Farm boy

Where do athletes go to unwind? This is a question that has constantly tormented me in my search for the perfect place for jocks to get the extra pampering they deserve.

An athlete’s body is a far cry from an ordinary person’s. The punishment and physical stress it is subjected to on a daily basis certainly merits additional pampering. I remember a friend of mine, a desk jockey, who complained of pain in his shoulders from too much paperwork. He asked for a massage from one of the masseurs of the Philippine boxing team, and promptly spent the next four days in bed with a fever. Proof once again that athletes need superhuman care.

Everybody can go to the beach or swim or have a sauna. But, inside and out, how does one get cleaned out, refreshed, and rejuvenated? Having taken a physical beating recently (not too good for someone of my advancing age), I badly searched for the answer. And I found it.

Believe it or not, there is a place where you can get top-to-toe treatment fit for a king (or at least a thoroughbred), and it’s less than two hours away from Manila. It’s called The Farm at San Benito, Hippocrates Health resort of Asia.

The Farm sits on fifty hectares of coconut trees just eight kilometers off downtown Lipa, and is a tremendous facility. Dozens of villas dot the surrounding, all in Balinese design. There are four pools, and a spa the likes of which you will not find anywhere in the country. And the food is also unlike any other you will find on the planet. They are most likely the only place in the world where you will find a truly gourmet diet of fresh, raw vegetarian cuisine, but it sure didn’t look like it.

I was always a meat eater, and often joked that I would die preserved, or at least heavily salted. But I may soon change my stubborn ways permanently after my visit to 85/15 Gourmet Restaurant (named after the proportion of raw to cooked food The Farm’s owners believe to be appropriate to the human diet). get this, they served pasta, chocolate cake (no baking, no flour), hot chocolate, cookies (no dairy products), ice cream (fresh frozen fruit turned into ice cream), faux tuna, vegetarian burgers and sausages, and all the salads and fruits you could eat. Their crackers (the start of a typical meal ranging from three to five courses) were made from dehydrated shredded coconut, corn, nuts and seeds (which last months, compared to days for the same hydrated fruit).

For the first time, I didn’t have to stuff myself to feel full. Apparently, when you eat raw, all natural, "living" food, your body absorbs the nutrition right away. It made me wonder why more athletes weren’t eating that kind of food in the first place. In five days of eating everything (and often two servings of it) I even lost two pounds. And that was already the toughest adjustment to make.

Incidentally, Renee Underkoffler, the world renowned chef, author an restaurant owner, is giving a rare seminar called "Raw Truth: The Art and Spirit of Living Foods" at The Farm from April 29 to May 1.

The Farm’s medical staff also do live cell analysis. By examining a drop of your blood with a high-powered microscope, they can actually tell what kind of lifestyle you have, if you smoke, get enough sleep, eat too much or too little of a particular kind of food. From there, they make their recommendations.

Again, that’s something athletes should go through on a regular basis so they can get even more of an advantage on their competition.

But for me, the best part was all the massages I was getting. Their spa staff has either been trained abroad, or trained by foreign cunsultants in several different kinds of massages, and it’s a total experience. You have soft music, floral scents, fresh air, and quiet surrounding you. My favorite was the combination coco cream lulur (a body scrub which left me tinged yellow for a while), followed by a floral bath and a deep relaxation massage. Frankly, I never wanted to leave, but someone was using the treatment room after me.

And if you need physical activity so you won’t feel so guilty about enjoying yourself so much, they also offer yoga (actor Woody Harrelson is supposed to come back in May to teach), chi gong, stretch classes, aqua aerobics, breathing and walking exercises, and other forms of exercise we don’t normally experience. These would be great incorporated into team-building or even corporate training exercises.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. In an upcoming piece, we’ll explain technical details of health benefits presented at The Farm at San Benito. If you can’t wait until then, you can reach them at 696-3175 or 0917-5338879.

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I’d like to send a belated Happy Birthday to Marcial Reyes, the genial general manager of The Farm. Congratulations on a splendid facility.