppose. Five of us were in there and I got to socialize with them over the “dinner” and ensuing steam (plus the nightcap of extremely sour tamarind juice). I’m feeling a little better about the whole thing. Tomorrow starts early – 6am – and stays full.
Current Count: 2d Smokefree, 1d Fasting
Mental – 4/10 Physical – 7/10
PS: While putting my notebook down, my eyes landed on the wrapped loofah and for a moment I thought it was bread.
PPS: I have a headache. This is, apparently, normal.
Day 2 – First Full Day
AM: Woke at 530, thanks to my alarm. There is a morning bell that is run (old-school, staff member pulls a rope back and forth), but I need more time than fifteen minutes. It rings at 615a, we leave at 630a.
Leave, you ask?
Yep. 630Am, we all lace up our tennis shoes (well, I snap on my Teva’s), and go for a walk for 90 minutes. We were right on target this morning, getting back at 8 on the dot. I did okay until the last kilometer or so (we walked 6+, guide wasn’t exactly sure); the midway point was a massive hill. We headed up and down, and felt exuberant on the other side of it – until we found it was time to turn around, and trudge back up the hill again on our way back.
Walking back on the beach, I (barely) resisted the urge to throw myself into the ocean. It looks so cool! Breakfast next, consisting of one of the spongy charcoal drinks (yes, spongy), carrot juice, and several glasses of water. Other than a mild remnant of last night’s headache, I feel okay so far. Rest of the morning consists of 30m meditation, 90m yoga (!!), and my first colonic. I’ll report in after that… D:
PS: There is a dog here named Oy. He’s lovely, and will come up and hit you with his nose for a pet if you seem down.
Day 2 – PM
Yoga – 90m is brutal.
Meditation – My mind is unfocused and wandering.
Shakes – Absolutely disgusting.
Colonic – Grossest thing I have ever done (and I once licked an eyeball on a bet). This was 100X worse. There is no describing it. It is pure evil. For the record, it’s 1.5L coffee, 10L water. EGAD.
Now, I would LOVE to go for a swim in the ocean, but there’s only 20m until an hour of aerobics, and thirty minutes after that is a Mind Management workshop for 90m. I could cry! I have four more shakes to go, and I haven’t done the sauna or steam bath yet (have to do both). I’m afraid that the colonic didn’t do any good except gross me out and make my tummy sour. Cramping – bathroom calls.
PS: The sand at Tioman was MUCH finer.
PPS: I haven’t craved a cigarette all day, so that is a positive thing.
Current Count: 3d Smokefree, 2d Fasting
Mental – 5/10 Physical – 5/10
Rhys' Pieces 