A detox for the super toxic

My mom turned 60 over a week ago, and to celebrate, I decided I was going to surprise her by taking her on something she had always wanted us to to do together: a detox holiday. 

A detox holiday. I don’t know if those two words should go together, considering that, to most people, a holiday means waking up late, eating good food and chilling out without following a schedule.

I didn’t know what to expect. Neither of us had ever done a proper detox before, although both my mom and I are no strangers to juicing and fruit diets. I chose the multi-awarded Mandala Spa in Boracay as our destination. Having visited the spa for a treatment a few years ago, I knew that the place was exceptional and lush, therefore “Mrs. Ileto friendly” — my mom has always been really particular about hotels and the like.  Prior to our arrival, Mo-Ching Yip, the detox director of Mandala Spa, sent me several guidelines for pre-detox and a liver flush drink with ingredients that scared me (fortunately, I was exempted from the flush as I already have liver issues). I had imagined that our five-day trip would involve lots of juice, some strange drinks, a few hours of yoga, several spa sessions, and still lots of time left over to beach and even go out at night.

I got some of it right and some of it so wrong.

Let me tell you this: a detox is full-on. The three-day detox at Mandala Spa was a health bootcamp, with detox director Mo-Ching Yip as your drill sergeant. The detox begins with an introduction from her. “A detox is not only about giving your organs a rest, it also means unplugging your phone and detoxing from our high-tech lifestyle. We are addicted to excitement and doing, and a detox is about taking a time out. No stress.”

The detox is pretty pleasant, and quite relaxing. Yoga in the morning, lots of fresh juice packed with enzymes, wheatgrass, yummy shakes (at least all of mine were good; my mom had to have the liver flush which was made of garlic and olive oil, but she managed it saying it was “not that bad”). What you lack in food, Mandala Spa makes up for with their spa treatment, possibly the most luxurious, most relaxing treatments I have ever had in my life. Throughout our stay we got to experience a number of treatments: Din Tien Therapy and Ear Candling the first day, the award-winning Shodhana Karma (my personal favorite) the second, and Mandi Lulur Scrub the third. All amazing.

The only not-amazing part of it for me were the colema, or manual colon irrigation at the the end of each day. Fancy words aside, the process is basically getting warm water in you’re a**, and all the sh*t (literally) coming out. For an hour. This was the point where I went from detox holiday to detox holy-crap-what-the-hell-is-this. While my mom had a really easy and painless first colema, I had a difficult one, with me cursing my best friend, the detox veteran Leslie, who told me that the colema would “feel like nothing, it’s just like you want to poo.” The first 20 minutes, my stomach had such painful cramping, normal if you have a lot of toxins to get rid of, but after a while I was lying on the colema board quite comfortably, considering what it was. I did feel quite weak after, obviously, and although my mom had an easy one, she was also weak, hence no time to visit the beach, just a date with your bed after.

The second day was a difficult one for me. While my mom was normal and really enjoying herself despite the lack of solid food, by the late afternoon, after my second colema (which was painless and easy) I was feeling nauseous and was getting crazy headaches. I was beyond weak and was throwing up, and was feeling a bit panicky. Mo-Ching explained that I was going through a “healing crisis” and that this was very rare, but normal. I was literally swearing that I was never going to do another detox again, but decided that I was going to stick it out, despite Mo-Ching saying that I could break my detox if I was suffering. I decided that I had gone this far, so I tried to sleep through my headache. The next morning I was a bit sluggish and with a bit of a headache and a bit of nausea but better. By the afternoon I was fine, and I felt like I was one with my detox.

It’s been exactly a week since my detox and honestly, I still feel great. I will admit that I was occasionally dying to break the detox then and was dying to come home to work but I feel like I did need that break, that lesson to teach my body to learn to rest, even just for a few days. My thoughts of never doing a detox again? Erased. I lost eight pounds in the process, but more importantly I feel like I am back on track with my wellness. While the detox at Mandala lasted three days, Mo-Ching taught me a lot about changing your lifestyle to have healthier habits. I buy organic now, I drink more water, I avoid sugar and wheat, and I’m genuinely taking steps to a make a lifestyle change I can maintain despite the occasional cheat day. Oddly enough, my mom’s birthday surprise ended up surprising me — the non-health buff, the workaholic and the perpetually toxic — more. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up my newfound healthy lifestyle, but at least now I know that if I do fall off the health wagon, I know exactly where to go to get back on track.

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Mandala Spa is at Station 3, Boracay Island, Aklan. For more information visit www.mandalaspa.com.