Orvieto, Italy

After leaving Venice we wanted to visit Rome and Florence, but we didn’t particularly want to stay in either of those places because they are cities and really all cities are kind of the same.  We wanted to be someone a bit more relaxing.  I did some research (and got some great advice from my cousin, Ginny, who lives in Germany) and found that if you stayed in a town with a train station, you could take day trips into Rome and Florence.  I browsed our Rick Steves Italy book and I came upon the town of Orvieto.  We knew nothing about it other than what Rick Steves said, but it sounded like a picturesque ancient town in the Umbria region of Italy.  We booked reservations at a hotel that was recommended in the book and pointed the car in that direction.  The lower part of Orvieto is the new section and the upper part is the ancient section.  We were staying in the ancient section.  To get there you have to drive up a mountain.  The ancient part of the town is basically a fortress- it’s surrounded by a wall.  It is absolutely breathtaking!  As we drove around trying to find our hotel we were speechless.  I have never seen such a cute, rustic town!  The streets were all cobblestone and there were arches and stone buildings.  People still live and work in Orvieto and there are a lot of businesses there.  We checked into our hotel and set out to explore the town.

We found an interesting restaurant that we wanted to try for dinner.  It was called Zeppelin.  We went in and talked to the young man at the bar (he was also the host) and he said they wouldn’t be serving dinner for 1/2 hour because the chef was teaching a cooking class. We said we’d didn’t mind waiting.  The host asked if we wanted to go back to the kitchen and meet Chef Lorenzo.  Of course we did!  He took us back to the kitchen and introduced us to Lorenzo.  There were a bunch of people there with him finishing up their cooking class.  They all looked like they were having a great time (and like maybe the wine had been flowing for a while!)  During the year that we’d been planning this trip, Lori and I  talked often about the possibility of taking a cooking class in Italy. Hearing about Chef Lorenzo’s class and then seeing it with our own eyes got us really excited!  I think we decided right there that we were going to take the class.

We had a fantastic dinner at Zeppelin.  We sat outside in the back yard and enjoyed some of Orvieto’s local white wine.  We asked for more information on the cooking class.  He asked how long we were going to be in Orvieto and we told him we were flexible.  He said that if we could go to the class on Thursday that was the most fun because Thursday is Farmer’s Market day in Orvieto.  We signed up for the Thursday class and he told us to be there at 8:30 a.m.

On Wednesday we took the train into Rome.  It was about an hour and 15 minute ride.  We saw all the major sights in Rome – the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel,  and St. Peter’s Cathedral.   Rome is a city –  it’s crowded and very touristy.  There are a lot of really fascinating historical sights and it’s exciting being there.  Every direction you look you see the ancient mixed with modern.  But it’s a city and it wears you out!  We got back on the train and went back to Orvieto.  When we got off the train Lori said “Oh, it’s good to be home!” That’s really what it felt like!  Orvieto was so quiet and low key, it was relaxing just being there!

On Thursday morning Lori and I walked over to Zeppelin to meet Chef Lorenzo for our class.  The plan was for the guys to  laundry to  do our laundry at the laundromat in town because we were all out of clean clothes.  They were then going to come to the restaurant to have lunch with us.  We met Lorenzo and he offered us coffee.  He then told us to wait just a minute and left.  He came back a few minutes later with a big plate of pastries. We enjoyed our coffee while he took care of some restaurant business, then it was time to set out for the Farmer’s Market. Most of the vendors at the market know Lorenzo really well.  As we walked from booth to booth they all greeted him and offered us samples of their wares.  As we walked around and picked out different foods Lorenzo started building our menu.  We bought some beautiful arugula, fresh peaches, toasted hazelnuts (they offered ‘toasted 1’- barely toasted,  and ‘toasted 2’ – more toasted, and we chose #2 for our hazelnut gelato) tomatoes, peppers, and a few different kinds of cheese.  We returned to the restaurant, put on our Zeppelin aprons (which we got to keep as a souvenir) and started cooking!

