Deborah Vankin | Los Angeles Times (TNS) LOS ANGELES — I sat in my car, in an El Segundo shopping mall parking lot, looking up at a new storefront touted as a one-stop shop for feeling physically fit, emotionally grounded and socially connected. My shoulder ached. It was my good luck that on the same day I was touring Love.
Life — a new luxury health center conceived by John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods Market — I was also nursing a gym injury. After weeks of navigating our infuriatingly slow medical system, it felt promising, if not surreal, to arrive at the doorstep of an establishment with nearly every treatment I could think of under one roof: diagnostic tests, rejuvenating therapies as well as fitness and nutrition plans to stave off future health problems. I walked up to Love.
Life’s entrance. Its gleaming picture windows and grass green exterior might as well have been the gates to the Emerald City, behind which mysterious healing modalities awaited. I clicked my heels together — I happened to be wearing red suede sneakers — and mumbled to myself: “There’s no place like a posh, membership-only holistic health club.
” Then I headed inside, passing under block lettering that read: “Nourish Heal Thrive.” The lobby was blindingly bright, with porcelain floors and mod furniture in peppy colors. There was a spacious cafe on one side and a futuristic gym on the other, animated by various blinking screens.
Around the corner were what looked like red-whi.