Day 9 - Back At It!

Hard to believe today was the start of my second week here. My one rest day went too fast that's for sure. Here is my schedule and menu for today.

6:15 a.m. Hike Descriptions

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

Since today is the first hike for all the new guests today's hike was another assessment hike to determine which group everyone will be put into. Since I was a stay over guest my group this morning was all stay over guests. I didn't care for our hike this morning as it was again miles and miles of walking in nothing but sand. I didn't burn that many calories either on this hike so that was kind of a downer for me. I got through the hike and tried to keep positive talk in my head and keep all the negative talk away.

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

This is the green frittata we had for breakfast. I enjoyed it and it as really filling!

10:15 a.m. Mountain

I kicked butt in this class today. Once again I picked the treadmill as my cardio machine for this exercise. If you don't remember mountain is where we have 12 levels and we have to increase our speed every level. I felt really strong running during this exercise and was able to run at a fast speed for a much longer time today which was so exciting. I felt great after and hope to push myself even more on Wednesday when we repeat this class.

11: 15 a.m. Stretch

12: 15 p.m. Lunch

This corn bread was amazing. Again the old me would have eaten 3 or 4 of these with a bunch of butter on it!

This chili was amazing. I will be making this at home as it filled me up and was so tasty.

1:45 p.m. Open Gym

Now that I'm in my second week I don't have to attend the lectures that take place during this time. Open gym is meant for us to pick any activity we want to do and use this hour to do that. Catherine, Daniel and I decided to go on a bike ride since they have bikes here we can use. We toured around the neighbourhood and had a great time. We biked at total of 12km which was great!

2:30 p.m. Core Training

We had a new instructor for this class today and I didn't find the exercises that we did as tough as last week. Don't get me wrong my abs were still killing but I preferred what we did last week instead.

3:30 p.m. Deep Water Suspension

Our instructor killed us in the pool today. My legs were on fire and my arms too. I'm starting to enjoy the pool exercises a little more now as it still gives you a great work out but is easier on your body and joints.

4:30 p.m. Circuit Training

My favourite class was saved until the end today. I burn a lot of calories in this class as we integrate cardio and weight lifting together. I've upped my weights today to push myself a little more.

5: 30 p.m. Dinner

Dinner was chicken with mustard potatoes, which were delicious!

Pineapple skewer for dessert!

Michael, Ashely & Koli from season 9 of the Biggest Loser arrived today. After dinner tonight they each spoke and answered any questions any of the guests had. They gave some really great advice and all of them look amazing.

From left to right: Koli, Michael, Ashely

I sat across from Ashley at lunch and introduced myself to her. She asked if I was of the trainers here which was a nice complement. None of them are in my group for the week so I won't be working out with them but I will be seeing them around the site that's for sure!

Day 8 - Rest Day

So today was my morning to sleep in since today was a rest day for us. We had a pretty wicked storm last night and the power went out around 3:00 a.m. I believe and didn't come back on until 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. The walls are paper thin here so you hear everything your neighbour beside and above does so it's easy to wake up. I woke up around 5:30 a.m. and was in and out of sleep until 7:30 a.m. when I decided to get up. I've been told they normally serve a waffle for breakfast on Sunday mornings so I was so looking forward to a waffle and real maple syrup. Since we had no hydro it was cereal and rice milk this morning for breakfast.

After breakfast a bunch of us just sat outside under the gazebo and read our books and magazines. It was overcast and started to rain for awhile but cleared up and the sun came out around after all. A bunch of us wanted to get off the site for the afternoon and go see a movie. So Robert one of my friends here rented a car for the week and took myself, Catherine and my friend Daniel to the movies and Costco this afternoon. It was so nice to get off the site and just do some normal things. I have to admit it was very hard walking into that movie theatre this afternoon and smelling that popcorn and not being able to buy any. We all took an apple and munched on that during the movie. I found it also difficult to pass up all the samples at Costco but we all did. It was a good test for all us use and a reminder of how hard it's going to be once we leave this safe place. We did find a lot of the food products they serve here at Costco so I will be making a trip there when I get home to stock up on all these yummy items.

