Blame it on the juice baby...

So what is it really like on Juicy Mountain?

Jan 09, 2024

As I write (well edit and publish) this piece, I am in Kerala in India, having just attended the most glorious family wedding - an utterly joyful celebration of colour, love, family, culture and togetherness - an occasion quite unlike any I have ever attended. Whilst I absorb and process this experience, and continue to explore this magical part of the world for another 10 days (which I will most definitely write about!!), I will put out some pieces that I prepared in advance and saved for January - partly because I knew I would be away, and partly because January is, well, just a bit rubbish.

So whether you’re detoxing for Jan, eschewing the whole thing and having an extra pint, eating well or chucking it all in the fuck it bucket - just keep doing whatever you need to do day to day to get you through. Don’t get pressured by the January madness, it’s a shitty month (in the U.K. anyway) - no money, grey skies, the post Christmas come-down descends in inverse proportion to the pre-Christmas increase in girth. Let me take you, instead, to a remote mountain, and a load of juice, so you can feel just as if you drank it all yourself. I believe the benefits will happen by e-osmosis. And as you read, in the (paraphrased) words of the one and only

Elizabeth Gilbert

(I finally watched ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ on the plane!!!), eat the pizza and buy the bigger jeans. The juice will be there any month of the year - if you feel the need.

[Note: this piece can be read as follow on to the starter and main course previously served on the themes of wellness and surviving chronic health conditions. I hope you’ve had a breather between those, as it’s now time for dessert.]

Juicing for January?

Er juicy what now?

Yep - Juicy Mountain.

I won’t pretend I’m on juice for January, not even close…however towards the end of last year I did take myself off on a rather fabulous juice retreat in the mountains of Turkey, for a week of, well…just juice. That’s right. Just juice. No food, no tea, no coffee, no alcohol, just lashings and lashings of (mainly vegetable) juice. All that lashing makes it sounds quite punishing…so was it?

The mountain

Juicy Mountain is the preserve of the self-proclaimed ‘King of Juicing’, Jason Vale. It is a small, intimate and rustic health retreat nestled high up in the mountains of Southern Turkey near the charming coastal town of Gocek. There, the intensity of the late summer heat is cooled by the mountain air, and up in the hills the outlook across the valley with its accompanying sunsets is like nothing I have experienced before or since.

2023 was not my first time on the mountain. I originally booked to go there about four years ago when I was in the depths of chronic fatigue, trying to find a way to reset my body. I had it booked for September 2020 as that was going to be my year to recover. Oh the irony. Instead of visiting the mountain, September 2020 became the month I left my twenty-year career in the midst of the pandemic, because my health simply could not sustain it any more.

Fast forward a couple of years, and with lockdown an ever diminishing memory, I managed to rebook Juicy for September 2022, arriving for one of the most transformational weeks ever. I met friends who I will be in touch with for life, felt totally rebooted, and I vowed that if I can make it happen, visiting the mountain, or similar, will become part of my fundamental wellbeing ongoing. I immediately booked to go book the following year, and this time I brought a friend.

I returned to the mountain in September 2023 during another tediously tricky health year (chronic conditions get so fucking boring) with my oldest friend, which gave me the luxury of moving from a single tent to an actual room with bathroom, (although I have to say that I would have a tent again in a heartbeat, especially if I was on my own). We both needed it in more ways than we could express. Me - primarily physically; her - a combination of the mental and physical, being as she was, in the throes of caring for two elderly parents of differing needs along with managing teenage children, a job, various health issues that she didn’t have time to attend to, being menopausal age, and just generally living the shitshow. I couldn’t have been happier than to have her there by my side. We’ve known each other since we were seven and grew up on the same street. We share experience DNA.

What’s it all about?

Primarily, it is a week of 100% juice, and the first thing most people ask me, or would worry about themselves is: ‘won’t you be hungry’? And whilst the answer is emphatically no, because there are SO many vegetables packed into the thick juices we consumed four times a day, I’m not gonna lie – food did quite often pop into my brain, and sometimes at the most unexpected times QUESADILLAS. We frequently found ourselves talking about food a la ‘I’m a Celebrity’ and it was interesting to observe what my mind-body was subconsciously craving READY SALTED CRISPS.

Was it because I missed texture? Possibly. Was it lack of salt? Definitely. Although a jar of Himalayan rock salt was always available for a cheeky dab.

The juice itself is surprisingly lovely. My nutritionist friend Daphne, (one of my besties that Taz and Fiver get really pissed off with - despite how much they love her - because in their minds, she ‘claims’ that eating cereal five times a day is not representative of all the food groups, and that diet coke is the drink of the devil…) always says I should ‘eat the rainbow’. Well you sure as hell do that here.

