Day 6

Sorry for the delay on getting this updated posted. I didn't have the energy to write this up last night when I got back to the room and opted to go to sleep instead. Another great/hard day at the ridge. Here's my schedule & menu for today.



6:20 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

Today my group had to hike White Rock. Some of the hiking guides consider this to me one of the hardest hikes. The hike started out amazing........again the scenery was unbelievable and we were climbing some crazy rock and walking on very narrow ledges, it was so much fun. I just loved the first half of the hike but once we got half way it pretty much turned into walking through sand for an hour and 20 minutes with no beach in site. Basically the second half sucked big time. Lots of people like the hike but I had a negative attitude at the 2nd part and let that get the best of me. I just wanted to be done with this hike as I was legs were burning, I had so much sand in my shoes and the sun was hot. I burned lots of calories on this hike which was great but I won't be signing up for that one anytime soon if I don't have to.

This is a group picture once we reached the top of one of the mountains.

Me at the very top of our climb!

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

I took a spoonful of the parfait that was served for breakfast but I wasn't in the mood for this so I asked if I could have the cereal instead so I ate that. I forgot to take a picture of the cereal as I was starving and needed to eat after that crazy hike.

10:15 a.m. Free Weights Workshop

11:15 a.m. Stretch

Still loving this class after our long hikes.........I'm going to make a recommendation that every group have this class every day as it just makes you feel so much better after all the hard work we've been doing.

12:15 a.m. Lunch

I didn't like the Parsnip soup so I only had a couple spoonfuls.

Chicken Cesar Salad was very yummy.

1:15 p.m. Lecture: Prep for next week at Fitness Ridge

2:30 p.m. Circuit Training

Still loving this class but today I couldn't push it as hard on the cardio as I wore my legs out on the treadmill yesterday in the treading class. I worked hard on the weights though.

3:30 p.m. Zumba

Ok.........I can officially say that I have participated in a Zumba class and that I'm horrible at it. The instructors were amazing and the music was so much fun but I was totally lost through the hole thing. I just ended up making my own moves up at some points as I just couldn't catch on. I wasn't the only one like this in the class but we all had a great time. Don't think this will be apart of my exercise routine when I get home.

4:30 p.m. Liquid moves

Last class of the day and we got to play some games in the pool. Our group is very competitive so the game go a little rough at times but we had a great time. It was such a fun way to end the week.

5:45 p.m. Dinner

These turkey burgers were amazing..........I will be making these when I get home for sure.

I had a couple spoonfuls of the sorbet but I didn't care for it so I didn't eat it. Way eat the calories when you don't love it.

6:00 p.m.

After dinner Heba from the Biggest Loser from season 6 spoke to the group about her journey and experience on the Biggest Loser. She answered any questions any of the guests had and it was wonderful to learn more about her experiences and some behind the scenes info about the show. She also signed some pictures for anyone who wanted one and took pictures with us as well. Here's a picture of me and Heba.

After Heba's talk I did some laundry and sat outside under the gazebo's for a little and read my book. The evenings are beautiful here so I wanted to enjoy some down time. We also setup a little movie theatre outside and some of us watched a movie. I didn't last through the whole thing and opted to come back to the room and get some sleep.

Only one more early morning and then 1.5 days of rest!

Day 5

Another jammed packed day of intense workouts...........feel great tonight but I'm not going to lie my body is feeling all this exercise and my poor feet are taking a beating. I have one really bad blister and a couple small ones that I'm trying to fix before they get worse. I ended up taping my feet with some athletic tape I bought from the shop here and that help me get through all the activities today.

Here is our schedule & meal plan for the day:

6:20 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

Today was the day we finally did the "Stop Sign Route" that everyone always talks about here at Fitness Ridge. It's a 4.3 mile route that takes your from 3100 feet to 4300 feet, so pretty much one never ending hill. My goal was to make it to the top of this thing in under an hour so I started out running my 10 and 1's. The bottom portion had some hills but weren't that bad. About 30 minutes into my run all of a sudden it was all up hill and hard. I had to walk up the 2nd half and my legs and butt were on fire. Once I could see the stop sign I ran up the last portion of the hill and finished in 56 minutes. My body was sore from our work outs the day before so I'm happy with my time considering today is Thursday and many of us are starting to feel all the work we have done over the past 3 days. Here's a picture of me at the famous stop sign.