On Sunday's for lunch we are provided with a brown paper bag lunch. This lunch consisted of some soup, some chicken salad on a sandwich thin, an apple and some carrots and cumber.

Dinner tonight was wonderful. We had broccoli with chicken spaghetti squash, which would be a typical meal I would make at home for sure.

I didn't eat the dessert tonight as I didn't like it very much

Tonight was also the first meal where we got to meet all the new guests. Everyone seems really nice and I look forward to getting to know them more over the next week. Since we are stay over guests we didn't have to say for the lecture after dinner so we decided to take in another movie.

It has been a great fun day and hopefully all this lightening that is still going on outside clears up in time for our hike in the morning. I really don't want to be stuck on a cardio machine for 2.5 hours if the hike gets canceled.

Now time for bed so I can get ready to push myself to the limits again this week.

Day 7

Today was a nice 1/2 day of exercise. Here is my schedule & meal plan for the day:

6:30 a.m. Leave for Hike

On Saturday's you have a choice of signing up for a hike or staying back to do a 2.5 hour cardio workout in the gym. Catherine and I decided to sign up for the West Canyon hike as this is a trail about 8 miles long that we could run. We needed to run 12 miles this morning as part of our marathon training. We were planning on running the 8 at West Canyon and then finish the last 4 on the treadmill. There was a lot of lighting this morning so the hikes got canceled, which meant we ended up running our 12 miles on the treadmill. My knees were very sore today from all the hard work I have done that past week so I really slowed my run down this morning. After about 25 minutes my legs felt much better and was able to speed it up a little but I still wanted to have a slow long run. Happy that is over with for the week!

9:30 a.m. Breakfast

This is the granola cereal they make, which is served with almond milk. I will be switching to almond milk when I get home so yummy and healthier for you.

10:30 a.m. Total Body H20

We ended up playing volleyball in the pool. We had lots of fun and was a great team game.

12:30 p.m. Lunch

I didn't like I would like the Roasted Red Pepper soup but it was very tasty and not spicy.

The Asian Chicken Wrap was wonderful but I didn't like the salad that was served with it. The soup and wrap filled me up so I wasn't worried.

1:00 - 5:00 Free Time/Rest Time

Finally I was able to take a nap this afternoon. I slept for about 1.5 hours which felt amazing. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon outside enjoying the weather reading magazines and chatting with some of the friends I have made her.

5:30 p.m. Dinner

Tamales.......it was ok not my favourite meal

Banana Cream Pie for Dessert

6:00 p.m. Graduation

Every week they make a video of different highlights over the week. They have a videographer who goes around all week taking footage of us doing all the different activities. People can also submit their pictures they have taken to be added to this video. We watch the video and it was wonderful to see again so for the amazing moments that had happened over the week and all the hard work that we all went through. Each of us get a copy of this dvd as a keepsake which is great. Also guests who attend every class and lecture get rewarded with either a t-shirt, hat, gym bag or jacket depending on what week your on.

After graduation a bunch of us went and played laser tag in town. I was wonderful to get of this site and go and do a fun activity with everyone. It was a way another work out because you sweat like crazy in that place as your running around the whole time.

Lots of the friends I have made here are leaving tomorrow morning so we had to say our goodbyes tonight. One of my friends Pam lives in Chicago so we are going to try and meet up when I'm in Chicago for the marathon in October. With a lot of people leaving in the morning that means their will be a lot of new faces arriving tomorrow. I found out yesterday that Michael, Ashley & Koli from the latest session of the Biggest Loser will be arriving tomorrow and staying for the week. I'm so excited to meet them and spend the week working out with them.

Tomorrow is a rest day so I won't be doing much and I'm really looking forward to it.

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.