The morning ginger shots are divine - it helps if you like ginger - and then the juice four times a day actually gets me to consume vegetables in quantities I probably wouldn’t dream of eating at home. As the week progresses they do sneak in other stuff like spirulina, which basically tastes like pond water (and I speak from experience), but who am I to question…? After a few days of pure veg juice, being provided with a vegetable drink containing pineapple and coconut feels like a remarkable sweet fiesta exploding inside my mouth, which probably just goes to show how much refined sugar I normally ingest…that wouldn’t normally even register to me as ‘sweet’…eek. (I don’t think ‘nutritionist friend Daphne’ entirely approves of my candy cigarette habit at home, but hey - at least I don’t actually smoke?!? - give me some credit). It’s hard to describe how it feels being nourished from the inside out in this way, as it’s something I rarely take time to do to this extent, but it just makes my whole body smile.

More important than the juice and food (or lack of) for me, however, is the location. ‘Juicy’ is a place where you feel contained in the most wonderful way – it is small and with a feeling of immense emotional safety, and part of that is the integration into the natural area. The mountains provide the most magnificent backdrop, framing the deep valley and cradling the sun as it falls each evening, then releasing it like a soft pink balloon the next morning. The body and mind awaken with the sun, as the rays stretch from the toes to the heart to the head - inside and out.

Juxtaposed against the emotional safety lie the unfenced, sheer, cliff-like drops surrounding the communal and yoga areas , gloriously defying the rigidity of the kind of ‘Health & Safety’ restrictions that so often restrict subliminal freedoms in a way we don’t even notice, and it is this unbridled aspect that feels so special. As this is an adult-only space with no alcohol involved, it is somewhere you can safely come right to the edge, in every single way.

It is so quiet and still…well, apart from the sound of the juice blenders every few hours. Oh and the demented cockerel and the barking dogs, but you know what I mean. I don’t know what’s going on with that cockerel but he must be bloody knackered, and very confused. Seriously he never shuts up. When one dog barks somewhere deep in the valley, it sets off a remarkable cacophony of woofs that seem to rebound in ever increasing circles SHREDDIES. Sometimes a dog comes to visits, getting involved in yoga, or pottering around before eating a grasshopper I’m busy admiring. I’m not sure Fido got the ‘no snacks’ memo. Grasshopper is NOT juice. And then there is the call to prayer. The crackle of the microphone alerting me to the sublime song about to fill the air, five times a day.

Here, on the mountain, amidst the dogs and cockerels, the food mixers and the prayers, was our time to breathe, and just be. And there was certainly a hell of a lot of breathing.

It’s all in the breath…

The days on Juicy Mountain are as busy or quiet as you make them. There are activities on offer from 0700 such as hiking, rebounding (will explain), yoga, volley ball, work outs. There is a pool to chillax around, sun beds to lounge in. Films are put on in the evenings, and the middle of the day is gloriously activity free regardless of how active you want to be. There are four hours in the early afternoon with nothing to do but…rest…

The yoga is sublime. It is on three times a day – none of which is compulsory. The day begins with ‘The 5 Tibetan Rites’ - something that was entirely new to me before coming here which basically consists of spinning around in circles for a minute, some stretches, and a bit of downward dog. It takes 6 minutes in total and wakes the body in an extraordinary way. It actually feels brilliant. Now that’s got to be something I can commit to continuing at home, even if nothing else (you would think).

The morning yoga that follows is awakening and invigorating – especially if you’re on the receiving end of the toilet roll chucked at you by the yoga instructor (for ‘clearing the pipes’ before our intensive nose breathing) ONION BHAJI. I had the same yoga teacher on both my visits to the mountain, and what a special man he is. His passion for integrating into the landscape is extraordinary as he hikes into the mountains at the end of each evening, staff in hand, to sleep in a cave, reappearing bright and early every morning to take us into a variety of breathing exercises. Activating the parasympathetic nervous system apparently (get me - ‘nutritionist friend Daphne’ would be impressed - she is also a breath guru). Air in and out. After three days of just juice there’s a fair amount of ‘air out’ - I chuckle inwardly at the casual farting during morning yoga, and notice the instructor catching the eye of another guest and giggling – reassuring me that no matter how spiritually grounded or related to Gandalf you are, farts are always funny.

