Detox and Revitalize - The Holistic Guide for Renewing Your Body, Mind, and Spirit

A guide to fasting, cleansing, and nutrition to regain your natural vitality, detox from the pollutants that bombard us daily in our air, food, and water, and restore our mental clarity and balance. Includes recipes, meal plans, and instructions.

Includes delicious recipes used at Susana Belen's famous We Care Spa retreat center, instructions for total clensing and renewal, and a plan for maintaining your health year round.

Lose weight, overcome food allergies, fatigue, headaches, and numerous other conditions!

Excerpt
Dressings are fun to prepare and add flavor to your food. Once a week, prepare three or four different dressings, enough to last the whole week. The same dressing can be used over salads, steamed vegetables, brown rice, noodles, and sandwhiches.

Recipes for: Lemon Garlic Dressing, Avocado Green Dressing, Cleansing Chili Sauce, and many more!

Just Released- July 2005

A Visit to We Care Spa

by David Richard, Publisher

I was prepared for disappointment after driving a couple hours from LAX International toward Palm Springs. Suburban sprawl from Los Angeles and San Bernardino has crept steadily through the valleys to the east, and I was still driving on a four lane highway within 30 miles of Desert Hot Springs.

Then the crown of San Jacinto Peak appeared out of the haze, and, as I drew nearer, thousands of giant windmill electrical generators at the entrance to Coachella Valley cart-wheeled into view. A half an hour on a 'proper' two lane back highway and one stop at the Desert Hot Springs Fire Department (for directions) later, and I was at the gate of We Care Holistic Health Care Center in the heart of the valley.

The San Jacinto Mountains towered to the southeast and the Little San Bernadino range extended from east to west along the northern horizon. It was 5 pm on Sunday and the June sun was still brilliant and fiery to the West. The air was incredibly dry yet laden with the piquant scent of chaparral blossoms.

Once through the security gate and into the general office area of We Care, I was greeted by the receptionist and given my 'care package' for my two day controlled fasting stay. Normally, clients book a week or even two for the cleansing and detoxification program and stay in one of the private rooms in cozy bungalows scattered over the grounds of center. As a day guest, I would be spending nights down the road at Sam's Family Resort and participating in spa functions and classes during the day.

My care package consisted of herbs and supplements that would be used during my fast along with general instructions about the program at We Care and descriptions of the facilities, the staff and the services available. A staff member reviewed these materials with me and introduced me to some of the other guests who were hanging out in the central living room/kitchen.

This room is a gathering place for all of the guests since this is where the fresh green vegetable and carrot juices are available as well as the fresh mint and lemonade, the blood purification and kidney/liver detox teas, aloe vera juice, ingredients for the daily detox drink and other supplements supporting the liquid fast. A beautiful, irregularly shaped granite slab supported as a table top on a wooden base with a carved wooden Buddha head as a center piece serves as a focal point for this area.

I was ushered into an introductory session in an adjoining meeting/activities room where we all sat around in a circle on the floor supported by cushioned frame chairs. This room is a lovely cedar beam structure with a polished wooden floor, bamboo grass on the ceiling and two large ceiling fans that slowly circulate the refreshingly cool air. Indian Shiva goddess statues dance in mirrored mosaic insets at the front of the room and rear windows overlook a gardened entrance and courtyard.

The introductory session consisted of an overview of the We Care Health program, a sensible, nutrient supported cleansing fast supported by colon hydrotherapy, massage, yoga, nutrition classes and other adjunctive classes and activities. I met most of the other twenty guests at the spa during this session, mostly women, ranging from several younger women in their late twenties and early thirties to one grandmother in her early seventies.

What drew these people to We Care? A variety of reasons from health problems and life tragedies to the desire for health maintenance and life enhancement. In general, these people came because they knew that they would feel better and have a higher quality of life if they cleansed the toxins and biological impurities from their bodies

Dr. Alejandro Junger was in charge of a follow-up class in which he explained in greater detail the scientific and medical basis of the We Care program as well as giving an outline of his own path to improved health. Dr. Junger is a medical doctor and cardiologist who was born in Uruguay and practiced in several prominent U.S. hospitals as well as operating a thriving private practice. However, he rapidly became disenchanted with the realities of working within the industrial-pharmacological health care system and left his staff positions and practice partnership when he experienced for himself the benefits of fasting through the We Care facility. He now serves as a staff member and consulting physician to the facility as well as maintaining his own holistic practice in Los Angeles.

