Scene: Lia's Los Angeles apartment, 10 AM. Lia has just returned home from an overnight wedding expedition in Big Bear, and is still in yesterday's jeans when the phone rings. It's the gorgeous and glamorous Rachelle Wintzen, calling from Belize (where she is currently preparing for an upcoming retreat). Lia hopes Rachelle can't tell that for the first several minutes of their phone conversation she is scrambling around trying to plug dying phone into computer, dying computer into wall and tangled headphones into phone.
LA: Rachelle! You're in Belize!
RW: Yeah, I've been making trips here since October, back and forth from New York, doing yoga retreats and things. It's so great.
That's--I think that officially makes you the coolest person I know.
Thank you.
So, Rachelle, I didn't even know until we got back in contact that you had a life outside of acting...when did this all start?
Well, I'd been in New York for eight years, I was working at night clubs, going to classes, going to auditions, and I was just getting completely burnt out. And I started to get really, really sick. I kept going to all of these doctors and no one could tell me what was wrong with me. They all wanted to prescribe me a bunch of medications, which made me nervous, and a few doctors even suggested that I was just really depressed and wanted to get me on anti-depressants...and I just didn't want to do that. I didn't want to start taking a bunch of pills, that didn't seem right. So I started seeking out alternative medicines. And when I started seeing people in the alternative world they were just like, "you're totally exhausted and you're system is overwhelmed with toxins...you're toxic." I was living fast and hard at that point in my life and it was just getting the best of me.
So I started to cleanse, and eat better, and boost my body with herbal supplements, and I noticed such a radical change right away that I just knew...there was no turning back. I started to learn more about the whole world of healthy living and alternative medicine and I and got more and more interested. And that's when I got certified as a yoga teacher and then as a nutritionist specializing in fasting and cleansing and then finally as an iridologist...
What's an iridologist?
Iridology is a form of alternative medicine that uses the eye, the iris of the eye, to diagnose what's going on in the body. We use maps of the eye, like an eye chart--you know how in reflexology they have those foot charts? We have the same thing, but it's a chart of the eye.
(full disclosure, I really wanted to ask Rachelle if doing an iridology consultation felt like having a staring-contest...but, um, I thought that might make me sound like an idiot.)
So, when you're doing a consultation as an iridologist--and forgive me if this is a stupid question--are you taking a full read of what's going on for that person, like the way an acupuncturist will ask you all kinds of questions about your general health and your diet and your tongue-fuzz before they start working on you--are you doing all that and then...you're...looking at their eyes?
Yeah, I'll ask a whole series of medical history questions, and then I'll do an eye reading.
I've heard that before, that you can tell a lot about what's happening in the body by looking at someone's eyes--seeing if the whites of their eyes are really white or not, stuff like that--but I had no idea it was an actual field of alternative medicine?
You can tell so much from the eye, it's incredibly informative. And I'm using a light and a magnifying glass* to look, so there are all of these details in the iris that are revealed that can't be seen by the naked eye, it's pretty amazing.
(*this sufficiently answered my staring-contest question)
I had no idea.
It's just now starting to become something that's being practiced and paid attention to--I mean, something like acupuncture, it took so long for that to be recognized as a viable form of alternative medicine in the west.
Right. People are scared of the alternative practices.
Totally! I did some of this work for people at the New York Stock Exchange and they were so nervous, so wary at first...some people actually asked me if I made it up. And I had to tell them, no, you know, it's been around since the 1890's. It's an old practice. It's a real practice.
It's so interesting, because if the body is an integrated system, then it only makes sense that you should be able to tell by examining one part of the body, what's happening in the other parts of the body. But the western medical model seems to think of everything in this compartmentalized way...
That's right, the way the western model works, all the pill-prescribing and specializing, without looking at the whole body, it's really just a masking system--
A masking system! I love that! That's totally what it is.
You're not addressing the problem, you're just masking the symptoms so you can move on with your life.
Oh my god, it's like those horrible antiacid commercials, where they will literally show a photo of chili-cheese fries or something and say "you can still eat all the stuff you want to eat, just take one of these pills afterwards!" I find that so horrifying...it just does not seem like a reasonable way to think about health!
Right, and I mean so many people, you know they've been doing this stuff to their bodies for 30 or 40 years, and it's why we all start to get sick in our 50s and 60s...our body just can't take it anymore.
That's pretty amazing though, isn't it, that our body will take punishment for that long before it finally starts to give out?
The body is incredibly resilient. It can really take a beating--but eventually it's going to give out.
