Petroglyphs and close

Talking of ancient rocks, this area is also famous for its petroglyphs - early Indian wall etchings of animals and spirits (some would even say alien visitors in space ships) that have been here for over 1500 years.

 Today is our last day at Fitness Ridge.

Exhausting but well worth it and between us, happy to leave 13 California pounds with the residents of Utah. It's been great and we will do it again (just not next year!)

Rock on!

The scenery around St. George is pretty spectacular and kindof eerie. It's so quiet. In this high desert, very little grows, and what does is mean and nasty - designed to prevent being eaten or picked - and not surprisingly, with so little to eat, the wildlife itself is very scarce (and also usually mean and nasty!).

The rocks are ancient and the result of unrelenting weathering and massive upheavals over the millenia. Although not having the drama of Arches National Park and Moab, Snow Canyon is majestic and serene.

Truly awesome. Send your donations to the National Park Service immediately!

"What a strange and interesting plant!"

One of the advantages of coming to the desert in the Spring is that you get to see the desert flowers in bloom. Some don't bloom every year, but when they do they are pretty spectacular.

This one has Little Shop of Horrors "feed me Seymour" written all over it.

Back at Fitness Ridge

Missed out last year but really happy to be back at Fitness Ridge in Utah, or as it is now called "Biggest Loser at Fitness Ridge".

It has a brand new wonderful gym and lecture hall but the format of healthy diet and exercise and education remains the same. Today's schedule:

06:00 am Stretch and core
07:00 am Breakfast
08:00 am Daily 6 to 8 mile hike
11:15 am  Lecture
12:15 am  Lunch
01:00 pm  Lecture
01:30 pm  Open gym
02:30 pm  First chance workout
03:30 pm  Pool cardio
04:30 pm  Interval training
05:30 pm  Dinner
06:15 pm  Lecture

And all on 1500 calories per day. Today's menu:

Tired and sore and ready for bed but loving every minute.

All passion spent

The week is over, we're back in civilization, and the results are in: Betsy down 2 pounds and 2=inches off the waist; me down 6 pounds (finally back below 200 again) and also 2-inches less on the waist.

Definitely worth it. We signed up to return but not sure yet whether it will be in 12months or 24 months. Highly recommended - www.fitnessridge.com - in Utah. If you're looking for an "active" holiday, our "compassionate bootcamp" is for you!

Last full day - time has really flown. The guy on the ground was nice but he just couldn't keep up!



A few people we'd met before here, and some new folks. I hope that we get to stay in touch.


It's been a hard week, but I could easily get used to this lifestyle! Heading home tomorrow.

Top of the world, ma!

Another great day.

Fabulous hike to the top of an extinct volcano - 5 miles and 4,500 ft up. Worth about 1,00 calories! Lots of loose lava rock around and it's really nasty stuff - as one of the guides said "it came out of the ground angry and has stayed pissed for 1,000 years". It catches your shoes, slides away from under your feet, and is really, really sharp. I have a different view of lava anything after today.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Calories in, calories out

Sorry to report, but no silver bullets or amazing weight loss revelations - it's still if you put more into your body than you burn up, then you're going to put on
weight. If you put into your body less than you burn up then you'll lose weight.

But how many calories does your body actually need? One of the key numbers to know is your Resting Metabolic Rate, your RMR. Yuur RMR is the number of calories your body needs to sustain itself, without doing any physical work. Betsy's is around 1,000 calores; mine is around 1700. So I get to eat more!

As 1 pound = 3500 calories, it's obvious that it's better not to put too much stuff in your body, and then try to exercise it off. Especially when it takes only 30 seconds to inhale that oversize 250-calorie cookie with embedded M&Ms and 30 minutes of reasonably exerting exercise to lose it!

You can find an RMR calculator at Shapeup.org. And you all have a great day!

Pinnacle Peak, Snow Canyon, Utah

I don't recall being as sore or as tired as this in our previous visits here but perhaps i didn't get up to 4,000 ft last time!






Thank God for the hot tub - my new definition of heaven.

Watched Biggest Loser tonight while at Biggest Loser. Life imitating art imitating life - or vice versa. Pretty wierd. More tomorrow.

First day back (again)

First day over at Fitness Ridge and t was great to see all the wonderful trainers again and very gratifying to be recognized and welcomed back by all the staff. The facility is still in great shape and the new gym and extension are nearing completion. Can't wait to see it next year. They are definitely straining at the seams since their alliance with the Biggest Loser program and the extra space is very much needed.

The basic philosophy of "compassionate bootcamp" has not changed but there have been several changes to the program with different hikes and different assessments, and many more guides. Day 1 hike was to assess us regarding our abilities in terms of speed and terrain and and of course I had to get competitive so I've been put in the fast group for the rest of the week. Not one of my smartest moves. We went really fast today and at one point were running not hiking - something I had to put a stop to right away!

We met up with several people that we had seen on previous trips and it was wonderful to see Liz from New York again who had arranged her trip to coincide with ours. We also bumped into Max (the brother of the dad and the brother who were on Biggest Loser last year) and he looked incredible - taller if you can believe that.

Food is way better than previous years. Each class is still a stretch, especially the stretch classes (ha ha) which I find the hardest of all - bodies should just not be asked to be put in those positions. Absolutely exhausted but loving it here. Now we just have to figure out a way to see the Royal Wedding this week - is it really going to be worth getting up at 1:00 in the morning?