Lunchtime yoga is deeply relaxing, lying on our backs, with gentle moves and lots of breath work and stretching. We are led through deep yogic breathing – extending the out breath. Every now and then we are instructed to hold the out breath – the yoga instructor calls it out randomly. I think of it as ‘pass the parcel’ breathing – the tension building as we’re never sure when he’s going to instruct the ‘hold’ – taking gulping ‘in-breaths’ in case the flow is about to get terminated, but then actually learning to breathe in deep as a matter of course, and to allow the long outward flow in a way that a ‘pause’ in the breath is totally manageable. It’s like he planned it.

In the evening, the yoga is timed to coincide with the sunset PICKLED ONIONS. It incorporates a gorgeous set of gentle standing and sitting postures whilst watching the dwindling sun drop behind the mountain in real time. If a picture paints a thousand words, this is it. After the sun sets and we lie back for yoga nidra (the relaxy bit) under the olive trees as the call to prayer reverberates around the valley, I ponder whether, if you don’t hold a faith of any sort, experiencing and listening to this might serve to change a mind.

The other stuff

Every morning after yoga, before juice and a prolonged period of resting, our yoga instructor would lead us in a gentle (sometimes) beach volleyball game on a sand court. It was so much fun I contacted a local volleyball club on my return home. Thankfully they haven’t got back to me as I have now obviously got over my enthusiasm for a new ball sport, but it was such a laugh (despite the uber-competitive fellow guest - there’s always one). Every morning there was an optional hike - although I generally opted out. Walking up into the mountains is glorious, but walking in the heat is a massive trigger for my chronic fatigue so I approached these seldom, and very gently. Twenty minutes on a rebounder - fine. Take me on a trek up a hill? I will pay the price SALTED TOMATOES. Go figure.

If you’re wondering what rebounding is - basically someone has invented and branded miniature personalised trampolines that you can buy at some extortionate cost, but I gotta say, not only is rebounding brilliant fun, it is sooo good for you TOAST. It’s great for cardio, and also surprisingly gentle on joints, which is great for us women of a certain age. Combining this with the morning sun rise and some classical music blasting to give us a rhythm to dance to actually got me out of bed pre-7am for the first time in a VERY long time CUCUMBER. The very real threat of bouncing over the cliff was enough to ensure I didn’t fall back to sleep mid-routine.

When we first arrived, my friend was very nervous of the rebounders as she has a lot of problems with her knees, and would quite emphatically (and understandably) not part her trainers from the ‘jump’ mat. However, by the end of the week she was leaping in the air. The sight of it actually made me cry with joy, and I am not a cryer. The unheated pool is glorious (for me!). I would so love to have a natural water source nearby to dip in, but hey you can’t have everything! Lazing in the pool with a book was an absolute highlight of the afternoons for me, and that would be the only time where I would fleetingly think, ‘wouldn’t a glass of cold white wine be rather lovely right now?’ - but actually I didn’t really miss alcohol at all. When it’s not an option, it just kinda goes out of your mind, and bit like the tea and coffee FRAZZLES.

While you’re there, if you want coffee, or for me, tea…well, tough. There ain’t any. (Although there are herbal infusions and hot water to be taken at any time of day). Fortunately I don’t really drink caffeine anyway, and never have coffee so that isn’t a factor for me - but if you are a coffee fiend that seemed to be the one thing that people struggled with the most.

Who goes there?

All sorts of people turn up on the mountain - regulars, first timers, and like anywhere in life it’s a bit of a lottery as to who you get to have in such an intimate space, but mostly the people are glorious. One woman I met on this visit had got to the last thirty in Bake Off (except that’s a secret so if you read this you’ll have to eat your laptop/phone/device) – she started showing me pictures of her home-made croissants, sourdoughs and focaccias. What was she doing to me?!?! We talked through the process of croissant making, the pastry, the butter, the folding and rolling, the refrigerating, the layers, the moistening with a water bowl, the perfect temperature – the output. The exquisite exchange of detail exposing two people who hadn’t consumed solid food for days JAM.

One guest handed round cups of ‘butterfly pea tea’ at bedtime. Not ‘real’ tea, this is a glorious blue ‘tea’ made from butterfly pea flowers. I hadn’t had this since I was in Thailand with my children and it made me realise how much I missed my girls.

Funnily enough I’ve just had butterfly pea tea for the third time in my life here in India - something I have never come across in the U.K. It is quite lovely and it turns a very pleasing shade of purple when you add lemon (fun fact).

I connected with another woman who described herself a ‘prescription energy healer’. She had a beguiling aura about her – and I mean this in my sense of the word ‘aura’, rather than how she feels auras. As someone for whom skin is my nemesis, we talked about what the skin shows us about our health, and she explained how the skin represents protection and touch. I took this to be an allegory about me protecting others and I held this for a few days until she explained no – it’s about protecting myself.

I wonder what I am protecting myself from...

