People: El Kalinado

The picture is from a personal archive of El Kalinado

El Kalinado is a man who wasn’t afraid to begin his new happy life in his 57th year. He left his home and his art studio in Victoria, Canada, sold and gave everything away, and went to travel alone.

I was lucky to meet El Kalinado in a yoga retreat & raw food place in Palawan Island, Philippines. I love the time talking with him, joining his sound healing & laughter meditation, and raw food cooking class.

A magic way from France to Canada

El told me: “I am an artist and a healer; I was born in 1954 in France. The story began when I was 12 years old. I was invited to join the “Bendor Drawing academy”, owned by Paul Ricard, a philanthropist who was also a friend of Salvador Dali. At this young age I was already drawing nude models.

Two years after the death of my farther, when I was 19, I met my future wife in London. As we were sitting at the terrace of a restaurant, my uncle invited this young woman passing by to join us for coffee. She was from Canada. We quickly felt that we were to live together and went to study in France, before moving to Canada to live there for 30 years together. 

My wife died nine years ago, when our daughter was 17, and our son was 22. So I stayed in Canada for a while until the children became independent. I then decided to make a big change in my life: I sold and gave away everything, and went to Southern East Asia.

Sound-Healing at Bahay Kalipay, Philippines 

Yoga, massage and sound therapy

I started to practice yoga when I was in the university. After I had car accident, I needed a lot of massage therapy to recover. I noticed that while receiving massage therapy, the experience could be very different, depending on the therapist. With some, as soon as they put their hands on you, just from their energy you feel better. I then understood that this was not only massage therapy, but also pranic healing energy. So I started to learn massage therapy and Sound Therapy. It made a lot of changes in my life: it changed my habits and my diet. I then studied other alternative therapies.

No sickness for 15 years already

Before, I always had wine with dinner. But learning and practicing different therapies changed my habits. Progressively, without making a conscious choice, I stopped drinking wine, eating meat and avoiding anything that was not resonating with my body and my energy.

I used to be sick every winter but since, I’ve not been sick for over 15 years.

Raw food

I try to eat mostly raw vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts, a plant based diet. I mostly eat raw food, but when I live in India, I eat cooked vegetables, rice or lentils one time a day.

I like sweets only if they are made without white sugar or artificial sweetener. I used to teach raw chocolate classes in Canada: mixing unsweetened chocolate (coco powder or chocolate mass) with either coconut nectar, maple syrup, agave syrup (or honey if you are un-vegan) dates, and coco butter or coconut oil. This makes a healthy chocolate that must be kept in the fridge.

Picture from a raw food cooking class at Bahay Kalipay, Philippines

Main rules to be eating raw food

Drink 2 glasses of water when you get up, to flush your digestive system.

Chew slowly: I recommend to take a spoonful in your mouth, and then put the spoon on the plate, don’t touch it until you chewed the food completely and your mouth is empty. This is very important to have the enzyme needed for proper digestion.

It is good to eat fruits separately. Don’t mix them with vegetables and grains.

Don’t drink with your meals: drink at least 30 minutes before and 1 hour after your meal.
Try to get fresh organic fruits and vegetables.

If you live in a cold country, I recommend eating some kind of warm food: hot soup, vegetables or tea, and use some “heat food” like cayenne pepper and ginger.

Why is a green smoothie good?

When you put green vegetables in a blender, you extract all the nutrients from them. If you try to chew spinach or other greens, you have to chew them for at least 10 minutes to get the same amount of nutrients. But always drink your smoothies very slowly so you can digest them properly.

The main rule in my life

I will never retire… I never stop learning… I live in the present as much as possible and I love to help people heal with all the modalities I practice (Energy Medicine, Sound Healing, Emotions re-programing, Reiki, massage and Sat Nam Resayan).”

