As I approached the grand old age of 37, it dawned on me that I'd been trying to shift the extra stone of weight I'd been carrying around for almost a decade. And this extra stone looked like it was set to gain company in the form of the dreaded ‘Dubai stone' after relocating to the UAE. As the scales crept up, I knew drastic action was called for.
I'd heard about the Absolute Sanctuary in Koh Samui from a friend. It's much more than an exotic stop-over where bored housewives go to stretch their kaftans. It offers intense, bespoke detoxification programmes that combine physical and emotional therapies with strict diet and exercise. A look through the resort's website revealed a typical day could feature a menu of superfoods and ‘hot yoga', or colonic cleansing and ‘ho'oponopono' - an ancient Hawaiian therapy designed to clear negative emotions. A quick Google flight search later, I was on course to change my life - or, at the very least, my dress size.
Day one
I arrive at Absolute Sanctuary at around 11am with my reluctant yet supportive husband in tow, weary from the journey and grateful for the five-minute transfer from Koh Samui airport. The resort is stunning, scaling a lush green hillside and overlooking a glittering gulf. A guided tour reveals a cinema room, yoga studio, spa, herbal steam room and infinity pool leading the eye out to sea. Bliss.
Our room is fairly basic by comparison, jollied up with Moroccan accents, but there's a flat-screen TV, which is a relief - for some reason I'd thought TVs and computers would be banned. For refreshments there are packets of organic nuts and nibbles, and healthy drinks in a mini fridge. The resort also has an outdoor juice bar by the pool and The Love Kitchen vegetarian restaurant.
I had already created my personalised detox programme before arriving. While my other half chooses to relax by the pool, I'll be on a two-day vegan diet with intense yoga classes and daily Thai massages to prepare me for the ‘Ultimate Detox': three days of juice fasting, colonic hydrotherapy, light exercise and detox massages. Day six will return me to a vegan diet, and by day seven I'll be allowed to pick from The Love Kitchen's small chicken and fish menu.
Thankfully I'm not left wanting after my first vegan lunch of sesame-citrus tofu salad. Despite being an avid carnivore, my husband's so impressed by the range of options on the vegan menu, he orders from the same. Apparently, Masuman potato curry never tasted so good.
At 4.30pm that afternoon, I try out ‘hot yoga' for the first time. Similar to Bikram yoga, but with a different sequence of poses, the temperature in the studio is cranked up to 37˚C. I'm sweating so much I can barely gain traction on my yoga mat and I feel so hopelessly inflexible that I want to cry.
After yoga I'm booked in for a Thai massage - or ‘lazy yoga' as it's sometimes known. ‘Lazy' is my middle name and I can't wait to get on the spa's open-air massage beds. I wear a traditional pyjama-style suit and rather than being rubbed or stroked, my limbs are manipulated into various positions to stretch my muscles. Ninety minutes later, I'm so sedate that when my therapist lifts me to a sitting position and points out a little spider she's chasing off my bed, I simply shrug and say, "Yeah, spider". Believe me, as an arachnophobe, this isn't my usual reaction!
Day two
Breakfast is amazing: a fruit platter so fresh it tastes like it's just been plucked from the trees (which it probably has). I wolf it down and go meet resident wellness consultant Sara Canney. She briefs me on the Ultimate Detox and I feel like a boxer preparing for the fight of a lifetime. As of tomorrow, there'll be no more solid food for me - just supplements and juices laced with ground psyllium husk - a natural laxative - and colon-cleansing bentonite clay. The psyllium and medicinal clay are both absorbent but can't be digested, so they soak up lingering undigested waste in the bowels and help pass it out of the body during colonics.
I get a guided tour of the colonic apparatus, which looks like a hybrid of a toilet and a massage bed, and then I'm quizzed on my dietary habits. I defend my healthy diet: I mainly drink herbal tea, eat lots of salads and go for days, maybe even weeks without chocolate. But when encouraged to be even more honest I have to admit to regular Thursday morning McDonald's breakfasts, unhealthy drinks, and a takeaway habit.
Sara then sensitively talks me through how constipation could sometimes be a physical manifestation of not being able to let go of emotions. Obviously she's hit a nerve as I feel tears well up in my eyes. I'm prescribed one of the intriguing-sounding ho'oponopono sessions that I'd read about, and an infrared sauna for general tension relief, to have later in the week.
The rest of my day passes much like the first, only I opt for the fast-paced ‘flow' yoga from the various classes on offer and struggle to keep up. Then, before bed I down a Liver Flush cocktail of orange, lemon, ginger, garlic, olive oil and paprika (thankfully I only taste the orange) and pop two laxatives. I hope I don't need the bathroom in the middle of the night…
Day Three
The first day of Ultimate Detox takes some coordinating with eight commitments to keep - that's four detox drinks and four supplement-gobbling sessions to be had alternately, two hours apart. In addition, I have to fit in my new daily timetable of morning meditation class, light yoga, detox massage and colonic. Obviously I was wrong to think I'd spend most of my time here rolling around on a sun lounger whining about how hungry I am!
I'm in such a fluster I miss meditation altogether. ‘Gentle flow' is my light-option yoga class du jour, which thankfully has a calming effect, as does the detox massage. The same can't be said for the colonic. I've had colonics before, where water is flowed in and out of the bowels via a small tube to clear impacted waste. While some sessions are less unpleasant than others, I've never had one I would describe as relaxing.