You have two bums

There is nothing to spend any money on at Juicy Mountain - I mean there’s nothing to eat or drink and all the juice is provided!! That is, except for massage treatments, a visit to a Hammam and an optional boat trip and market.

The on-site massage therapist is truly extraordinary, in every way. She is a tall, slim, effervescent woman from Kyrgyzstan, whose kind sparkly eyes and broad smile belie the strength of her hands, which I swear could crack open rocks. When I come to the mountain, I gift myself a massage every day. Something unconscionable in normal life, or on any other holiday – but here, where there are no meals out, no cocktails or ‘paid’ activities as such, this is what I save for.

She has her own story, which is not mine to tell, and carries a wisdom that runs from the depths of those eyes into her remarkable fingertips. She tells me things about my body and mind as she works – questioning why am I so closed, what am I protecting myself from. [release, cry, what are you protecting?]. Kinda wish people would stop asking me that.

One evening as I lie there, naked in body and soul, she says to me ‘you have two bums’, then falls about laughing BACON ROLL (well that was going to come sooner or later). Her laugh is hilarious. I start giggling, I know exactly what she means. The left side of my body is ‘normal’ tense – a bit knotted, impacted by Western life and age, but the right side of my body is beyond tight, constricted. It’s where I get my sciatica, my shoulder problems, my neck ache.

As I’m lying there I ask her – can you see it? She says ‘yes – just looking at you, you have two bums’. One cheek relaxed, one cheek tense. I swear I’m relaxing on both sides. She tells me I have to release the emotion that is causing this [release, cry, what are you protecting]. It’s the male side of the body. Apparently I am holding an emotion connected to a man. And then she proceeds to kneel on my legs and dig her elbow into my buttock with the force of a (caring) steam train. I had asked for a relaxing session, and wondered what was getting lost in translation, but by God she knows her stuff.

As she massages my lips and teeth - from the outside but pressing on the gums and teeth, sensing the tightness in the jaw - she tells me I need to find the emotional blockage. I need to go back to the young ‘me’, and hold her hand and tell her ‘it’s ok, you did good, it’s because of you that I’m happy now’. Having done years of therapy and soul searching, I’m fairly well acquainted with the young ‘me’ so I honestly don’t know which ‘me’ I need to find.

An hour later I floated up to bed and slept like a (very bruised peach like) baby.

Hammam

One day a few of us ventured out on a day trip to a local Hammam. I was nervous because of my skin and how it reacts to heat, but I needn’t have feared. This was not the Turkish Bath experience that I had anticipated (and cannot envisage without seeing Sean Connery as James Bond trapped in a sealed boiling hot metal bath), but an experience of the sensations that I imagine feels like being wrapped in Angel Delight.

Having successfully fought my way into the ladies area (instead of the communal as I really wanted to take my top off), I lay on the warm stone to be bathed in billowing pillow clouds of suds – the lightest touch sensation I’ve ever experienced. Then a gentle scrub, foot file (which was not particularly effective on my blocks of sandstone), and massage before having my hair washed and my whole being rinsed off. I don’t remember having my hair washed outside of a hairdressers in my life. It would obviously have happened as a child, but it strikes me what an intimate act of care it is to wash another person in this way.

Satellites, tears and tarot

On the final evening we gather under the stars, lying on our yoga mats, wrapped in blankets as the September sun fades into darkness. Looking up, the 14 satellites that rotate the earth pass overhead like an out-of-season Santa pulling his sleigh TURKEY AND STUFFING. A fast, lit strip of movement, seen too briefly, and then becoming just a memory once more. Lying down to meditate, I open my eyes. I gaze up from my position underneath an olive tree, through the leaves, to see the stars come alive and dance in front of my eyes. I am witnessing all my forevers. I feel water falling from my left eye, and wonder if it’s a tear.

There is a definite spirituality in this place.

We gather round in the moonlight and Gandalf has laid out cards which are somewhere between ‘tarot’ and ‘oracle’, for us to select…if we so choose… FETA CHEESE. I pick a card. It says ‘compromise’. I don’t like it - and not because of the concept of compromise, I just don’t like the image. I wonder if anyone will notice if I put it back and take another. I hurumph and decide that I don’t believe in that stuff anway - although if I’d picked a card I liked I would obviously have been full on converted.

Me & she

The thing that made this visit so, so special was being with my friend. I didn’t engage with the other guests as well as I had on my first visit, which is partly about the way I came to the mountain this time - I had a strange tension - and partly about simply being human and sometimes not connecting with people in the way you may hope. Some of them were quite simply just not my people, but that didn’t matter, because I had her, and she me.