Return to the Ridge

Well it's that time of year again - if it's the end of April it must be time for Fitness Ridge. Currently getting together new socks, moleskin, Camelback, and all things medicinal for our annual pilgrimage to Utah.

Get ready for postings next week. So looking forward to it!

Ray

Farewell Fitness Ridge

Our week at Fitness Ridge came to an end all too quickly. The shuttle picked us up (the fancy one this time with individual captain’s seats) and took us from Utah, through Arizona, and into Nevada in about 2 hours.

As we passed through Arizona, the Joshua trees, limbs akimbo, seemed to be mocking us goodbye. “Not tough enough for the desert huh? Well you just scurry back to your air-conditioned lives in the plastic ‘real' world.”

Soon the oversized gun shop ads by the highway were beckoning us to come in and try one, the latest AK47 that is, and as we crested the last rise we saw the scrambled international monopoly board of monuments that make up Las Vegas: the Eiffel Tower of Paris, the space needle of Seattle, the Egyptian pyramid that is the Luxor hotel, Campanili of the Venetian, and the Statue of Liberty and golden lonely Trump tower patiently waiting for its Trump Tower 2 to rise from the forlorn muddy puddle of the empty construction site next door.
The last remnants of the snow on top of the mountain backdrop to the city bade us a fond farewell; the perfect metaphor as the memories of our excellent vacation similarly slowly melted away.

Marathons anybody?

One of the great things about this place is the staff, especially the trainers and guides. They are so enthusiastic, unceasingly motivating, positive, and active, it's really all quite too
much for an Englishman! I can see that my citizenship of 6 months now has no chance of displacing that centuries-old, inbred distrust for anybody that energetic. Take for example, one of the guides, Debrah: this morning, she had to say goodbye to us all because she's off to run a marathon on Sunday. And not just any marathon - it's her 193rd - yes, 193. That's close to the mileage on my last car. And these are just warm-up races for her real passion: ultra-marathons - 100 miles. Too, too, much to even contemplate.

Ironically, We're actually going to come quite close to such silliness tomorrow. The St.George Ironman Triathalon is being run on Saturday:
2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike ride, and a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km) run, raced in that order and without a break, and most Ironman events have a time limit of 17 hours to complete the race.

They will run right past Fitness Ridge. You'll be pleased to know that we will NOT be taking part. However, as a modest doffing of the cap to their incredible endurance, we will be participating in a 6.2 mile (10K) fun run at 6:00 am tomorrow morning. I will be finishing my sixth mile in roughly the same time as they will be finishing their 26th mile.

It's been a great week here and I'll wrap up my final thoughts over the weekend.

No Losers Here

It was a strange experience tonight being with some of the participants at Biggest Loser at Fitness Ridge watching this week's episode of Biggest Loser on TV.

I'm not sure whether it was life imitating art or art imitating life, or life imitating art imitating life. I guess it will be something to think about on tomorrow's hike. One thing for certain, there were no "losers" at Fitness Ridge or on TV. Nothing more need be said.

D is the new C

I seemed to be embroiled in vitamin hell. On the way to Fitnesss Ridge, the shuttle driver regaled us with the benefits of vitamin D, especially vitamin D3, and how vitamin C is so 2009!

Then on our arrival, we were seated with the inhouse counsel for Garden of Life vitamins, who confirmed our humble driver's enthusiasm in that Vitamin D is definitely the new C. Of course, Garden of Life vitamins are the best, he assured us, not being made of synthetic but only natural ingredients, and delivered not in splendid, synthetic isolation, but entwined with a "combination of nature's most powerful whole foods and ingredients to provide optimized nutrition your body can easily digest and absorb."

We got plenty of natural vitamin D today as temperatures rose into the mid-80s under a glorious sun. We completed our first 6-mile hike today and caught the tail end of the desert flowers:

The splendid cylindrical Cactus Barrel,







the vibrant red Indian Paintbrush,













and the delicate violet Desert Poppy



















were abundant on the normally barren, semi-arid, scrublands of Southern Utah.

Unfortunately, I rather over-did it on day 1 - just too competitive when it comes to sport - and am heading to bed early to nurse my aches and pains and over exposure to the sun; and, we get to do it all again tomorrow!

Return to the Ridge

Having had a great two weeks here at Fitness Ridge last July, we decided that we needed a little tune up!

The ride from Las Vegas to Utah looked very familiar but then the desert hasn't changed in the last million years so why expect anything new in the last 9 months? The Joshua trees continue to eke out an existence but seemed healthier this time taking advantage of the meager water from the last days of spring.

Some seemed as if they hadnt had a drop of water for decades; others looked as if they had found the mother lode of trapped moisture and were flourishing like Florida palms, some quite green, clinging to the last remnants of Spring as another 110-degree summer began its heated campaign

The 2 hrs from Las Vegas to St. Georgr sped by pretty quickly and soon we could see the Mormon temple of St.Georeg rising majestically from the valley floor long before we got into town, with it's spire pointing the way like some celestial sign to its heavenly destination.

Apart from the spectacular Mormon temple, (now being competed against in size by a big box Walmart closeby), St. George, the Fresno of Utah, is a pretty ugly town. A cautionary example of strip development and it doesn't even have a strip!

Leaving St.George, it was just a few more mile to our destination, Fitness Ridge, or as it is now known, Biggest Loser at Fitness Ridge, having entered into a partnership with the TV show of the same name.





Looking forward to being back - first class at 6:00 am tomorrow morning!

Sweet dreams everyone!

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.)