I lie on the colonic bed and brace myself for tube insertion. It doesn't hurt, it's just uncomfortable physically and socially, but my therapist does her best to put me at ease. A hot water bottle is placed on my stomach and I'm covered with fluffy towels, which are tucked in around me to make me comfortable.
Despite these caring touches, I feel apprehensive and am glad of the panic button my therapist leaves me holding while she exits the room to give me some privacy. After the first six litres of water have flowed in and out of my body, she then sets in motion 12 more litres of water containing caffeine and vinegar while massaging my stomach, and things really gets moving. A final six litres of water carrying good bacteria to replace what's lost, pass through me, and then I'm free to excuse myself for the toilet. I feel lighter already.
Day Four
Wake up late and miss meditation class - again! Staff, fellow holidaymakers and my sunbathing husband all keep asking me how I feel, and unlike in the real world where ‘fine' suffices, a more candid response is expected here. Frankly, I don't want to talk to anyone, which doesn't bode well as I have what some people would call a ‘talking therapy' session to attend.
Ho'oponopono is extremely simple, but believers claim it can maintain a person's emotional health. Fundamentally, it involves saying four things in sequence to any thought, memory or person that bothers you - "I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you" - and then letting it go. Grammatically it doesn't make sense to me and as a writer I can't get over that, but my consultant Alister Bredee digs deeper and stumbles upon my vicious internal voice.
He teaches me to recognise the connection between ‘me, the adult' and ‘me, the child', and then asks if I would talk to any child the way I sometimes talk to myself. "Of course not, never, that would be horrendous," I splutter. He looks at me, waiting for the penny to drop. My lesson for the day is to nurture myself emotionally with loving encouragement like I would a child, or more specifically, my four-year-old self, because ultimately that person is the foundation of who I am. Deep, but oh so very meaningful.
Day Five
Final Ultimate Detox day - yay! Ordinarily for me, I drag my heels getting out of bed, but this morning I feel fine. Not only do I make it to meditation class, I'm the first one there! Feeling slimmer, I'm far less self-conscious prancing about in skin-tight Lycra, and during yoga class, I notice an improvement in my flexibility and balance, especially as wobbly newcomers join the class.
Bizarrely, although consuming nothing but lumpy fruit juice and litres of water is a tad boring, I don't feel hungry - this must be the result of the water bulking up the psyllium and making me feel full. I notice something else too - my headaches have gone. Having never had a headache in the past, they showed up for the first time eight years ago, appearing on a regular basis in the same place above my right eye ever since. After moving to Dubai, they became a daily event, as did me taking Advil.
Headaches are a common side effect of fasting, so why have mine disappeared? After my final colonic, I have another consultation with Sara and ask about it.
Despite my perceived high fluid intake she thinks I'm probably not getting enough, especially now that I live in air-conditioned Dubai. While on the Ultimate Detox, I've been given three litres a day, which is essential for processing the psyllium.
When your body is suffering from dehydration, Sara tells me it'll find ways to let you know, and a headache is one of the ways. Aha! Another penny drops and today's lesson is that my body has been talking - no, screaming at me and I've been completely ignoring it.
Day Six
Last night my fast ended with a plate of papaya and another Liver Flush orange cocktail, and today, I'm back to championing the vegan diet. I can't get enough nori rolls made with sushi-style sheets of seaweed wrapped around sticks of carrot and cucumber. The Love Kitchen chefs really have mastered a million ways to make seaweed and tofu tasty.
My energy levels are high. I take yoga and Pilates classes and swim 20 lengths of the pool before relaxing in the infrared sauna, which feels like a standard sauna, only drier as it radiates heat into the body rather than warming it externally via air or steam. As I lie back and absorb the heat I reflect on everything I've learned - tomorrow's my last day here, but it won't be the end of my so-called ‘detox'. I want to continue this new way of living.
Day Seven
My weigh-in reveals that I've lost 2.5 kilos and I'm thrilled. Equally important to me, I feel like a weight has been taken off my shoulders. At last I know what I need to do to look after my health -emotionally and physically. If finances permit, I will come back to Absolute Sanctuary, but if they don't, the lessons learned here will stay with me for a lifetime.
Sarah after completing the Ultimate Detox challenge at the Absolute Sanctuary in Koh Samui.
Lessons Learnt
One month later, Sarah looks inwards to see how long lasting the effects of the detox were:
- Around a week after returning from Koh Samui I noticed a few aches and pains creeping back into my shoulders. I realise that regular yoga is the cure for my computer-induced strains, and have started taking lessons in Dubai.
- I still haven't had a single headache tablet. If I feel the onset of a headache, I simply drink a lot more water and it really works.
- Although I've regained a little under a kilo in weight, which my internal voice would normally have something to say about, I've managed to silence it by picturing my four-year-old self - a method I would recommend to anyone prone to verbally beating themselves up.
- I've been inspired to get in the kitchen and give vegetarian food a go myself. I'm growing herbs on my balcony and I've mastered how to prepare seaweed, among others things. Truthfully though, I don't think I'll ever make tofu taste good!
Need to know
For the Ultimate Detox, seven-day package at the Absolute Sanctuary retreat, prices start at Dh8,145. Prices vary depending on the season and wellness package. For more information visit www.absolutesanctuary.com, or email info@absolutesanctuary.com.