Our menu:  Focaccia

Pizza

Bread

Zucchini Blossoms

Fresh green pasta w/sauce

Pork stew

Hazelnut Gelato

Chef Lorenzo was a lot of fun and a really good teacher.  I think the highlight for me was learning to make pasta.  I have always wanted to make my own pasta, but thought it was too complicated and that I needed a machine to do it.  It was actually really easy!  We started with a basic dough.  You put all the dry ingredients on a board, make a well in the center, then put the wet ingredients (eggs and water) into the well.  You slowly start incorporating the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a fork.  Slowly but surely they combine and form a dough.  You roll it out in a very particular way.  You roll it into a rectangle, then you turn the rectangle 1/4 turn and roll it in that direction.  You keep turning the dough and rolling it until it is very, very thin.  (Mine wasn’t nearly as thin as Lorenzo’s) After letting it rest for seven minutes you fold the dough into fourths, then you cut it into strips. The pasta we saw the most in Italy was Tagliatelle – which is thicker that spaghetti and thinner than linguine.  That is what we made.  We just used a knife and cut the dough into thin strips.  (We made our pasta green by using some sort of leafy green- I can’t remember what it was – we just pulsed it in the food processor with the water and used that to make the pasta) We cooked and drank sparkling wine and coffee and laughed and had a really nice day.  When our husbands arrived we all sat down at a table and the food we had cooked was served to us, presented beautifully.  It was all so delicious!  I have never eaten so much in my entire life!  We ended up with two different desserts and two different kinds of bread because Lorenzo kept getting creative and thinking of more stuff to make.  We definitely had a day that we’ll remember forever!

Italy – Day 1 Venice

Venice, Italy

Me in Venice

Venice canal

Beautiful Venice

Venice

We said Auf Wiedersehen to Austria and began our drive to Italy.  We discovered something unusual as we drove around Europe.  You can drive from country to country and cross borders and there is absolutely no mention of it.  When you drive around the US and you go from one state to another, there are signs that say “You are now leaving Arizona” and “Welcome to California!”  But driving from Germany to Austria or from Austria to Italy  – nothing!  I found that really odd.  So as we drove along we all kept wondering if we were in Italy yet but there was no way to find out!  Eventually we figured out that you could tell the difference between Austria and Italy because Italy had toll booths (lots and lots of toll booths) and Austria didn’t.  In Germany and Austria you had to have stickers on your car to prove you paid the fee to be allowed to drive there.  Italy has toll booths.

We drove up to the first toll booth and it gave us a ticket (just like when you enter a parking garage at the airport).  The idea is that you drive along for a certain distance, arrive at the next toll booth, put the ticket into the machine and pay the amount it tells you to pay.  Unfortunately, we don’t speak Italian.  We missed this whole thing.  The machine spit the ticket out and Rick stuck it in the ashtray.  We all promptly forgot about it.  We arrived at the next toll booth and tried to figure out what we were supposed to do.  It was talking to us in Italian and it all just sounded Greek to us.  (actually, it sounded like Italian, but it might as well have been Greek!)  Rick was pushing buttons and we just kept waiting for something to happen. It was just that we were supposed to put the ticket in to find out how much we had to pay.  With all the driving and being in foreign countries that have different systems we were confused.  There was a help button, so finally Rick pushed it.  The toll booth man came over to the car and we tried to explain that we didn’t know what to do.  Of course he spoke Italian, so he didn’t really know what we were saying.  He kept saying “Ticket!”  “Ticket!”  And Rick kept saying “I don’t have a ticket!” (because he forgot we had one).  He kept saying “Porque, porque?!”  It was really frustrating.  The toll booth worker stomped off into a little booth and started waving a ticket around to show us what he meant.  His face was beet red and he was clearly angry!  (I understood why he was angry,  just didn’t know what to do about it!)  Finally, a light dawned and I remembered the ticket!  I reached into the ashtray and pulled it out. Rick stuck it into the machine and our total showed on the screen.  We paid our toll and were on our way!

