The End of the Beginning

Sunday/Monday, August 2/3, 2009
Last days and home

The Results
After 2 weeks of 1200 calories a day, early morning mountain hikes, and 6 hours a day in the gym and pool, I’m sure that you’re anxious to hear the results - some surprising, some not so dramatic, but all really encouraging. Not so much weight loss as might be expected but pretty impressive reduction in fat percentages, meaning that we’ve been converting fat to muscle.

Betsy
Weight loss – 7 pounds
Waist reduction – 1.25 inches
Body fat – 44.9% reduced to 39.2%
BMI – 29.2 reduced to 27.8

Ray
Weight loss – 7 pounds (from 211 to 204)
Waist reduction – 2.5 inches (one belt notch!)
Body fat – 30.4% reduced to 22%
BMI – 30.3 reduced to 29.3

So much fitter and “funner” – a local Utah term – and much more self-righteous.

Take Aways
So what did we learn? Well, everything we already knew rationally, we experienced in reality.

It really is no more complicated than calories in/calories out – if your body needs only 1200 calories a day and you put in 2,000, and you do no exercise to burn those calories off, then you will put on weight, and it takes an awful lot of effort to get rid of those calories so why ingest them in the first place (other than incredible enjoyment and satisfaction!)

It is a matter of mind over matter – whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. It was great pushing myself again physically and I don’t want to get away fromf that.

Read labels – the stuff we put into our bodies is pretty gruesome when you read the ingredients (not just the nutrition tables but the actual ingredients) – there’s barely anything these days that has not been fully or partially hydrogenated.

It’s very hard to feel full on processed food – there’s so many calories packed into small amounts, for example, 800 calories in a bag of chips, that it’s easy to keep inhaling them and still not feel full. Try eating 800 calories of cauliflower – not so easy.

The value of the group was really brought home to me – it’s so much easier to do this with a team and a support system rather than on your own. It keeps you going through the hard times and is supportive even when you slip.

The Close
We had to fly back from Las Vegas and of course the contrast hit us right between the eyes. We sat in the airport for about 5 hours in front of half a dozen fast food restaurants: McDonalds, Taco Bell, the Jose Cuervo bar, Wolfgang-Puck-To-Go, Round Table Pizza, and so on. We stared at them. They stared back, sending out death eaters clutching triple chocolate shakes, bags of French fries, slices of pizza, giant chocolate pretzels, wafting them in front of noses and sending siren calls of decadence tempting us back to follow the evil path. We managed to resist but we know that it will not be easy. We won’t be able to rely on supercilious superiority forever! I guess it’s going to be one day at a time.

Thank you to everyone for your support and advice, your emails, and your Facebook comments. So not the end; not even the beginning of the end; but, definitely the end of the beginning. Here endeth the reading.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Day 12

The Hike
Today’s hike was the timed one we do each week. Just under a half undulating on a paved path and just over a half straight up the road to the most photographed Stop sign in the US. I finally broke through the 1 hour barrier to finish in the top four, and Betsy knocked several minutes off her personal best too. So I guess it’s working. Probably not so much weight loss this week as fat is definitely being turned into muscle mass.

After the hike I was so excited that when I was standing still, I tried to take a photograph and felt flat on my face. A few people rushed over to my rescue but I just rolled on my back laughing. I couldn’t believe that I’d done all this hiking, rock climbing, and jogging without incident only to fall over when I was stood still. The only thing that I hurt was a little bit of pride.

LDS
With the exercises finished, and Saturday afternoon to ourselves, we went into St. Georges, named after George Smith, prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (Mormons) or simply LDS. We visited Brigham Young’s winter home where he lived for just 4 years, a modest 2-storey house built around 1870 which he used (and fathered several of his 57 children) while the temple in St. Georges was being completed. I guess you had to make your own entertainment in those days! It was sold several times after his death and fell into disrepair for a long time until the Church repurchased and restored it relatively recently in 2003. A lot of the furniture, linens, and utensils were handmade as it was considered dutiful to use whatever God-given skills you had.

A lot of the guides and instructors are LDS and are totally over the top nice; but genuinely nice. They don’t push their religion at all but are happy to answer any questions you put to them. It’s been quite a revelation (no pun intended). LDS is also not uniformly practiced as our taxi driver pointed out, an ex-LA wanna-be-but-never-quite-made-it-bass-guitar-plaging rock star, (his group was named Fast Eddy), who left and returned to LDS, and although he doesn’t agree with or follow all tenets, still considers himself LDS.

A lot of the boutique art galleries we visited had romanticized versions of peasant girls picking flowers, angelic teenage boys, fishing; proud parents looking devotedly at their young, with a biblical simplicity that was just too good to be true, especially at $25,000 per painting. Very interesting to see an art genre that we never knew existed. Also a lot of red rock landscapes in oils (the water colors were just too weak for this kind of rugged country) and also quite a bit of modern cowboy art, with just a few native American Indian themes.

Close
Lots of good byes today. I don’t think that we became close friends with anybody but there will be a few that we’ll continue to stay in touch with by email and by Facebook Fitness Ridge Alumni. Also we had a farewell last dinner together and watched all the photographs and videos of this week’s exploits. I’ll set them up so that everyone can see them after I get back.

Tomorrow is our last day and final check in. Our strategy so far has been to stay above the yellow line but we hope to be “pulling big numbers” tomorrow to avoid the drop. However if I don’t, I have several alliances with the remaining guests and will definitely be voting to send Betsy home! (If you’re not a Biggest Loser fan, just ignore the whole last paragraph.)