April 5th, 6th and 7th the Wind Down and Do We Feel Restored?

The last three days at the spa were the normal routine with no dietary restrictions. While Leslie did not go back to the Yogic cleaning other than the eyes we both were at the morning yoga. Leslie did an intermediate yoga just before lunch and David went to the little fitness center. The heat has definitely picked up in Goa. With the yoga class inside a building (no A/C) it is like Bikram Yoga just because of the heat and all the sweating that takes place. The fitness center has some overhead fans at least.  We have taken to using our rehydration salts so that we continue to have energy. We make a liter bottle of the stuff in the morning and drink some to see if it tastes sweet or salty.  If it takes salty we don’t need it but if it tastes sweet then we drink some more to help keep the electrolytes in balance. The food here has very little salt.

On Monday April 6^th, we went out to June 18 street in Panaji to do some last minute shopping, leaving the Spa at 3:30 so we would arrive at the shopping area at 4:30 as the city cooled down. We were able to find the dress-up dresses that we wanted for our granddaughter. Leslie came home with the shawl for a lovely blue and gold Indian Choli,  the rest of which was being made up for her in 24 hours. It was to be delivered to the hotel about 6 hours before we were to leave. She lucked out and her dress arrived 5 hours before we were to leave the hotel.

The other item to buy in Panaji is cashew nuts. They have them flavored with all kinds of spices and salts. We enjoyed looking around in the shops but did not want to miss dinner so we were back by 7:30pm.

The daily spa therapies were moving away from those fixing injuries (back and knee for David) to being more rejuvenating massages.  Leslie enjoyed the herbal Scrub again and on the last day even a facial (Mukhalepam). The facial included a mask of honey and herb powders along with a massage using various herbal creams. Before the last day Leslie pointed out to the Dr. that we had paid for nights for which we would not be getting therapies…..so on our last day we had 3 hours of therapies each. Leslie was the happier camper about this.

Our energy levels have really increased since we have finished with the detox and we are now ready to move on. We are looking up apartments in Florence for the months of July and August and focusing on Morocco, which we will be visiting in two weeks. Our last day included a final weigh-in, and yes, we both lost some weight, and then we had our final consultation with the Dr. We received our files which noted all the treatments we had been given each day plus several pages for food balancing for our particular doshas. David is a Pitta Dosha primarily and his health concerns are in the Pitta Dosha, so she said he is an easy fix.  Leslie is a Vata Dosha, but her problems are across the other 2 doshas (Pitta and Kapha) so her food balancing was to balance the Kapha dosha. All she cares about is trying to stop the hair loss which the Dr. said will take 6 months and hopefully she will not be bald by then! We were each given herbal medications to take, the cost of these was about $150 total, so we will try them for 6 months and see how we go along.

Interesting that Ayurveda treats thyroid issues with natural herbs and roots but they do the same regular blood testing that is done for chemical medications. Guess there is no way to get around that.

It would have been helpful to have had a primer on Ayurveda, which is the traditional medical system of India and about 5,000 years old.  “Ayu” means life and “veda” means knowledge, so ayurveda is the science of life. It is based on 3 fundamental concepts:

1. Food is medicine. (That’s why we have so many lists of food do’s and don’ts)

2. Through your daily habits disease can be prevented and eradicated (those oil massages for one thing)

3. Lifestyle recommendations are based on your physical, mental and emotional profile.

 In looking on the internet to try and give you an idea of the summary that is in Leslie’s book, she needs to reduce the Kapha dosha in order to lose weight. The link below gives you a good idea. For her, fish can be eaten twice a week, chicken once a week and red meat once a month. David in the meantime gets fish every other day (he hates fish), chicken once or twice a week and red meat every two weeks.

http://www.doctoroz.com/article/kapha-body-type-meal-plan

We will keep reviewing this list of foods and see if we can adjust to it. Time will tell.

The Spa had arranged for their car and driver to take us to the airport leaving at 12:45am so that we could catch the 1am ferry to the mainland. We were off to Doha to celebrate our granddaughter’s first birthday.