Our next stop was Venice.  You can’t drive in Venice so we wanted to find a place to stay that was convenient to a bus.  The hotel we stayed at ended up being about 40 minutes from Venice, and if we had it to do over we would have found someplace closer.  The hotel also had nothing much going on around it, so that evening when we arrived we went straight to the bus stop and went to Venice to walk around.  We spent 40 minutes on a bus and arrived in Venice.  We proceeded to get lost – which is very easy to do in Venice!  We were on the ‘ugly’ side (that’s a relative term, there is no ugly in Venice)  and it was really, really hot.  We walked and walked and walked and got more and more lost.  It had been a long day, we had no idea where we were, and now we were just walking aimlessly around Venice.  This was probably the low point of the trip.  To top it all off, we were walking past an alley and saw a humongous rat the size of a cat staring at us.  He promptly turned around and walked off in the opposite direction, but it was creepy seeing it.  We went to a restaurant for dinner and the waitress gave us a table outside where there was a little breeze and we were pretty happy.  She came up to the table with a tray of drinks and said “I want you to try this!  It’s free!”  She said the word “free” at least four times.  The drink was some kind of apple liquer that none of us liked.  I poured mine out into a potted plant so I wouldn’t hurt the waitresses feelings.  A few minutes later the waitress returned and put a dish of olives on the table, which we hadn’t ordered.  Again, she said “Free!”  so we ate the olives.  The meal was good, and when we got the bill the apple liqueur was on there as well as the olives.  We were irritated, and tried to talk to the waitress about it but suddenly she just really couldn’t understand us.  We ended up paying for all of it.

The next morning we returned, ready to hit the high spots of Venice in the daytime when everything was open.  One of the things Lori really wanted to do on the trip was to visit the Murano Glass Factory.  Murano is a little island close to Venice – you have to take a boat to get there. We walked around Venice for just a few minutes and a man approached us.  He asked if we wanted to tour the glass factory.  We said we did and he started explaining that they had a great deal for us.  He was going to give us a ticket that would get us from Venice to Murano then from Murano to Venice for free.  We had already looked into it and the boat ride was going to cost quite a bit, so we were pretty happy to get this deal.  We clarified with him several times and he kept insisting he was some qualified representative of the chamber of commerce or something (I can’t remember what he called himself, but it made me think he was on the up and up) The man took us to the boat dock and we set off for Murano.  We toured the factory and looked around the shops. Lori got the beads she was hoping to get and we were ready to return to Venice.  We asked several people where we were supposed to get the boat back to Venice.  They all looked at the paper the ‘official’ man had given us and shook their heads.  We found out that we had to pay to return to Venice.  In retrospect, it wasn’t that big of a deal,  because we had planned to take the boat both ways anyway.  It was just kind of a bummer to always feel like we were being scammed.  Venice kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because of that.  (There was other examples, too, there we people all over asking for money and trying to sell us stuff….it got old really fast.)  We made the best of it and managed to enjoy our day in Venice but it was good to get out of there, too!

Next stop: Orvieto

Innsbruck, Austria (Continued)

When I left you last, I was lying on the massage table….well, you know….
So, Sonny came back into the massage room and there I was in my “slip”. I was feeling extremely uncomfortable. The massage was good, but I wasn’t particularly relaxed. Poor Sonny probably wondered what was wrong with me. When the massage was over Sonny gave me a bill to sign. There was a slight problem with this. Up until this point Rick had done all the money transactions in Europe and I had totally ignored the exchange rate etc. I had no idea how many Euros were in a dollar or how many dollars were in a Euro. This wasn’t too bad a problem, because I could just charge the massage to my room, but I had to give Sonny a tip. I was sitting there staring at the bill trying to do math in my head and getting really confused. I was trying to figure out 10% of the number of Euro’s so I could double it to get to 20% and figure out the tip. I figured 10% of a Euro would be the same as 10% of anything else. What confused me was that they use commas for Euro’s instead of decimal points. The numbers look suspiciously like thousands because of the commas. I figured out the percentage, but then I thought “Am I leaving a hundred dollar tip? Wait a second…!!”. (Yes, I know I’m mathematically challenged and easily confused) Finally I just looked at Sonny and said “tip?”. He said “Whatever you want!” (In Europe, tipping is totally optional and not expected). I said “I don’t understand how to write it.”. Sonny didn’t understand what I was saying. He just smiled. I said “Can you write it for me?” he smiled some more. I said “How do I write 20%?”. And he said “Just write 20%”. So I wrote 20% on the bottom of the bill and even now have no idea how much I tipped Sonny.
When you stay at the Interalpen hotel, breakfast and dinner are included. I think this is because the hotel is literally in the middle of nowhere so there are no restaurants to go to for meals. The meals were absolutely amazing! Breakfast was a huge buffet with an omelette bar and every imaginable breakfast food in existence.
The area around the hotel had lots of hiking trails, so one morning we decided to hike. What gorgeous scenery! The Interalpen also has a breathtaking pool. Imagine floating around in a beautiful pool and wherever you look in every direction are Austrian mountains! Beautiful. Half of the pool was outside and half was inside. There was a sliding glass door separating the two halves, and when you swim up to it it opened.
I don’t think I have ever stayed at a hotel as breathtakingly beautiful as the Interalpen. I was sorry when our stay there came to an end.
Next stop: Italy!

