Word: retreats
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...truth hits me as the first full day at the Complete Retreat limps to an aching close: the other guests have succumbed to Stockholm syndrome. That's the phenomenon in which hostages fall in love with their captors. Some of these people have already endured the iron regime of Lisa Jeans?and have returned, of their own free will...
...Complete it may be, but the very name "retreat" is a misnomer. This isn't a refuge but a bracing course of exercise combined with a raw food diet, all designed by naturopath Jeans. Stern stuff, yet my fellow captives gaze cow-eyed at the honey-haired Jeans as she maps out the program for the week: yoga at 7 a.m.; a minuscule protein shake at 8:15 along with a vat of celery and cucumber juice that morphs from bland to blah with each mouthful; an 8:30 hike involving prolonged uphill slogs; at 11:15 more juice...
...That could easily serve as the retreat's motto. The matutinal cycle of torment repeats in the afternoon, and every day, a treadmill of yoga and yomps. Jeans herself describes the retreat as "a health boot camp." "The most effective kick start comes from a combination of diet and exercise," she explains. She runs her camp for 12 weeks a year in the Spanish hilltop village of Gauc?n in Andalucia. But it's a movable raw-food feast, with two additional weeks planned in Cornwall, England, this year, and in 2007, for the first time, a long-haul retreat...
...husband and I consign ourselves to this exclusive penitentiary? An old friend and retreat veteran bamboozled us into joining her by making it sound like a spa. "It's lovely. Lovely walks, lovely yoga, lovely massages," she said. In retrospect, her eyes were suspiciously bright as she added: "And you'll love Lisa...
...third day. I tell them the pain will be forgotten by Saturday when they will look fabulous and feel full of energy. It's tough love, really." As it happens, I'm getting into the swing after shaking off a caffeine-withdrawal headache. Only one person in the retreat's four-year history has ever quit. And the yoga is wonderful, a dynamic mix of ashtanga and hatha techniques, taught with exquisite clarity by the retreat's regular instructor, Wendy Wardell...