I spent the night down the road a few miles at Sam's Family Resort and Mineral Baths, a trailer park site and RV hookup with a rustic motel at its center. Sam's is known in the area for its naturally occurring hot mineral baths and swimming pools which circulate mineral-rich hot spring water controlled at four different temperatures. My room at Sam's was spacious if rather spartan. However, it served my basic needs well and provided a sound night's rest.

The next morning at We Care, I met the Founder and Director of the facility, sixty-seven year old Susana Belen, who started the facility on a wing and a prayer over twenty years ago and continues to administer and teach at the spa to this day. With eyes shinning and radiating warmth, Susana is the living hub around which We Care has been gradually built into a world class health spa. Her credentials include certification as a lymphologist and colon therapist, and she has educated herself admirably on the nuances of cleansing, revitalization and nutrition while developing an integrated system to accomplish these goals as simply and painlessly as possible. Complete with charts, Susana spent over an hour explaining in detail what we were doing and why, already beginning to educate us about how we could take better care of ourselves at home as well. After a brief juice break, she then taught a beginning yoga class which I found to be quite beneficial, simple and varied, without overtaxing any of us.

Classes continued in the afternoon but I chose to have a pre-colonic abdominal message with Armando, a fit-look Colombian in his mid-fifties, who gave me an excellent massage followed by a colonic session with Mary Kay, which left me feeling thoroughly cleaned out and energized.

The stories and lifestyles of the staff and therapists at We Care are a testament to the commitment of the facility toward an overall philosophy of health and well-being. Elizabeth, an Hispanic colon therapist and healthy-looking mother of three is a case in point. As a child and young adult, she passed out regularly and suffered from crippling migraines and digestive problems. Her team of physicians condemned her to a life overruled by continuous drug treatment and medical supervision without hope of recovery or remission. Instead of giving up hope for a normal life, she came to We Care twenty years ago and cured herself almost entirely of all her ailments. Today she feels healthy and alive and tells me that she loves her work at this special place where she can help others to become well just as she was helped to become well herself.

The We Care facility is a beautiful little oasis in the midst of the desert not far from Joshua Tree National Park. Gardened walkways, fragrant with desert flowers and more brilliantly colored exotic species, extend from the central facility to the guests houses, the meditation veranda, the exercise hut, the labyrinth walk and the massive granite installation structure, which is said to focus the energy of five four-ton granite slabs suspended above a central focus point within the sculpture. Beyond, the desert stretches off into the mountains. A small chlorine-fee pool helps the guests to cool off during the day just outside the main meeting area.

Many small touches of care and tastefulness show up in the design of the facility, the decorations, the accommodations and, of course, the liquid food. The food is completely organic and the herbs and supplements, in my opinion, are of high quality and beneficial. Statues from various spiritual traditions are carefully placed among the flowering trees and water fountains on the grounds, and the furnishings of the main facility and guest rooms are simple, functional and elegant. Staff members are friendly and helpful and seem to genuinely respect each other and work well as a team. And reservations, scheduling and payment were, by and large, seamless processes.

My overall experience at We Care was certainly a positive one. I felt more healthy and revitalized by my brief detoxification experience and certainly less exhausted and hungry than during any of the more rigorous self regulated fasts I have done in the past.

When it came time to leave the facility, I felt reluctant to part with my newfound friends and, even more so, to break my fast just as I was stating to experience its benefits ' increased mental clarity and physical buoyancy, diminished hunger, digestive regularity and wonderfully soft and clear skin. Would I return? Certainly, We Care is a wonderful facility for those who truly value their health and want to live longer and more fully.

For further information see www.wecarespa.com and www.samsfamilyspa.com

Here is the mineral content (ppm) of Desert Hot Springs' naturally occurring hot mineral water:

Sulfate 493.60
Sodium 268.60
Bicarbonate 129.00
Chloride 120.50
Calcium 45.10
Silica 21.50
Floride 5.30
Magnesium 5.10
Iron Oxide - trace
Aluminum Oxide - trace
Barium - trace
Copper - trace
Manganese - trace
ph (units) - 8.3

US$14.95 [Susana Lombardi Belen]