Articles by Susie Ellis

Despite rain and mud the Spa Soiree held at Glenda and Jerry Greenwald’s home the night before the Aspen Spa Day event was a lot of fun. Sallie Fraenkel, our COO, arranged a unique event twist for attendees to receive beautiful robes and slippers upon entry that they could wear for the evening. However, there […]

Right before I left for Rancho La Puerta last week, it was Harry Potter mania around here. The Barnes & Noble near my office had a line around the block with people (many in costume) waiting to get the first copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As I generally do, I wondered if […]

It’s rare to hit a home run the first time at bat, but that’s what happened at our first Aspen Spa Day. The plan was to add on an extra day to the Aspen Center for Integral Health’s (ACIH) Healthy Gourmet Food Festival in which we have participated for the past two years. This extra […]

I am currently at Rancho La Puerta for a few days. My plans included being here for the opening of their exciting new cooking school . However, as things generally go with construction, there is some delay and I will only be able to visit the cooking school on Wednesday – not experience a cooking […]

Rarely do I have a spa experience these days which amazes me. But the three hour Royal Sphatika Signature Experience at the pristine clean and inviting Sphatika Spa near Columbus Circle did just that. Afterward when I spoke to owner Janet League-Katzin, and her colleague Candace Darling, I learned that they have been working to […]

Continuing on with our theme regarding health care… You might want to check out this morning’s article in the New York Times entitled, “Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised”. Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona spoke to a Congressional panel, stating that during his four year term he had felt pressure to suppress public health […]

I spoke with my doctor over the weekend who very generously gave me plenty of time to go over the results of my annual physical. Other than higher-than-I-would-like cholesterol, I seem to be humming along pretty well. At the end of our phone conversation I decided to ask him if he has seen the movie […]

Saw Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, yesterday. From the full capacity crowd at the theater and the occasional spontaneous applause during the movie, I can see it will be a huge hit – and likely a topic of conversation for some time to come. In addition, I think it will do more than ignite conversation. I […]

Our time at Canyon Ranch is coming to an end. Here is my bottom line assessment of how things went for me this visit. I had four treatments – a Cleopatra bath and massage, a Thai massage, an Ayurvedic Bindi and Shirodhara, and a Sisley Facial. All of them were absolutely excellent. In fact every […]

So, here are the seven ways to lower your C-Reactive Protein (CRP) scores and, therefore, relax your immune system for better health.1. Breathing – Not breathing properly stresses your immune system.2. Eating – Large meals stresses the immune system. You are better off eating smaller meals more frequently. Eat fish for omega 3 which is […]

On Sunday afternoon, I attended Dr. Mark Liponis’ lecture here at Canyon Ranch entitled “UltraLongevity“. Dr. Liponis is the Corporate Medical Director of Canyon Ranch and was one of the authors of “UltraPrevention“, which was published in 2003. He was among the pioneers who preached prevention and the clever book title helped catapult the idea […]

Peter and I are at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires. This is the second year in a row we decided to spend 4th of July here and I am once again glad we did. There’s nothing like the great food, exercise and education here that gets me motivated to make some changes for the better […]

Today’s New York Times had a huge story in their Style Section entitled “Beauty Regimens Reach for the Gold Standard.” It was an article written about three women in Beverly Hills describing how much they spend – and what they have done – in terms of their beauty regimes each week. Even I was quite […]

I learned something remarkable the other day. I learned that Botox is being used to get rid of the strong vertical lines which appear on our necks as we age and that the procedure really works! These muscles in our neck are called platysma muscles and as we get older a downward pull creates vertical […]

Have you even noticed that after some massages the first thing you want to do is head to the shower to get rid of the itchy oil and after other massages you want to let the oil soak in? (not that it does) On the last night of our vacation Peter and I had the […]

Last Saturday as Peter and I flew to California for a week’s “vacation”, I promised him that I would deal with my email issues. My email issues are such that if there was an email recovery group (and maybe there is) I would have to stand up and say, “Hi, my name is Susie and […]

During dinner with Ian Brewis, who runs all of the Chi spas for Shangri La, we began discussing spas in Vegas and Macau. He had just come from Las Vegas where the Hong Kong-based Shangri La brand is apparently looking at possibilities for a new hotel and spa.We talked about how Asians – and especially […]

Dinner with Ian Brewis, head of the Chi Spas from the Hong Kong-based Shangri La group, is always a lot of fun because Ian is a lot of fun. (Good thing too, since I surprised him in Shanghai by using the Shangri La website as an example during my speech on spa website design. The […]

During my short visit to the Cliffs Communities in South Carolina last weekend, six of us had the chance to go via helicopter to see all of their communities from the air. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to see all of their golf courses, the lakes, miles of the nature […]

I had the privilege of flying down to Greenville, South Carolina on a private plane Friday with the guys from Cliffs Communities. They have been wanting Peter and me to see their wellness communities ever since we all first met. I think it was about two years ago when I was in my office working […]