Once I got to the top of the hill we still had another hour to burn so we hike out to the top of the ridge and took this great picture of me and some of my hiking group.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

Breakfast was great with a tasty bacon & egg sandwich

10:15 a.m. Stretch

I really needed stretch class today after running that stop sign route. My legs were on fire and really need to be stretched. I felt like a million bucks after this class and was ready for the rest of the day.

11:15 a.m. Gym Class

This class was fun. A bunch of us walked over to a park a couple blocks over from Fitness Ridge and played kickball. It was so nice to play a fun game and play as a team. It was so amazing to see a lady who didn't really want to go up to kick get a home run for our time. This place really makes people realize that they have it within themselves to do anything. Lots of emotions flying around this place when people accomplish something they thought they couldn't do.

12:25 pm. Lunch

Greek Pita & Salad. The salad was amazing but I wasn't a big fan of the pita as it had olives in it and I don't care for those.

I was so excited when I saw we were having French Onion soup for lunch but I was so disappointed......tasted nothing like French Onion soup to me.

1:15 p.m. Lecture: Cooking Demo

Another great lecture reviewing different brands of food the Chef uses for the meals we eat here to help us out when we are shopping at home.

2:30 p.m. Total Body H20

This class got canceled as it looked like a storm was approaching so instead we got to do a weight circuit in the gym. I was ok with this as the pool classes aren't my favourite and lifting weights I love.

3:30 p.m. Ball Works

Since we were suppose to have swimming before this class and not weights we were lucky ones who had to do weights for a 2nd time but this time on the ball. My arms were burning after this class but it kept me burning lots of calories which is great.

4:30 p.m. Treading

This is the one class that everyone has been dreading. Everyone had to sign up for a cardio machine earlier in the week. I picked the treadmill as I really want to improve on my running while I'm here not realizing I would have blisters on my feet the day we needed to do this. What treading involves is for 5 minutes on your machine you need to push yourself to your max. After the 5 minutes you get a 5 minute recover period. Once that 5 minutes is up you push yourself to the max and go for 4 minutes, which is followed by a 4 minuted recovery period, then 3 minutes at your max followed by a 3 minute recover period. You keep doing these intervals until you get down to 1 minute at your max. Well this exercise kicked by butt but it pushed me like crazy. I have never run as fast as I did until today on that treadmill. The trainer really pushed us to push our limits and I did. At one point I thought I couldn't go any further but she kept screaming and pushing us to the very end. I was exhausted at the end but it felt amazing. She recommends we do this exercise once a week as it really helps you to improve your cardio and endurance big time.

5:15 p.m. Dinner

This is the type of meal I would eat at home all the time. I love chicken, rice & broccoli so I really enjoyed this meal. The only difference really is the portion size I would normally eat.

Peach Cobbler for dessert.........yummy!

6:15 p.m. Lecture: Increasing your income

I burned over 4000 calories today as of 7:00 p.m. tonight so it was a great day. I got my heart rate up very high during training so I know I was pushing myself to my limits today. I know that my limits will increase over the next week as I'm getting stronger every day. Only 1.5 days until we get a rest day......looking forward to recovering on Sunday and gearing up for one more week of this.

Day 4

I can't believe it's day 4 already. Today we got our butts kicked big time. Our schedule today was very intense with 3 hours of hard classes in the afternoon. My body is starting to feel all the activities we have been doing over the past 3 days. The hikes are amazing but are a hard work out with all the climbing we do. Today I also found myself very hungry and almost starving by dinner. Once I ate I felt great and was fine for the rest of the night. I'm loving my new watch as I find myself pushing myself in classes or on the hikes to try an burn more calories......this was such a great investment. I can't wait to use it when I get back to work to see how many calories I burn in a day while at work.........I have a feeling it's not going to be very many but it will be interesting to see.