No to Arthritis: Instruction Sheet

If you are familiar with my fitness record, you know that I had come to gym for health, not for beauty. The problem was solved and I created a muscular girdle in the core to support kidneys and not let them shift down. But soon life called me to the next challenge. The knee joint pains lead me to doctors who diagnosed a case of genetic knee arthritis.

It hurt to tears during inflammation of the knee.

I started studying the arthritis subject with innate systematic approach: discovered other people’s experience, searched for sportsmen’s recommendations, and consulted with orthopedists and rheumatologists.

In the course of treatment I formed the following habits.

1.  Appropriate doctors are essential

You have to surround yourself with professional medical support: that of orthopedist, rheumatologist, ultra sonographer and radiographer. I found the right doctors on recommendations of acquaintances. I would arrange an appointment with a doctor, prepare a list of questions, visit the doctor and realize if he met my requirements and if I could trust him. You’d better also do ultrasonography and radiography in recommended clinics and undergo re-examinations at the same places with the same doctors.

 2. Tolerating pain is forbidden

Knee pain is the first stroke of joint inflammation. In case of arthritis, the cartilage deteriorates and the bones start rubbing directly against each other. That’ s why I agreed to take medicines prescribed by my orthopedist. I was on non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs and cartilage protectors.

3. Daily exercising is a must

Your physical therapy should be on a daily basis. There are no capillaries in knee joints and important nutrients are provided by synovial fluid, which is transported into the joint space from cartilage only when the joint is active, i.e. during movement. Moreover, it is necessary to build leg muscles to create a muscular girdle for your knees. But it is not recommended to do weight exercises, such as squats, lunges and jumps at inflammatory state.

I relocated my lower body workout from the gym to home mat. I performed light 45-minute leg and butt workouts every day. My orthopedist had provided illustrated instruction sheet to those exercises.

I kept on working out my upper body in a gym with sitting position exercises prevailing. In that way, weight is distributed on hips, not on legs. I always warmed up by cycling only.

I added regular swimming to my training schedule for general joint support and my overall muscular tone maintenance.

4. Eating avocado and cottage cheese is good for you

In case of knee arthritis, nutrition should be focused on cartilage repair. Firstly, your diet should be healthy and balanced. Take lots of vegetables, fruits, green-stuff and safe drinking water. I had refused meat, gluten, roasted and junk food long ago and this point was no hard task.

Secondly, I increased the quantity of fatty fish, avocado, olive oil, prawns and other rich in healthy fats products consumed.

Thirdly, I added casein protein to my evening menu. I found out from several articles that growth hormone in human organism is produced naturally throughout the whole life, however, its level drops over the years. Protein tends to double up the growth hormone production, which facilitates cartilage repair. Casein protein is digested within few hours, which, in its turn, raises the chance of growth hormone production. I tasted casein protein powder but was preoccupied with body response. That was why I replaced it with 100-gram portion of skim cheese and used to have it two hours before bedtime. At the time it was the only dairy product on my menu. And currently there are no dairy foods at all. Collagen, which is contained within aspic, is considered to be beneficial for arthritis treatment. But I refrained from this experiment, as I didn’t feel like eating meat products back then.

5. Taking care of your knees, by all means

I ordered special orthopedic insoles, as proper foot fixation is another foundation for knee joints. And my personal experience proves it well. At least, now, that I have new footwear and insoles, I don’t get tired from long time walking, as I previously did. And you can easily displace your insoles from these or those shoes to the other ones. Now I choose to buy new footwear only if my insoles fit well in it.

Happy end

I have no bum knees any more. The doctors have noted significant improvements. I have gradually added leg workouts to my training and displaced my in-home physical drills to the gym. I have built my muscles scrupulously and successively. Now all kinds of exercises, seated or stand up, lunges or squats, are included into my regular training programme. But I still tend to listen to my body and to focus more on sets quantity and quality, than muscle mass gain.

My body reveals and health strengthens.

To tell you the truth, this is a great piece of luck to prove first-hand that recuperating your health is possible at any age.