Sanoviv: Day Two

When last we left our intrepid Health seekers . . .

Last night we had a very good lecture on the Mind/Body Connection. Nothing new – well, to us – such as Masaru Emoto’s slides from speaking words into water. I slept like a rock – we have separate rooms, with me in a small internal room with a twin bed, and hubby in the main room with a queen bed. He has to get up every 2 hours due to his neobladder, and been months since I have not been sleeping with that.

The thing is, generally I’m fine. (I think I’ve blogged about this before.) But if he doesn’t catch the alarm and it wakes me up, then I’m toast. (It’s usually the 4:00 a.m. alarm that he sleeps through – until I “accidentally” kick him while I’m getting out of bed, now wide awake!)

He doesn’t want me to sleep in there (my snoring notwithstanding). But it’s where I’m “supposed” to be – we’ll see whether he keeps arguing to have me in the main room. He finds the bed too hard – I think that it’s great. Maybe the queen is harder than the twin?

The TV really did “wake us up” in the morning, even though hubby had closed it into the closet it lives in :-) We got up, and hubby had to go (has to go, every morning) to the 2nd floor to be weighed, measured, logged, and supplement-ized. (Supplemented?) I went down to get some of the lemon/cayenne tea, and then we met up in the “Energy Medicine” session followed by the Meditation session.

A couple of the protocols that we learned in “Energy Medicine” were:

To stop worry, anxiety and help with sleep, cross your right arm over your left (or, if you do yoga and know “eagle pose,” you can do “eagle” arms, again, right over left), and cross your left foot/calf over your right. Breathe in through your nose, out through your nose or mouth. Relax into it. When you feel like it, put your tongue gently against the roof of your mouth as you breathe in, saying (in your mind) “Relax” or “Rest.” When you breathe out, put your tongue down, saying “Release.” Do this as long as you feel like it. (We did this for about 5 minutes.)

To stop a panic attack or an anxiety attack, you can put your finger out at arm’s length. Focus on it gently. Deep breath in through your nose, out slowly through your nose. Then look past your finger, and focus on something in the middle distance gently. Breathe in/out. Keep doing this calmly. Eyes are very important in “tracking danger,” and by changing the focus you are exercising the nerve endings behind your eyes, sending a “brain hack” that there is no danger. Once you understand how it works, you can do it without “holding up your finger” – all you need to do is focus on something that’s an arm’s length away, then something in the middle distance. (So you can do this “without people knowing.”)

After those classes, we were off to Breakfast. Today was a “liquid day” (“Oh YAY,” says hubby, rolling his eyes). I took a number of pictures of what we had for Breakfast, “snack,” green juice, “whole food smoothie,” Lunch (which did have a “chunky soup” as well as a smooth one, and then some croutons and “onion rings”), golden milk, Dinner. I’ll just put them in a “gallery” here.

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Today hubby had all of his “first consultations” with his doctors. While he did the dentist, psychiatrist, “Quiet Room,” chiropractor and the like, I first had a “Quick Food Prep” class (making smoothies), and then did my workout. I accompanied him to the Nutritionist and the Oncologist. He particularly liked the chiropractic appointment. There was a lot of muscle testing involved – at one point, when he was testing as weak, the chiropractor put hubby’s finger in a glass of water, then re-tested and the muscle was strong. The chiropractor told him he was dehydrated and that he had to drink 1/2 his body weight in “water fluids” (water, sparkling water, herbal tea) a day.

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As for my workout, I’ll say this about the Fitness Center. What Fitness Center? My understanding was that, while it was small, it was available. This is not really correct. You can use the Fitness Center in a group class (of course), but if you want to do a personal workout, you can’t do it during a group class, nor can you do it if the fitness folks are doing an assessment. I went by there three times today, trying to get in to do my workout. Each time I was turned away with a firm head shake from the trainer, who was “busy assessing.” Finally, I just decided that I was running out of time, and made the choice to do what I could in my room.

My Crossfit wife and I had done the first Day of my workout plan the day before I left. She thought (rightly) that in this way, I would feel that I had “gotten started” already, and would keep at it. (Ah, wives. They know EVERYTHING!) That day had been Pull – pull-ups, jump rope, banded pull-overs, stuff like that. Today was Push.