In the evenings we would snuggle up in our room (at about 8.30pm) and watch films on my laptop in bed CHICKEN CASSEROLE [WTF? I haven’t had a chicken casserole for about thirty years] whilst filling our Ocado baskets with nutritious goodies and eliminating the bad stuff. I message home: ‘is there any spirulina powder in the cupboard – did I buy any after last year’s retreat? How about apple cider vinegar?’. I can feel the communal eye-rolling from Taz, Fiver and Himself across the miles. Oh God, what is mum putting in the shopping – she’s gone juicy crazy again. Tell me she won’t be eliminating the diet coke and crisps. It’s like ‘nutritionist friend Daphne’ has just been to visit.

I watched my beautiful friend over the course of the week, as she went from not being able to leave the rebounder to jumping in the air. I saw her go from legs stretched out at yoga as she was unable to bend her knees to full on kneeling in ‘child’s pose’. I sensed her mind and body relax and her smile (which is always there) become true. I noticed her contact with home become less frequent and intense. I felt her, ever so slowly, begin to let go, and to allow herself some healing before heading once more into the breach.

As we shared sarongs, oestrogel and our volleyball court position; I felt joy as she told me over the week: ‘I think I’m walking easier’; ‘I forgot to book my gym sessions for next week’; and then: ‘I think my smile has got bigger’. I could not have wanted for anything more LASAGNE.

The mountain is a special place indeed.

Take-aways

No, not those kind of take aways!!! God forbid!!! I am NOT talking pizza and sweet and sour chicken balls SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN BALLS. Wash your mouth out.

As the week drew to a close, I noticed a few things I had learned, and so committed to bringing SOME healthy habits back home:

how much I actually love ginger shots - and I have a juicer and a freezer - I can mass produce like in the baby food days (I say that as if it is a fond memory. Ha.)
how revolting spirulina is, but that I’m sure I can stomach some powdered stuff every now and then, so into the Ocado basket it goes.
how much I dislike beetroot but how I can soften the taste with carrot and apple
the importance of apple cider vinegar (ask ‘nutritionist friend Sally’)
that you can buy frozen avocados!! What the actual?
how there is no excuse not to do the five Tibetan Rites every day - it literally takes 6 minutes
how I didn’t crave chocolate at all - which isn’t a great surprise. I am a savoury girl.
that, however, it is really easy to make home-made chocolate!! (see recipe below - it works)
that the oldest friendships are the most special ones in the world
that we’re all just doing the best we can
and sometimes all it takes to heal is the space to breathe

So 3 months later, how am I getting on?

Well reflecting back in real time in Jan 2024, I now have two massive unopened tubs of spirulina powder in the cupboard as well as a litre of apple cider vinegar (it’s gross but I suspect good at cleaning jewellery). I did the five Tibetan Rites about four times, then binned that. I seem utterly incapable of incorporating yoga into my life, although I love it, I believe in it, and I’m not terrible at it. What is that all about? Even during lockdown I didn’t manage more than two consecutive days with Adrienne.

I still have no idea what I am ‘protecting myself’ from, but I’m doing pretty ok. I don’t know if I’ll return to the mountain this year, partly because of finance and logistics (I may have to go to Azerbaijan at that time - watch this space!!) and partly because being in India makes me want to explore other facets of wellbeing. There is so much to learn.

It strikes me that it doesn’t matter where you go, it matters how you go. For me the benefit is in ‘how’ I show up. My capacity for acceptance, my ability to self-care, and who I share the experience with on a fundamental level. This time it was me & she. Next time it could be me & he, and sometimes it’s just me, and sometimes it’s right on my doorstep, in my own home. You don’t have to go to a mountain, you don’t even have to drink the juice, (although it is an utter privilege to get the chance to do so).

As you work out what you need, be gentle with yourself amid the bollocks demands on ‘New Year New You’, and in the meantime here is a recipe for healthy chocolate, with my love. I think ‘nutritionist friend Daphne’ would whole-heartedly approve. ❤️🍫

Chocolate recipe

Melt 1 great big heaped tablespoon of solid organic coconut oil on a low heat
Add 3 tablespoons of raw cacao
Mix until it is a ‘pouring consistency’ (coats the back of a spoon)
Add pure honey or organic maple syrup to taste (start with a couple of teaspoons)
Optionally: add vanilla essence, a little bit of Himalayan salt, chopped nuts, rose petals, chilli - whatever you like!! (chilli and salt are my favourite)
Refrigerate for twenty minutes, and Bob’s your auntie.

Enjoy ❤️

I hope you enjoyed this little slice of vicarious goodness. How is January treating you? More importantly, how are you treating yourself in January?

I’d love to hear,