So I know your all wanting to know what today consisted of so here is my schedule & meal plan for the day:


6:20 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

Another amazing hike this morning. It was hard as we pretty much climbed the mountain you see in the picture below from bottom to top. There was also a lot of sand trails we had to walk through that made it even more challenging. Once we got to the top all the sweat and hard work was worth it. I've posted a few pictures below from the top of the mountain.

This is what we had to hike up today ...........yes that's right I hiked to the top of this bloody thing.

I know this picture looks fake as it looks too perfect but trust me this was the view from the top ............just breathtaking.

Me and some of my hiking buddies proud to have reached the top.

Just to show you how high up it was ............look in the parking lot an you will see a little white thing that was our van.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

Another great breakfast........this was made with natural peanut butter and it was delicious......going to make the switch to this when I get home

10:15 a.m. Lecture

Another lecture regarding emotional eating. These lectures just put things into perspective and give us way to accomplish our goals.

11:15 a.m. Circuit

Hard work out in the circuit class. Once again we started on a cardio machine for 2 minutes at a high speed then switched to a weight machine and had to do as many reps as we could in 45 seconds. Then we got a 30 second break and then repeated another 45 seconds of the same exercise. Then we switched back to a cardio machine for 2 minutes and kept repeating this for the whole 50 minute class. My arms were burning like crazy after this one.

12:35 p.m. Lunch

I'm enjoying the soups we have been eating at lunch........today we had pumpkin soup.

Yummy pizza.......really enjoyed this as well

1:15 p.m. Lecture: Emotional Eating

2:30 p.m. Kickboxing

This class made my arms hurt more. Since I have done a couple kickboxing classes at home I kind of knew what to expect and it was a great workout.

3:30 p.m. Mountain

So I decided to use the recumbent bike for this class as my blister was getting a little sore and my legs were tired as well. I thought the bike might be a nice change to do this exercise. Well I was wrong.......I think the treadmill would have been easier as I'm used to running and better at it. If you remember from my previous post this class involves doing 12 3 minutes intervals and each time increasing our resistance on the machine. Well the instructor made us at end at the max resistance on the bike and my legs were burning like crazy. This exercise made me realize how I've only been training in one area and that is running..........I think some cross training will be entering into my training schedule because I almost died on that stupid bike. I made it to the end but my legs were rubber.

4:30 p.m. H20 Circuit

I was tired by this point and not really into this class as it was in the pool. I could have pushed it harder but I kind of slacked in this class. It basically involved weight resistant training in the pool mixed with some laps for cardio

5:45 p.m. Dinner

Today is my birthday and of course it was acknowledge at dinner time. I had about 50 people sign happy birthday to me which was very nice but also embarrassing. This is the healthiest birthday I have ever had and I feel great.........was a wonderful way to start off 29.

I'm not a big fan of salmon but this was so yummy and full of Omega 3

They even put a candle in my dessert for my birthday. Even though it wasn't cake the fruit was delicious.

6:15 p.m. Lecture: Intuitive Eating

Another great lecture.

Tomorrow we have the big stop sign route that everyone always talks about. It's a 4.3 mile route that is totally up hill. Looks like I will be getting my hill training in tomorrow. Hope to get up that hill in under an hour but we will see how I make out.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.........it has been a wonderful day.

Off to bed I go because 5:45 a.m. comes way too fast!

Day 3

Another great day. I felt a little sleepy when the alarm went off this morning but once I got moving I was all good. I had to buy a new camelbak last night for our hikes because the one I borrowed didn't hold enough water so I needed to upgrade. I also ended up purchasing a new Polar watch so I can track how many calories I'm burning throughout the day and also track my heart rate during the different activies/exercises. Today was my first day wearing it and here are the results. I burned a total of 3650 calories in 13.5 hours which means I should have lost a pound today since you only need to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound. Keep in mind by body will keep burning calories while I sleep and I'm not wearing my heart rate monitor to bed so I know that number will just keep increasing over the next few hours.

