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Budoor Al Ansari’s personal battle of the bulge led her to open the kingdom’s first weight loss resort catering for the obese and unhealthy determined to make a change for the better in the New Year.
Like many overweight people in Bahrain, Budoor’s story starts as a tale of despair and unfulfilled promises. However, she believes that having successfully conquered her fears and discovered a healthy way forward she can now confidently share her knowledge with others.
“I believe in order to get the best results we need to relax first and find a retreat away from the hustle and bustle of normal life.
“What started off as a personal mission has turned into a quest to help others,” she said.
Budoor opened her enterprise entitled Pankooshi’s, based at three executive villas in Durrat Al Bahrain, with funding help from business angel investors Tenmou, and has already attracted more than 50 women to the detox, juicing and weight-loss programme since its launch four months ago.
Two of the villas are designed as comfortable accommodation to re-energise and de-stress guests after spending time in a treatment villa.
She added: “There are two mandatory work-outs which have to be completed daily – a 15-minute gym session and a morning walk. Every afternoon holds a different activity. For example, one day there will be a massage and on another a Latin dance lesson, yoga or reiki.
“The whole point behind offering exercise is to find something visitors can include in their daily routines when they leave the programme.
“We also provide pool and beach activities during the summer for those with knee problems and those who have trouble walking. I also made the treatment villa a bit of a distance from the accommodation for those women that try to skip the morning walk! Either way, they will have to exercise.
“When I thought of opening Pankooshi’s I thought I needed a place that was as far away from the city as possible.
“Women come here to have a fun, relaxing time either on the beach or walking while detoxing and juicing. It’s so quiet here which makes it ideal to kick-start the programme.”
The 29-year-old mother-of-two from Hamad Town believes the retreat can help people start afresh. Detoxification is what a body does naturally to neutralise, transform or get rid of unwanted materials or toxins. A concentrated effort allows the body time to repair and recover from the damage caused by bad habits.
Some health experts believe that one of the best ways to cleanse the body is by a juice fast. Juices clean away unwanted substances leaving people healthier and more energetic.
Budoor Al Ansari said: “What we do at Pankooshi’s is cleanse the body with a juice-fast programme and help people take control of their lives.
“We provide exercises during the stay and show how to stay healthy with talks and workshops. That way guests can build their own healthy lifestyle regiment.”
Today Budoor is confident and attractive and says she ‘feels like a new woman’ since she started to take control of her life after countless hours at various gyms and going on every fad diet available from Atkins to just ‘eating dates’. However, no matter what she tried she simply could not shed excess weight.
As a teenager, Budoor had been in great shape playing basketball, handball, taekwondo, volleyball and football. When she married her sweetheart Mohammed Janahi, a 32-year-old HR supervisor at Durrat Al Bahrain, she weighed just 63kg.
When she started working in an office, sport took a back seat and when she became pregnant the kilos started to pile on even more. “I categorise myself as an emotional eater. Instead of sharing my feelings with my husband and mother, I kept my emotions between me and my food,” she explained.
After her first child, Ali, now aged four, was born, her weight ballooned to 102kg. After having her second child, Amina, now 10 months, she decided enough was enough.
“I had to find a solution,” she said. “I had knee problems and a spinal disc herniation from being overweight while pregnant. I became addicted to watching weight loss reality shows like The Biggest Loser and I just wished there was a place like that I could go to.
“One doctor placed me on a crash diet where I ate nothing throughout the whole day except for two salads. I lacked energy and was shaking for a week because there was no food in my system. I wanted to lose weight so badly that I tried everything and simply ended up frustrated and depressed. Even if I lost two kilos one week, I would gain five the week after.
“I started searching online. All I found was cleansing, juicing and detox, so I figured, OK, what is this all about. I started reading about it and it clicked. That is what I needed to do because I couldn’t exercise away all my weight gain.
“I was just too obese to do anything. I was clogged up from the inside so I needed to get rid of all the waste and toxins, before introducing myself to something new.
“It wasn’t easy at first but after a few days I felt rejuvenated and within a couple of months I had lost 15kg. I felt like I had uncovered a secret that I had to share with everyone … and that’s where Pankooshi’s came about.”
Pankooshi is a nickname given to her by her mother Amina Al Awadi, a made-up word which somehow described her look and personality, and it stuck.
Budoor approached Tenmou, Bahrain´s first business angels company, which provides both mentorship and capital to high-potential, innovative Bahraini entrepreneurs from the seed stage.
After her juicing success, she changed her original concept of setting up a boot camp to a detox resort. Budoor said: “I convinced them after they saw the results of my three weeks of juicing. Within the first two months I had dropped from 99kg to 84kg.”
Budoor now weighs a healthier 78kg. She offers week-long and fortnight-stay juice-fasting, cleansing and detoxing programmes with medical check-ups and weekend packages of three-days-and-two-nights for those who cannot afford to be too long away from family or work commitments.
Programme packages start from around BD107 for a two-day, one night ‘liver cleanse’ and BD191 for a weekend (both in a shared room) to BD1,295 for two weeks weight loss in a single room.
*For more details contact Pankooshi’s on 77088805, 39996690 or email info@pankooshis.com
