Contrary to popular belief, February is the month when one’s wellness goals really begin to take shape. You’ve officially hit the ‘habit’ mark, wherein your New Year’s resolution has become not just a goal, but a habit. Of course, if you haven’t yet succeeded in your resolution, February still allows plenty of time to make a change for a productive 2015.
We turned to the team at VeraVia, a one-of-a-kind luxury wellness retreat at California’s Park Hyatt Aviara resort. Much more than just a spa getaway or a week-long bootcamp, VeraVia takes a mind-body-spirit approach to whole health, designed with a fully integrated medical model that offers support for people of all fitness and age levels.
In this exclusive Pursuitist Q&A, we discussed just how to turn wellness goals in to wellness realities with co-founder and CEO Wyatt Chapman and MaryBeth Skoch, one of the resort’s Integrated Behavioral Health Therapists.
Tell us a bit about the VeraVia philosophy, and how it differs from a traditional destination spa resort.
VeraVia is the only truly all-inclusive luxury health and wellness retreat that takes a body-mind-spirit approach to creating lasting behavior and lifestyle change. Our programs are designed with a wrap around approach to wellness with a fully integrated multidisciplinary team of professionals and more one-on-one individual attention than any other health retreat.
Each plan includes private, one-on-one personal training, individual nutrition consultations, behavioral counseling and medical evaluation. Also included are complete medical labs; farm-to-table, organic meals and snacks; personalized nutrition plans; and comprehensive after-care plan and coaching.
VeraVia’s goal is to teach our guests self-empowering techniques that allow them to regain control over their health and wellness for improved well-being and quality of life.
Are you predicting any trends for your 2015 guests?
For 2015 we expect to see the continued increase in travelers seeking out wellness vacations. The days where a vacation meant laying out in the sun all day and over indulging on food and alcohol are behind us. Travelers are choosing to take a more proactive role in their health and well being, which includes seeking out vacation opportunities that help to improve their health and ind/body wellness. With our time becoming more and more of a premium, the wellness traveler is looking to get the most out of their vacation time. As a result, we expect to see more of a shift away from the traditional “spa” vacation, which consists mostly of relaxing and pampering oneself, more toward active vacations, where travelers are looking to get real results from their wellness trip. For VeraVia guests, the results can include weight loss, gains in muscle and strength, detox, full medical analysis to get a complete current health picture, and mental relaxation through yoga and guided meditation.
Our guests are also looking more and more to learn healthy living skills that they can take home and implement into their daily lives.
Many of our guests come to VeraVia for our weight loss program. However we have already seen, and expect to continue to see more and more guests looking for a physical and mental reboot. We are getting more overworked executives whose health and wellbeing is being negatively impacted from continued negative stress, lack of sleep and overwork. These guests are at a point in their life that they realize something needs to change and VeraVia’s program can teach them effective tools for stress management, improving quality of sleep and energy levels, and how to incorporate fitness and healthy eating into their hectic work schedules.
Another increasing trend are guests coming to VeraVia wanting to address specific medical challenges. We have helped guests eliminate insulin dependency, get off of prescription medications, overcome painful past injuries, quit smoking, overcome digestive issues, balance out hormone levels post menopause, among many others. As people continue to increasingly take more control over their health, they are looking to address the underlying causes of their health issues, rather than just treating the symptoms, and VeraVia’s wrap around approach with our comprehensive integrated team is able to get amazing life changing results in a surprisingly short amount of time.
What is the best way to determine or set a wellness resolution?
When it comes to determining your [wellness resolution], it is wise to begin by reflecting on what your values are for the year ahead. Where do you see yourself a year from now? What changes feel right? By identifying what your values are, you can align your behavioral changes accordingly. Putting heart into your resolutions, allows you connect to them on a deeper level and determines what is most meaningful to you as you being another new year. This also makes your resolutions more likely to stick!
“Get Skinny,” “Go to the Gym” or “Don’t Eat Carbs” seem like resolutions people won’t be able to keep.
How do you make your end goal into an attainable resolution?
Often times a resolution, particularly around the new year, can feel cliche, or gimmicky, and rather lacking personalization. A helpful technique to make your end goal into an attainable resolution is to use visualization. The more you can connect to what it will feel like, to be living your resolution, you have a better chance of actually making it a reality! VeraVia clients use visualization techniques to achieve their health and wellness goals. Resolutions that are restrictive, depriving, or reductive tend have a harder time sticking or fail to stick at all. Best to start with a more global, expansive resolution that truly connects to your personal meaning and values, and then pinpoint resolutions from there. This is much more likely to lead to sustainable results!
We’ve heard that in order to keep a resolution, you need to form a habit, which means 21 days of continuous follow-through. Are there other techniques to staying on 
track?
If you are coming from a value driven place, your resolutions are more likely to be salient and congruent with your beliefs and will have a positive effect on your motivation! It’s also helpful to keep in mind that it’s going to take considerable effort. Change requires action and the first three times we perform a new behavior or habit, will feel more effortful, than the next three. I always remind clients of this, so they can acknowledge this fact during the process. Be patient with yourself and encourage yourself with praise, and positive affirmations. Be sure to celebrate the changes you are accomplishing along the way!
By February, some of our resolutions have already slipped. What do you do when you’ve fallen off the wagon?
At VeraVia, we highlight that self-criticism is not an effective motivator to change. I encourage clients to use self-compassion and mindfulness when confronted with struggle. Therefore, if you do happen to “fall off the wagon”, or slip up on your New Year’s Resolution by the time you’re reading this article, keep in mind that criticizing yourself is not going to help you maintain your course. If this happens, acknowledge and accept that is has occurred. Reframe it as an invitation to revisit and re-evaluate your resolutions and an opportunity to reflect on why this slip occurred, doing so without criticism or judgment.
Actively chose to recommit to your resolutions again, and absolutely, tweak them as needed if you’re discovering things about yourself along the way. Health is more than just about the physical, but we also know that we should have an annual visit with our doctor to make sure we’re on the right path.
What are some critical questions to ask our physician during our visit to make sure we are setting a path to whole wellness?
About two weeks before your annual visit, begin to jot down a list of questions you may have for your physician. This is extremely helpful during an often quick visit! Too often patients leave having not remembered to ask the questions they really wanted to. Before going into the appointment, do consider how your sleep, energy level, eating habits, and exercise routines have changed or fluctuated since your last visit. This can help to highlight what topics to address with your physician. Also consider how you’ve responded to stress over the past year, reflect on your interpersonal relationships, and mental health to make sure you are setting on a path to whole wellness. Personally assessing yourself mind, body, and spirit will help to identify critical questions or topics to share with your physician.
Anything else you’d like to add?
The new year can be a great time to embrace new behaviors! Consider making a list of things you “haven’t had time for”, or have “always wanted to try…”. Check out local opportunities to get involved in those activities. It doesn’t have to be a long commitment, but you might find yourself loving the dance class you thought you could never fit in during the week, or the guitar lessons that seemed lost long ago, or the foreign language that you always wanted to learn… Along the way you may discover and reignite passions that can help to fuel you towards your resolutions and allow them to grow even more!