So another jammed packed day of great lectures and exercise.

Here is my schedule for the day & menu:

6:15 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

As I mentioned in my previous post all of us were assessed on our fitness ability yesterday and divided into groups with whom we would hike with for the rest of the week. I have a great hiking group and I must say today's hike was really a hike. I really don't have any hiking experience so I found this hike really challenged me today. It was an amazing hike and I wish we had this kind of terrain to hike on back home. It involved a lot of climbing and lasted for over 2 hours and ended up being 9.5 km. Here are a few pics from the hike this morning.

A view from where I climbed too at one point during our hike.

This was a cave we climbed too and went into......so neat and beautiful.

Excited I finally reached the top.......now the fun part climbing back down.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

This peach muffin was to die for.......I bought the cook book so I can make all this wonderful food at home. I will just have to remember I can only eat one muffin for breakfast and not 2 or 3 like the old me would do.

10: 15 a.m. Emotional Growth Workshop

In this lecture we all had to write down why we were here at Fitness Ridge and some of the healthy and unhealthy things we say about ourselves. The leader had people in the class share their thoughts and it got quite emotional to hear how some people really feel about themselves. This lecture made it really real to me the emotional side that so many of us have to deal with through this process.........it was totally heart breaking but hopefully with some time here these people will realize that they are beautiful people and loved by many people.

11:15 a.m. Stretch

I'm totally loving stretch class...........45 minutes of great stretches and it felt great after a really tough hike this morning.

12: 15 p.m. Lunch

The tomato soup was amazing!

The lettuce wraps weren't my favourite but I finished them and liked them more by the end. The ones from PF Changs are much yummier but I'm guessing not a healthy as these.

1:00 p.m. Calorie Challenge

This was fun......we were divided into tables and had to guess how many calories were in the meals they showed us. Our group didn't do that well but it was a fun exercise.

1:30 p.m. Cooking Demo

Chef Cameron came out and showed us some of the products he uses to cook our meals. He even did a demo on how to make the wonderful parfaits we had last night and another dish so we could make them at home.

2:30 p.m. Total Toning

Loved this class as it burned my arms like crazy. Basically we used free weights and did a bunch of different exercises for 45 minutes. Love lifting weights to this was a great class.

3:30 p.m. H20 Intervals

Another hard class in the pool. Did interval training and my arms were on fire since I had just come from the Total Toning class and then had another 45 minutes in the pool where we worked are arms like crazy.

4:30 p.m. Cardio Intervals

Favourite class of the day. Of course I picked the treadmill to do this exercise on. We had to do 30 second intervals and increase our speed at each interval 8 times. Then once we got to 8th interval we worked our way back down decreasing our speed at each interval. Then we had a 2 minutes recovery period and then a 1 minute speed workout where we had to go as fast as we could. I really pushed myself and was running at a 9 on the treadmill and then up it to 9.5 for the last 30 seconds. That's the fastest I have gone on a treadmill and by the time I'm done here I will be running faster on that thing. After the speed interval we had another 1 minute recovery period and then repeated the whole thing over again starting with our 30 8 level intervals. This took about 45 minutes again and I felt great after.

5:30 p.m. Dinner

Shepard's pie was yummy

Best part of the day.........chocolate covered strawberries. Never thought 2 strawberries would taste so wonderful.........normally I would eat a dozen of these things but 2 was such a great treat.

6: 15 p.m. Lecture: Spending your calories wisely part 2

Just another lecture on the foods we should be eating which was great!

I feel great (except for this blister on my foot that developed this morning on my hike) and already feel stronger. Totally the best decision I've made was to come here.

Looking forward to tomorrow as we have a kick boxing class............wonder if it will be any thing like Al's kickboxing class at home.....will keep you posted.

Day 2 - I SURVIVED

Today was my first full day at Fitness Ridge and I'm happy to report I survived and I feel great! My day started with our alarm going off at 5:45 a.m. and has been non stop until 7:00 p.m.

