The Green Valley Spa Experience – Day 5. Amazing Treatments, Products, and Tools for Stress Reduction and Emotional Eating.
8:45 Breakfast. I am not sure why it took me over two hours to get to breakfast. I woke up at 6.30 am, and was having too much fun lying in bed, drinking coffee, and reading. Green Valley Spa enables my lazy behavior by putting glass jars of coffee beans, a coffee grinder, and a coffee maker in my room in the kitchen area. There is also a teapot, a basket of teas and sweeteners, an air popcorn maker, and whatever else I bring back to the room and stash in the fridge. Last year my big stash was yogurt. This year, it’s the Chinese “Immortal Water.” It is supposed to have all these great properties. I fully expect to be able to fly and travel through time.
Welcome Post Intro Post 1 Post 2 Post 3 Post 4 Post 5 Post 6 Last Day The Afterparty
10.00 am Chatting with Green Valley staff and guests. Because I essentially just sat around chatting with various Green Valley staff and guests for two hours, I will slip in Part 2 of Chef Laurie’s Spa Cuisine lecture from the Day 3 post. Her big focus is an anti inflammatory diet with which I am becoming more and more intrigued.
Now, I FINALLY understand why people take kids off wheat and dairy if they have sinus issues, etc. is because this likely will reduce inflammation of the sinus passages! I have been through so many ENT issues with my son, so, was shocked that I am the one finally making sense of this. Not the nutritionist (no mention of inflammation). Not the allergist (no mention of inflammation). Anyway, on with….
PART 2 of CHEF LAURIE’S SPA CUISINE LECTURE TAKEAWAYS (See Day 3 post for Part 1)
6. Here are flour substitutes
Potato flour – use in baking to make stuff stick together. Use with gluten free flour instead of normal flour in recipes.
Tom Sawyer flour – it’s gluten free.
7. Snacks
Organic sun dried tomato – You can’t do better in terms of vitamins and anti oxidants.
Dried fruit – Get it into your diet. It should look brown, don’t buy it with sulfites (brightly colored dried fruit).
Nuts-Popitos. Easy to digest. Put in oven after swish with olive oil. 350 for three to five minutes. Top with smoked salt. Good late night and road trip snack.
Jicama – Slice jicama and put it in water and keep it in fridge. Great late night snack. Has some sweetness. No calories.
8. Broths and Sauces
Buy Braggs Liquid Aminos. It has 22 amino acids. It helps your metabolism. Put on salad like dressing. Put in ground turkey to make it taste like beef. Put in pineapple juice and make a terriaki. Use like soy. Sometimes thyroid problems are attributed to low amino acid intake.
Organic chicken broth and vegetable broth. Cook rice, quinoa, soup with it. Sneak in nutrients instead of just using water.
9. Wherever you possibly can go organic.
10. Good Books
Idiots Guide to Anti Inflammatory Diet
Food Lovers Companion-Carry with you to the grocery store until you know what terms on the back of the packages mean. See if any of the ingredents have wheat or corn syrup and put back on the shelf if they do.
The Complete Book of Food Counts - Great book that lists calories of foods, including fast foods.
Parting thought: Take charge of what you put in your and your family’s mouth.
Cranberry Cashew Cookies
2 c Tom Sawyer flower
2 c Oat Flower
2 c Plain unsweetened goat yogurt
2 egg whites (or whole egg)
Cinnamon to flavor
1 cup dark agave syrup
.25 to .5 c rice milk
2.5 tblsp of baking powder
3/4 c cashews
3/4 c dried cranberries
Mix ingredients together, but don’t manipulate too much.
Use baker’s paper, silpac, or all natural spray on a cookie sheeet. Bake 14 or 15 minutes until golden brown.
12.00 pm Lunch and nap. Great lunch of chicken/cabbage wraps. Other guests had a veggie burger with guacamole, Chevre cheese, and sauce. The other choice was a buffalo burger. There were great sauteed onions on the top. We hear that my friend Wendee, who is having her first time at Green Valley Spa, is loving it and b-lining to Mike’s meditation, then the pool. I, on the other hand, go to take a nap. As I fall off to sleep, I watch an infomercial for the A Guru Design patent bag on HSN. I seriously have a problem.
3.00 pm Treatment. Lomi Lomi. There is a kind of massage here called Lomi Lomi which a true master of the craft teaches. It is a Polynesian type of massage that is divine. Before this, I have tea in the relaxation room. I am staring at a tall arrangement of gorgeous purple flowers and greenery. Everyday Vicky comes in and does the flowers throughout the spa according to the color of the day. Today, the color is violet.
Flowers are changed daily in the relaxation room, dining room, and other areas of the spa. Today is violet.
After hanging out in the relaxation room, Isabella comes and leads me to the shower (you can also take a jacuzzi bath with brightly colored and wonderful smelling “Fairy Dust” bath salts). Isabella starts the shower for me, takes a hot wash cloth out of the steamer, and spreads on it a mixture of the spa’s own products including Sand (exfoliant), Ashes (soap with no surfactants), Breeze (I’ll have to look what this is), and either Radiance (a body lotion). When you take a bath, they give you a pot of Honey Milk. My aunt says “I use this on my neck every morning and every night.” Carole, who owns the spa with her husband Alan, developed all of these programs with a Swiss Biochemist. She was way, way ahead of her time. I am falling in love with the products again this year and am taking a bunch home with me.
Here, Isabella prepares the wash cloth scrub full of Green Valley Spa's own brand of Good Medicine products. They smell heavenly.
Last year, I got a body scrub treatment where you go in what I call “the mermaid room.”
An "eh" picture of a gorgeous treatment room I call "The Mermaid Room."
5.00 pm EFT / Stress Reduction / Emotional Eating Session. I attend a lecture and Q&A session on emotional eating and stress reducing using EFT which stands for “Emotional Freedom Technique” which – short version – is a needle-free version of acupuncture. While tapping specific places on your hand, head, face, chest, ribs, and wrist you first acknowledge a source of stress, and state something positive in conjunction with it (e.g.. “I accept and love myself”). Then, you devise something you’d like to feel instead, or something you’d like to do instead, and do the tapping again while stating that. Apparently this is starting to be used more in sports to help athletes get into “the zone.” There are many body types at the spa. It is diverse in that way. There is no judgement. However, many people appear to struggle with eating as a reaction to something, vs. sustenance alone. We practiced using the EFT for that type of reactionary or emotional eating impulses. I have to say, that by the end I felt kind of like I had been through one of Mike’s meditation sessions. I don’t even really 100% understand how it works, all I can say is that I like the two part process of acknowledging a negative emotion, attaching a positive phrase to that, then wrapping up with a more empowering type of emotion or action.
6.00 pm Dinner. I had a great marinated buffalo and spinach salad. Other guests had turkey meatballs with Quinoa spaghetti. Both were fantastic.
7:00 pm Sharon and Eydie’s room. Wendee and I went to Sharon and Eydie’s room and chatted. We asked Wendee how she liked Green Valley Spa and she loves it. She likes the laid back mojo of the place. It is not filled with primadonnas. Nevertheless, it is nice and pampering. The ultimate combo. “There’s something about this place,” she said. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I am looking forward to our hike tomorrow a.m.
2 Comments
Mary on September 8th, 2009
I can attest to Braggs Liquid Aminos. Tastes a little like soy sauce with an 8th of the salt content. Its a staple in my fridge!
Kate F on May 8th, 2009
Next year, I’m coming in your suitcase. Thanks so much for all the helpful tips. I’ve enjoyed reading them!