Innsbruck, Austria

The breakfast area at the Hotel Interalpen, with beautiful views of the mountains.

Me and Lori – hiking in Tefs, Austria

The pool at the Hotel Interalpen – half of it was outside and half inside.

These cows greeted us when we stopped for lunch in Innsbruck, Austria. I immediately burst into song. (The Hills Are Alive…)

Beautiful view at the hotel – overlooking Austria

This is the Hotel Interalpen, where we stayed in Austria.

The drive-in lobby of the Hotel Interalpen

In Retrospect

I did it!  I finished the week at BL.  As usual, there were times I wanted to quit, but I didn’t.  I stuck it out and endured a lot of pain and I am proud of myself for my accomplishment.  I have asked myself numerous times, (and a lot of you have asked, too) why I keep going back to BL and subjecting myself to it.  I think I have that figured out.  I feel a need, at times, to push myself beyond what I think I can do.  I also like the control I feel when I am at BL and there is no fast food or other unhealthy foods available to me.  I like knowing that the only thing I’m putting into my body is clean, healthy food.  I like knowing the exact number of calories I’m ingesting each day.  I don’t have the energy or the skill to keep track of those things on my own and I like knowing that stuff, even for a week.  The point of BL is to teach their guests to replicate BL when they get home – at least to a certain extent. (Obviously nobody is going to go home and exercise for seven hours a day….) Each time I have spent a week at BL I come home and do a better job of incorporating the plan into my real life.

My big lesson this time was what I learned from my Scottish friend, Brenda.  As you know if you’ve been following this blog, Brenda got onto an airplane and came to BL with a broken arm (she didn’t know for sure it was broken, but found out later that it was).  Despite the pain she was in, Brenda did the daily hikes almost every day she was there.  She attended any exercise classes that didn’t require her to use both hands (she obviously couldn’t do the kickboxing class, but she watched us!)  When she couldn’t attend classes she was in the gym on the treadmill. Brenda used to weigh 270 pounds.  She now weighs 155.  I never knew Brenda at her heaviest – I met her this past June and she had already lost almost 100 pounds at that point.  As we chatted during the week the topic of her huge weight loss came up.  She said something that really stuck with me:  “It comes down to one thing.  You have to go to the gym.  You go if you’re tired, sick, depressed – whatever.  It’s not rocket science.  You eat less calories and you burn more calories.  That’s the only way anyone loses weight.”  She told me about her commitment to do whatever it took to lose the weight.  She had to re-prioritize things in her life so that she could do what she needed to do.  She has a very high stress job, and she had to say no to anything that wasn’t going to help her achieve her goal.  She had to learn to say “I’m sorry, I have a class at that time”, so she could go to the gym.  She just did it! (someone should make that a slogan…)

As I said many times during the week at BL “Brenda is a beast!!!”  She really is!  I admire her strength.  I cherish her friendship.  (And she’s going back to BL in January….)

I promised to share the pizza recipe from BL.  It is truly delicious, so here it is:

Green Chili, Chicken and Avocado Pizza – Serves 4

2 Udi’s Gluten Free Pizza Crusts (I couldn’t find these.  My recommendation is to use a pre-baked pizza crust of your choice, just look at the nutrition data and choose a healthy one!)