Here was our schedule for the day:

6:15 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

We were all divided up into groups this morning for our hike. This is the hike where the group leaders were going to assess us and determine what hiking group we would be placed in for the rest of the week. I had an amazing time on this hike, the scenery is just beautiful and the weather was perfect. We ended up hiking for 2 hours which was about 9km.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

I was ready to eat when we got back from our hike and breakfast was amazing.

10:15 a.m. Stretch

Stretch class was great as I was still feeling a little stiff from my 26km run on the treadmill in Vegas the other day. We spend about 50 min stretching which was wonderful and helped losing everything up again.

11:15 a.m. Mountain

This was an interesting class. Everyone had to get on a cardio machine. I decided to do the treadmill as I really want to work on improving my running while I'm here. We did a little warm up and then we had to pick a starting speed. Then every 3 minutes we had to increase our speed or incline and run at that speed or incline for 3 minutes and we had to repeat this 12 times. So I basically started running at 4.0 on the treadmill and ended running my last 3 minutes at 8.0. This was a tough work out but I felt great after it.

12:25 p.m. Lunch

When lunch arrived I wasn't even hungry. I didn't care for the soup as it was a little spicy for me. The turkey sandwich was really though and I was full after lunch.

1:00 p.m. First week guest announcements

1:15 p.m. Lecture: Budget

This is where we learned about Calories In vs. Calories Out. We also learned how to calculate our RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate). This is how many calories your body burns on its own on a daily basis with out doing any additional exercise. To loss one pound you need to burn 3,500 calories. So we all did our calculations on how many calories we need to burn which was fun.

2:30 p.m. Deep Water Suspension

It was great to get in the pool and cool off. I haven't done any swimming in a long time and I could really feel the laps we did and the exercises throughout the class. Although it was nice to get into the pool this was my least favourite class of the day.

3:30 p.m. Circuit Training

My favourite class of the day. Cardio and weight training at once. All the machines are numbered in the gym and you start on a cardio machine and push it hard for 2 minutes then switch to a weight machine and do any many reps you can do in 45 seconds, then we got a 30 second break and then did as many reps as we could again for another 45 seconds. Once time was up you moved to another cardio machine and did that for another 2 minutes. You just kept repeating this for 50 minutes.

4:30 p.m. Core Training

Another great hard class. I really wanted to work on strengthening my core and will after that class I think I got what I asked for. I think my abs will be sore tomorrow for sure.

5:15 p.m. Dinner

Dinner was so yummy...........and the dessert was to die for. Today I felt very satisfied with all the food and felt great.

6:15 p.m. Lecture: Spending your calories wisely

This was a great lecture on what foods we need to be eating and which ones we need to stay away from.

Overall it was an amazing day and I'm really looking forward to another great hike in the morning and another packed day of fitness and great food.

Finally arrived at Fitness Ridge

After 4 great days of fun in Vegas I'm happy to say that I've finally made it to Fitness Ridge. Catherine and I had to be at the Vegas airport to catch the 11:15 a.m. shuttle to Fitness Ridge. We took the Executive Shuttle and it was wonderful as it has big lazy boy type seats which allowed me to catch up on some sleep as it was about an 2.5 hour drive from Vegas to Fitness Ridge.

When we arrived we were greeted by the great staff and received our welcome package. In this package we were given our scheudle for the week and it's intense. It's non stop from 6:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.

We had about 15 minutes to drop our stuff off in our room and then head back to get our weight, measurements and body fat done. Once I was finished there I met with Jen the life coach who went over our goals and gave us some more information about what we are to expect here. Catherine took me on a tour of the facility and it's not that big but has everything that you need. The scenery is just amazing and I'm looking forward to starting our hikes tomorrow morning to really experience and enjoy more of this great landscape I'm surrounded by.

We had to be in the dinning hall for 5:30 p.m. Dinner tonight was a cobb salad and a small piece of chocolate pie. My first reaction when I was served my salad was I'm going to be hungry tonight for sure. There is a salad bar that we have access to so we can get some additional veggies so I went and added some cumbers, peppers and pickles to my plate. I also grabbed a banana to take back to the room just in case I needed a snack later on tonight. The salad was delicous and the chocolate pie was just what I needed to feel satisfied.

