Gadling

His trip to the health center was a hoot, a holler and a quick overview of what balance entails. I’ve always thought Zimmern seemed like a fun loving, decent, easy going guy. This section of the Goa episode cinched it.

At the center he took in various center offerings with the idea of a weight-loss plan. A Hatha yoga class was the kick off. One thing I like about this form of yoga is that anyone can do it, even if you have the tightest hamstrings in the world like I do.

Said Zimmern, as he good-naturedly bent this way and that, “Yoga is a way to work with muscles without damaging the body.”

Although not mentioned, other reasons for doing yoga is to massage the internal organs and align the body. The end result also has a spiritual element.

“When it’s all over, we’re supposed to be more in peace and not in pieces,” said Zimmern.

If you notice in the picture of the yoga class, Zimmern is the only guy, but not the only non-Indian. Throughout the Goa episode non-Indians were in several shots, highlighting how Goa is a tourist destination for sure.

After yoga came the food. The Ayurvedic method of diet is to eat several different types of food to match your body type in order to achieve balance. Zimmern’s meal was to help him loose weight. Lentil and mushroom curry, mango pickle (yum), potatoes and rice were on the menu. There was more, but I didn’t catch all of it. The main point is to eat a balanced variety between foods in order to bring together hot, spicy, cool, sour and sweet. You don’t chow down on any one of the dishes.

The real fun began after Zimmern’s meal when he took in a couple of purifying treatments. When a guy whose belly pooches out some, disrobes, puts on a jock strap type covering and gets on a massage treatment for an oil treatment type massage, he has me hooked.

As hot oil was dripped on his head and massaged in, he quipped, “I may look silly right now, but this is fantastic. I know why the Beatles came here and say it changed their lives.” (The photo, from the center’s Web site is of the oil treatment.)

Other treatments, all designed to purify the body, involved being hit with small rice bags, being put in some sort of box like sauna with his head sticking out and having cold butter milk poured on him.

At the point of the cold butter milk, the chair Zimmern was sitting in broke, tumbling him to the floor. I began laughing (not at him, with him) and thought, what a guy. Instead of taking the “I’m mad as hell,” approach, he laughed it off, and while still splayed on the floor quipped, “I’ll just roll over, I’m too greased.”

The last part of his treatment, designed to burn the excess fat from his body, was to down an herbal drink made from purified cow’s urine. “Alright, so I just slug this down. . .Tell patients not to smell it first,” he told the person from the center who explained cow urine virtues.

Zimmern described it as being very sour and very bitter, and said he could feel the fat melting away. Somehow, I don’t think he believes cow urine is the answer to his weight problem.

His last comment as he put down the glass was, “I think I’m through here.”