11 ounces of ricotta filling – a little more than1/2 cup  (recipe below)

4 oz. tomatillo salsa

1 cup cooked chicken in bite size pieces

1 avocado, diced

1/2 cup sliced red onion

chopped cilantro – just enough to garnish

4 oz parmesan cheese, grated

Ricotta filling:

7 ounces light Ricotta cheese

3/4 cup yellow onion, diced

1 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp sea salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

1 ounce parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Heat a saute pan over medium heat and spray with nonstick cooking spray.  Add the diced onion and cook until they are a nice brown color.  (stir often so they don’t burn!)  In a large mixing bowl, mix filling ingredients together.  (Adding warm onions will soften ricotta and make it easier to mix).  After filling is mixed well use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop filling onto center of each crust.  Spread filling to edges of crust, then top with tomatillo salsa and spread this over ricotta.  Top with parmesan cheese.  Add 1/2 cup of cooked chicken pieces to each pizza.  Top with red onions.  Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.  Remove pizza from oven and cut into quarters.  Place 2 quarters on each plate, top with chopped cilantro and diced avocado. YUM!

Last Chance Workout! (Saturday)

Saturday is the last day of exercise at BL. There is a hike as usual in the morning, but they give you a choice of three different hikes (Easy, medium and hard). I always choose the beach hike, (easiest) because I figure I’m in Malibu, California, I should be able to enjoy the ocean when I can. The beach hike isn’t a particularly hard hike, but it does get your heart rate up. You walk in the sand for a while, then you climb up a long flight of stairs and continue on a winding path and even get to look at some houses. (one of them supposedly belongs to Julia Roberts, I have no idea if that’s true). There is a beautiful overlook partway up that is worth the effort to get to! Once again we saw dolphins swimming – that sight never fails to thrill me. We also saw (and heard!) Sea Lions and rock climbers scaling a cliff. Lots to look at to keep your mind off hiking!

When we returned to BL, we had just enough time to get ready for the Last Chance Workout. They changed this workout recently because of the hot weather. They usually have a circuit workout in a field on the BL property but changed that to a mini triathlon. Just the word triathlon gave me an anxiety attack, but I kept reminding myself that it wasn’t going to be as intense as an actual triathlon, or even a sprint triathlon (which Rick has done).

The BL triathlon consists of 20 laps in the pool, 8 miles on a spin bike, and 1.5 miles on a treadmill. I have never done any of those things, let alone all in a row without resting, let alone after a six mile hike. I was so, so, scared. The only reassuring thing was that I was at BL so I knew it would be okay. If I really couldn’t physically do it, nothing bad was going to happen to me. I knew I was safe – surrounded by people I knew and trusted. Originally I was going to skip the swimming section. I am an awful swimmer. I mean really awful! I know how to do the strokes, but I’m really slow. The staff allowed us to skip one of the events, but if we did we had to increase the distance on one of the other ones. That option didn’t really sound much better to me – how was I going to add miles on the spin bike when I already doubted I could make the eight I was already doing?! I went to the sign up sheet (you could choose the order you wanted to do the events in) and signed up to do the bike and 2 rounds on the treadmill. During dinner on Friday night one of my friends, Alex, gave me a pep talk and told me she really thought I’d be able to do the swimming, and she really thought I should try, because how would I know whether I could do it if I didn’t even try? She asked “what’s the worst thing that could happen?”. If I had a slower time than everyone else, who would know or care? They don’t do the triathlon as a contest, where they declare a winner, they just use it as a challenge, to push people even farther than they’ve already been pushed. Alex was right, so I went back to the board and added the swimming section. I decided I was going to do this, even if I was the last one to finish of all the 68 people there! (and I believed that was a possibility!).