So, okay, so you were living in New York, living the crazy New York life and you started to get sick and then you found this new way of living that made you feel better...but what was the impetus to go from someone who was just living in a healthy way, to someone who is teaching and doing nutritional counseling and all of that?
Well, I just started to feel so much better, and became so passionate about what I was experiencing, it really started to feel like a calling. I just knew that there was no way I could go back to living the way I had been living before. And, for whatever reason, I just started to think less selfishly...I felt like I needed to spread the word, I needed to let people know that there was another way they could be living that could make them feel so much better. It felt like a necessity.
So, you're a vegan I guess, right?
Well, when I'm at home in New York I am 500% vegan, totally strict. But when I'm here, visiting Belize, I occasionally eat fish. I feel that I can shift with my environment...it is an island, after all. But I would never eat fish in New York.
I just...I've had a serious yoga practice for a long time now, and I have to say, the diet thing is something I struggle with. I mean, according to yoga philosophy, I should at least be a vegetarian. Probably I should be a vegan...but it's really challenging!
It is challenging! Really, it's the knowledge that's so important. Because there's a way to be a vegetarian or be a vegan and do it well, and do it right, and there's a way to do it that will just make you sick.
I'm sure that's true for me. I was a vegetarian when I was young, for a long time, but I had no idea what I was doing. And then I went vegan and really I just tried to live on peanut butter and bagels, and that just did not work.
Totally.
I find that the hardest part, when I think about making those changes, is about--how do I continue to share food and eat food with the people in my life and still make healthy choices?
That is the hardest part, for sure. I still struggle with that. You go out with people and you feel like you're all alone on this isolated island, you watch them just eat whatever they want and...it's hard.
So how do you do it, then? Is it just sheer will-power?
Well, you know, it's hard. Sometimes I cheat. It depends. If it's evening and it's dinner, I'll let myself stray a little bit. I have my ways. So, if I'm going to cheat, I'll eat a green salad first--alkalinize the body--I always tell people if you're going to cheat, start with a green salad. It's like a natural antacid...it coats the digestive system, and I always recommend that you cheat at dinner. That way, the body has the whole night to deal with processing what you've put in it, and you're not going to be adding more food on top of it throughout the day.
And don't make yourself feel bad about it! That's the worst! I tell my clients, if you're going to have a cheeseburger...worship the cheeseburger! Enjoy every bite! There's no sense in adding a bunch of guilt on top of the cheeseburger!
Worship the cheeseburger!! Um...what about alcohol?*
(*Why at this point in the interview I've just decided to forget about interviewing Rachelle and instead start plying her for food and beverage affirmation, I'm not sure...)
Well, alcohol's an interesting thing for me. When I was working in night clubs, I was dealing with a lot of substance abuse because of it. So when I started this lifestyle change I got totally sober. I was completely sober for a period of time. But then, you know, being here, for example...it's an island! You want to sit on the beach in the evening and have a pina colada, or a glass of wine...so, here, I let myself. I'm moderate and I'm careful, but I let myself.
What I tell people is, if you're going to drink alcohol, again, always drink at night, either with dinner or after dinner, and try and drink something that's a little easier for the body to handle...like wine or sake. Sake is great, it's really easy on the body, actually.
You can be a vegan and still drink red wine? Hooray!
Yes, I mean...in moderation. Don't drink a bottle a night or anything.
(Sheepish) Right. Of course. And so, now you're working with clients one on one, but you're also going to be doing retreats, is that right?
Right. I'm doing my next retreat in Belize, July 9th-16th, at the Ak'Bol Yoga Retreat Center--the center that first brought me here last year. And during that time I'll be giving a lot of personalized treatments--setting up a nutritional program catered to the participants needs and doing iridology sessions, and also giving regular yoga classes--all personalized for the retreat-goers.
All the food will also be taken care of, so that I can help people transition to a vegan or vegetarian diet for the time that they're there. So that they can understand and feel what it means to eat clean, and to live clean. And if people want to continue with all those changes after they leave, that's amazing, but if they just want to come for the week and have the week of clean-living, that's great too. Basically I'm giving people an opportunity to live for a period of time in this way that I've found so helpful, to see what's it like and if it might be right for them, too.
I want to come on retreat! I want to go to Beliiiiiiiiiiiize!
Do it!
* * *
for more detailed retreat info, contact
Rachelle Wintzen @
Rachelle Wintzen @
501.635.4661 - Belize
917.843.0212 - USA
rachelle@chijunky.com