It was to have started with a 200m Run, 50m lunges, then 50m broad jumps. As it’s frowned on to Run on the walking path, I decided that I would walk quickly (that’s the best I could do) up the stairs to our room. (Seven stories.)

I then lunged my way down the hallway and back, and broad jumped (if you can call what I do a “broad jump” – white girl don’t jump) down and back.

Next were banded spiderman pushups, which turn out to wreak havoc on my bad shoulder. I was to do three sets – after having real trouble with my right side, I swapped out and did just straight (banded) pushups. As with the mobility work that I had to do next, I was able to attach the bands to the wooden “ladder” on the wall no problem.

One wee “wrench in the works” was that part way through my pushups I discovered I didn’t have my wristwraps on, and my wrists started aching. I searched high and low, and couldn’t find them. Undaunted, I took my voodoo floss bands, and wrapped them a few times around my wrist, and finished the pushups that way. (Turns out that my wristwraps were in my EmPack – phew! But it worked, nevertheless!)

The actual “workout” portion of the day was to be slow dumbbell bench press, seated overhead press, and “L” press (one hand forward, one to the side). The problem was – no dumbbells. So I decided to use the EmPack.

I filled two of the bladders up full for the bench press. (So that’s about 30 lbs.) I lay down on the table, which was the wrong height and length for me to do anything except put my knees up to keep my back in the right position.

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Here’s the thing – the EmPack sags if you try to do bench presses with it. I tried a number of ways, but then finally came upon the genius solution. I put a hardback book into the front pocket, then turned the bag with that side toward me. The book “braced” the bladders on the inside, and no more middle-bag sag! (See photo.)

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When it came to doing the overhead “dumbbell” presses and the “L presses,” though, 15 pounds in each hand (one full bladder) was way too much. So I let some of the water out . . . until I could lift the bladders. How many pounds is that? Haven’t got a clue – I want to say that I let about half of the water out. So maybe 7 lbs a piece? Funniest part of course was that as it was water instead of a stable dumbbell, my arms shook a LOT in “stabilizing” the weight. (Taking photos with the “dumbbell bladder” was laughably hard.)

I did get out to take a few photos of the “mansion” today, but I’ll save those for tomorrow. A few things of note:

Get a ThinkSport hot/cold bottle. I brought one (the biggest size). It’s great to get hot water in from the “Tea Room,” to bring back up to your room. (We particularly like to have herbal tea before bed.) There are lots of herbal teas down there (this is where you get the lemon/cayenne water every morning), but we brought an orange Tazo tea that hubby particularly likes. Having this bottle is genius. (We did have to “liberate” a couple of mugs from the dining room though.)

Bring your Nalgene bottle! I was told/read in other folks’ reviews that I couldn’t bring my own bottle, that I would be given a “special Sanoviv bottle.” The thing is – that they’re small Nalgene bottles! As such, if you have a larger sized Nalgene bottle (especially one with the “bite top”) then you should pack it. Unscrewing the top of the bottle every time you want to drink water (which is lukewarm, by the way . . . apparently cold water isn’t great for your gut biome) is a pain.

Don’t forget your pill containers! I assiduously counted out all pills into their bottles . . . and then forgot the “daily pill” containers to put them into! Can’t believe it! So far, no one has given us heck about the supplements/pills we brought. In fact, no one has looked at anything. (Hubby keeps reminding me we could have come in with a “James Bond briefcase” of Absolut red label 100 proof, caviar and pate and no one would have been the wiser :-) ) The Oncologist (of course) wanted a list of everything – he took hubby off all of Broffman’s supplements except the Melatonin and DHEA. Hubby is “prescribed” (no joke) 2-6 pills every other hour, liquid iodine, liquid something-else-that-tastes-terrible, and also that “Flora” stuff that you can get at Whole Foods that needs to be kept refrigerated.

And for your viewing pleasure . . . a “snuck” photo of one of the Chinese visitor tables – all on their cell phones. I am likely going to Hell for doing this, but, as noted in the last blog post, this is just too funny.

How’s by all of you??