My friends decided to do the three events in the actual order of a triathlon (mainly because Alex is doing one this Fall. She’s 22 years old and in really good shape). I regretted that decision….nothing like getting on a spin bike soaking wet…We started with the swim. I varied my strokes to save myself from drowning. (no joke!) I did all twenty laps, and I could hardly believe it when finished! I hopped out of the pool, quickly threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top over my wet bathing suit, and ran to the gym. I hopped on a spin bike and pedaled about ten times and thought “there is NO way I’m going to do this for eight miles! I’m not going to make it to one! My legs were killing me! And the pain in my legs was nothing compared to the pain elsewhere! There is nothing, in my opinion, more uncomfortable than a spin bike seat. At BL they call them your “sit bones”. I’m sure there is a technical name for them, but you know what I’m talking about. OUCH! The girl next to me told me to try standing up. No. I tried and that made it harder on my legs. I put my towel over the mileage gauge and tried to just listen to the music and go to my happy place. That is hard to do when your sit bones are screaming in pain and your legs are screaming louder. It took a while, but eventually the gauge did reach eight miles. I jumped off that wretched bike and realized I was basically numb from my hips to my knees (and not numb: as in having no feeling, but numb: as in tingly and weird, like when you hit your funny bone). I literally hobbled to the other gym, where the treadmills were. I was trying to think about how far 1.5 miles was. I was picturing my neighborhood. Our blocks in Arizona are each one mile long. I figured that 1.5 miles was the same as going from Dobson Road to Price Road, then halfway back. That didn’t seem too far! Of course, I had now done 20 laps in the pool and biked eight miles, and this was going to make a difference! I jumped on the treadmill and started on my little trip, repeating to myself “1.5 miles isn’t that far!” over and over. I quickly realized that 1.5 miles was far -for me! My legs were dead. They also hurt. My butt hurt, my arms hurt, everything but my hair hurt. I could hear different people saying “Good job, Kathy!” and “Keep going, you’ve got this!” but I was really struggling. There was no way I was going to quit now, though! I was going to finish this thing! And I did! The gauge hit 1.5 and I thought “I’m done! The week is over! I can get off this stupid treadmill and not get back on! I can rest for the whole afternoon! What’s for lunch?”

Wednesday – Hump Day!

Wednesday’s Menu:

Breakfast – Vegetable Quiche – 260 calories

Lunch – White Bean and Kale Soup – 201 calories

            Salmon with Zucchini and Quinoa – 291 calories

Dinner – Cafe Salad with Tomatillo Poblano Vinaigrette – 649 calories

Dessert – Fruit Skewer

I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not, but they have increased the daily calories at BL.  The other times I was here it was 1200 calories a day.  They have increased it to 1500, and increased the percentage of protein. I really notice a difference.  It’s hard for me to eat all the food because the portions are huge. We also get a snack every day after the hike – a choice between an apple and almonds, an apple and peanut butter or a hard boiled egg.  They are trying to make sure every meal and snack pairs a carbohydrate with a protein.  I guess this is better for building muscle.  They were finding some guests were losing lean muscle mass and that is the opposite of what they are trying to do here. 

Our hike on Tuesday was Sycamore Canyon.  I won’t go into boring detail, I’ll just describe the hike like this:  Up, up, up, up, up, up, up for three miles.  Down, down, down, down, down, down, down for three miles.  Add brutal sun and a few moments of ocean view and that about does it.  The hardest part was that they put Van 7 and Van 8 together, and I was at the very end of the line the entire time.  And I don’t mean a few feet behind, I was about five minutes behind with my own personal hiking guide.  I guess this ensures that I get my money’s worth from the week, but it was humiliating!  I realized that what I’m dealing with is a huge pride issue.  I don’t like being in the back.  I don’t like being the worst one.  And that was what I felt like. I also felt like I was inconveniencing everyone.  Everyone was nice about it, even my personal hiking guide, but it’s an issue with me.  The highlight of the hike was when I was really tired on the way down and feeling sorry for myself and I heard voices yelling.  I listened and the voices were saying “Go Kathy! Go Kathy!”  It was my friends Brenda and Alex cheering me on from below me!  So encouraging! 

Our afternoon schedule was:

2:30 – Mountain

3:30 – Pool Class

4:30 – Kickboxing

Mountain class is a really good one.  You choose any piece of cardio equipment and after warming up you increase either the resistance or speed every two minutes.  You do this eight times.  When you get up to level eight you go back down to level seven, then level six, then level five etc…until you get back to 1.  Then you do it again!  It’s tough, but it’s a good class and burns a lot of calories.  

Other than the fact that all my muscles hurt, I am doing well and hanging in there!  I am really glad the week is almost over, though! 

Tuesday – Beach Burpees!

I wrote a fantastic and creative (and long) post about Tuesday.  Then my phone rang and when I came back to the computer the entire post had disappeared.  I don’t know where it went, but it’s gone.  Very frustrating.  Me and blogging don’t seem to get along. I am going to give a really brief synopsis of Tuesday since it’s already Wednesday! 