Every day they post the menu for the day so we know what we will be eating.

This was my yummy cobb salad.

Dessert..........chocolate .........yummy

After we ate the staff welcomed everyone and had everyone introduce them self. There is about 60-70 people at the ridge at the moment so we got to hear how long everyone is staying for and some adivce from those guests who have been here for a couple weeks already or a returning guests. There are about 12 Canadians here this week and it was funny that about half of them all ended up at my table which was funny. There is also a bunch of the staff who will be working at the new Malibu Fitness Ridge location here this week. They make all of their staff go through at least one week of the program so they know what the guests go through while at the resort. What I'm really excited about is the fact that their is a contestant from the Biggest Loser is here this week. Do you remember Heba from season 6? She won the at home prize and was on the show with her husband Ed...........well she is here this week. She looks great and hopefully I will get to know her a little more over the next week. Once we finished introducing ourselves the guests who were here last week left and all the new guest stayed for an introdution lecture. This is where they covered off some more details about what to expect and went over some house keeping rules.

Everyone seems really nice and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of people over the next couple of days. We have an early start tomorrow and since I'm lacking some sleep from my Vegas trip I'm off to bed. I'm excited for my 1st full day tomorrow and will make sure to post an update tomorrow night.

Stay tuned!

One Week Until Fitness Ridge

I can't believe that I'm only 7 more sleeps away from my journey starting at Fitness Ridge. I'm headed to Vegas for a few days prior to heading to Fitness Ridge so I've spent the evening starting to pack since we fly out of Detroit on Wednesday morning to Vegas. I've been picking up items over the past few weeks for my trip and I think I'm pretty much ready to go. I still need another pair of running shoes but after doing some research my shoes are much cheaper in the states so I'm waiting until I get to Vegas to buy a 2nd pair. I've packed pretty much everything Fitness Ridge has recommended on their packing list and probably a little more.

I have packed:
Running shoes (one pair going to be purchasing a 2nd pair once I get to Vegas, hiking shoes and sandals. Undies and socks galore. Pj’s, bathing suit, 5 pairs of work out shorts and 7 sports bars (hoping to buy a few more pairs at the Nike outlet store in Vegas). Lots of work-out tops and t-shirts. I also packed a couple casual clothes as well. Camelbak, sunglasses, visor and hat. i-pod, laptop, my new camera my hubby got me for my birthday (I got it earlier since I will be spending my 29th birthday at Fitness Ridge. I went to Wal-Mart and stocked up on a bunch of band-aids, shampoo, sunscreen, hair elastics, Tylenol and all that fun stuff. I will be doing a double check tomorrow to make sure I haven't forgotten anything.

I've been following so many other people's blog about their journey's at Fitness Ridge and it really does sound life changing. I'm really looking forward to 2 weeks of focusing on me and getting back on track. I'm currently training for the Chicago Marathon that I will be running on October 10, 2010. I'm half way through my training and really starting to get into my long runs. I just ran 23km yesterday and have some longer runs coming up while I'm in Vegas & at Fitness Ridge. I hoping that my stay at Fitness Ridge will really help me improve with my running and allow me to achieve my goal of running the Chicago Marathon in 4 hours and 45 minutes. I'm really looking forward to being on a 1200 a day meal plan. I would consider myself a pretty good healthy eater but I know I still have lots to learn. I'm excited to experience eating food that will fuel my body and allow me to have the energy to work out for several hours in a day.

I've been asked several times what type of results I'm hoping to see at the end of my stay at Fitness Ridge. I trying really hard not to focus on a number on the scale because if I set a goal and don't reach it I don't want to be disappointed. I tend to lose more inches then weight, at least that is what I've experienced in the past. My goal is to leave Fitness Ridge smarter, stronger and healthier. I know if I put forward 110% while I'm there I will be proud of what I'm able to accomplish.

I will be posting daily updates, hopefully if I have the energy after 6-8 hours of working out. I look forward to sharing this experience with anyone who is interested in following my journey.