In April of 2012 we were privileged to be invited, again by Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 Diet Immersions, to travel to the Big Island of Hawaii and assist with a fifth week long live-in Health Retreat program. This was a big change for us because until this health retreat we had always been able to rent a U-Haul truck and transport equipment from our office to a location in Austin. For this trip we had to pack up crates and have them shipped. We also were not able to take our trusted staff with us because the transportation and housing costs would have been prohibitive. So, it was a double challenge and certainly a learning experience. Our plane flew into Hilo and we then rented a car and traveled south to the Kalani Resort at the south end of the Island.
We actually arrived a couple days early as Dr. Carney had accepted a speaking engagement in Kona on the other side of the Big Island for over the Weekend. First we headed down to the Kalani resort to take a look at the resort and understand the available facilities. Providentially we arrived to the resort just in time to meet up with the retreat coordinator and look over all the facilities to determine the best possible location to run vitals gathering and blood draws. That done we drove to Kona and enjoyed a couple days there. Kona was very different and semi polluted from the volcano ash that was blowing in from the south side of the island. We now know about Vog which is like fog and/or smog but with V for Volcanic ash.
Upon returning to the Kalani resort we settled in for some very LONG (albeit rewarding) days of work caring for the participants. Dr. Carney starts seeing people from 6:00 AM to check the blood sugars and blood pressures of certain participants who need closer monitoring. This becomes very critical around the third day of any Health Retreat when some of the people need to have their medication doses reduced siginificantly because of the power of the plant based diet. Some of the people have their doses of medications decreased daily. Some have even had to be taken off of their medications completely within FIVE days! You can imagine the joy of a participant who has been told by multiple Doctors that they will ALWAYS be medication dependant when they discover that by simply eating a low fat, low calorie density plant-based diet, not only CAN they stop taking the medications but that they SHOULD stop taking the medications. There are often tears of joy!
We did manage to take one short afternoon field trip to snorkel in a beautiful lagoon and then after the health retreat ended we went, with many of the participants to Volcanos National Park. The power of nature is something else. To realize that those huge craters were caused by massive explosions is mind numbing. Almost as mind numbing as the realization by many of the participants that their degenerative diseease conditions were caused by not following simple natural laws of health. It took our breath away to see the volcanos and it takes our breath away every Health Retreat to see people beoming well! The low fat plant based diet works! We just wish everybody would come to realize it and join us!