I woke up on Tuesday morning and found I couldn’t move.  Just kidding!  (kind of…)  I headed to the dining hall for breakfast and also to look at the list of hiking groups.  I was pretty surprised to see I had been put in Van 7.  I am not sure how that happened, and I don’t think I belong in that group, so I was pretty surprised.  (there are 8 groups, 1 is the slowest and 8 is the fastest)  I talked to the hiking director and told her that I wasn’t sure that was where I truly belonged.  She said I should try it for one day and if it was really bad she would switch me to a different group.

  Breakfast was delicious- a parfait with Greek yogurt, granola, and fresh berries. When it came time to find out our hike for the day, I found out that there is another change in the program since the last time I was here – the beach workout!  Each hiking group has a beach workout one day during the week instead of a hike.  Tuesday was our beach workout day.  This made me extremely nervous because I don’t particularly like being in situations where I don’t know what to expect. (It sounds like I don’t like anything, I really do! I am trying to be positive!) We drove to the beach and started our workout with a walk down the beach to warm up.  I really enjoyed that!  It’s so nice being by the ocean.  We saw dolphins swimming in the water, and the breeze was cool and fresh.  While we walked, trainers set up a circuit workout on the beach. There were eight stations – each a different exercise.  We had to pair up with another person in our group and go through the eight stations with them.  We started by doing a warm up.  Just the warmup had me wiped out and ready to leave!  The highlight of the warmup was beach burpees.  Yes, we had to do burpees, the worst exercise ever, in the sand.  I had slathered myself in sunscreen because I’m health conscious like that, so when I did the burpees sand stuck to every inch of skin that had sunscreen on it.  Yuck!  

When we chose partners there was an uneven number of people, so I had to partner with Steven, the hiking guide.  He’s like 25 years old, 6’2″ tall and weighs about 190 pounds.  He clearly works out a lot – and he’s a hiking guide – so he’s in good shape.  I have to admit that the first thought that came to my evil mind was that there was no way I was going to be able to get away with anything during this workout.  When you are working out with a group you can kind of take a breather when the trainer isn’t watching.  When you’re working out WITH the trainer – not so much!  So Steven and I had a lovely workout going through the circuit. We had to do a variety of exercises for two minutes each.   The exercises included beach volleyball (where I channeled my inner Misty Mae Trainor) (minus the bikini…), running hurdles, throwing a ten pound medicine ball and then running after it and throwing it again (for two minutes), holding a squat while holding hands with our partner…hard stuff – made extra hard by being in sand the whole time.  When we were all finished I was sweaty, sandy and tired.  Now it was time to head back to the ranch and work out some more!

Our 11:30 class was Stretch.  This is my favorite class at BL.  I like it because for at least part of the time you are lying on your back on a yoga mat.  We stretch all our sore muscles in that class, and it’s really good for you because it helps restore your muscles.

1:15 was Zumba!  I learned one thing from the Zumba class.  I will never be a dancer.  I am the worlds biggest klutz on the dance floor, but Zumba is fun!  The music is awesome and if you do the steps wrong it’s okay – you just keep moving and have a good time.  It was also a really good workout!  

2:30 was Pool Class.  Don’t think that just because this class is in the water it’s easy.  It’s not.  It’s a very good workout.  I learned one thing from this class – I will never be an olympic swimmer and I have a new respect for Michael Phelps.

At 3:30 we went into the gym for Cardio Intervals.  I like this class because you change what you’re doing every two minutes, so the time goes fast.  All the cardio and weight machines in the gym are numbered.  Odd numbers are cardio machines and even numbers are weights.  Every two minutes you go up a number so by the end of class you’ve gotten a good workout.  

4:30 was Total Toning.  The instructor of this class changed the name partway through the class to Total Torture, as though he was proud of it!  And it was pretty tortuous!  Each person had a step and two sets of weights – medium and heavy.  The class was basically stepping and lifting the weights in different sequences, using different muscle groups.  I was so wiped out by this class that I wanted to cry.  Every muscle in my body was hurting.  I was extremely happy when it was over!

My friend Brenda (with the broken arm) had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Tuesday afternoon to find out the plan for her broken arm.  The doctor was understanding and came up with a great plan for Brenda.  He is going to give her a ‘Fit to Fly’ letter allowing her to get on the plane with her arm splinted. She can fly home on Sunday as long as she promises she will go to the doctor as soon as she gets back to Scotland and have surgery ASAP.  Brenda is still here and is going to finish out the week, and she is such a trooper!  She comes to every class she can possibly attend and modifies the exercises so she doesn’t have to use her left arm.  She even did the beach workout!  She hikes, too, and it’s humbling to watch her! 

The very best part of Tuesday was that I had scheduled a massage.  Ecstacy!  She worked especially on my calves and glutes – which had really taken a beating.  It was a perfect ending to the day!

Day One

Monday August 13, 2012

Calories burned: 2528

Distance walked: 9.49 miles

Steps taken: 22,397

Flights (equivalent to flight of stairs): 119

One thing I found out when I arrived yesterday was that they changed the food part of the program.  The other two times I was here we ate 1200 calories a day.  They recently changed that to 1500 calories, and they increased the protein and lowered the carbs.  I’m really glad they made that change.  That was honestly my only complaint about the food before – I thought it had too little protein.

Our hike today was Latigo Canyon – Backbone Trail.  It was 6.3 miles long.  Malibu is having a heatwave, just like the entire country, so it was pretty hot.  I’m thankful the hikes are in the morning before it gets too bad.  (It’s still way, way cooler than Phoenix!) They have been really warning us to hydrate well to avoid heatstroke.  We wear Camelback hydration backpacks on the hikes so staying hydrated is easy.  I didn’t have any problems on the hike today.  A huge fear of mine is injuring myself, so I’m always relieved when I make it through a whole day without hurting myself!  I would hate to pay the money it cost to come here and then injure myself and have to go home or modify my activity.

Monday is assessment hike day.  They take you on a hike in randomly selected groups and the hiking guides assess you and put you into the group you will be in for the rest of the week.  They do this to insure that each group is evenly matched according to skill level.  This always makes me really nervous.  I have realized I’m kind of competitive.  I don’t want to look like a bad hiker so I push myself.  I don’t want to be too good a hiker because I’m afraid that will put me into the highest hiking group.  If I’m in the highest hiking group I might be the last person on the hikes.  I don’t like being the last person.  I know, someone has to be last, but  I don’t want it to be me.  Sick, huh?  Well, I’m honest!  This is the kind of thing I worry about while I’m hiking 6.3 miles up and down a mountain.  You’d think I could just hike, but no, it takes me back to first grade when they put us into reading groups according to reading skill.  Everyone knew the Hawks were the best readers and the Sparrows were the worst.  Everybody wants to be a Hawk and nobody wants to be a Sparrow.  I don’t want to be a hiking “Sparrow”.  I will let you know how this all works out!

Something kind of sad happened today. My friend Brenda from Scotland was in Orlando, Florida before she came to California.  She played tennis with her husband yesterday and she fell with her full weight on her arm. It hurt so bad she actually passed out – and her husband tried really hard to talk her out of getting on the plane to come to CA.  There was nothing that was going to stop her from coming though, especially since she was the ringleader in getting the whole group of us here.  So she got on the plane and by the time she landed in CA her arm was swollen and looked really bad. She realized when she got here that she was going to need an X-ray.  She went to urgent care today and found out that one bone in her arm is broken and the other is fractured.  They are either going to have to set it and put a cast on it, or she is going to need surgery then a cast.  The big complication in all of this is that she’s from Scotland.  She has their national health care and it’s not a simple thing to have things covered. The doctor here has to communicate with Scotland to get everything approved.  The worst part is that the doctor told her they will NOT, under any circumstances, let her get onto a plane with a cast. As you can imagine, this is causing her a lot of stress.  If they cast her arm it will stay on for six weeks.  That would mean she couldn’t go back to Scotland for six weeks!  It’s a huge mess and I feel really bad for her.  She goes to the surgeon tomorrow.  She’s actually thinking of staying here at BL for six weeks!  She’s quite a trooper!  Anyway, I will keep you posted on that saga.

I am really thankful that the wireless internet is working really well in my room!  The last time I was here I could only connect via ethernet cable, which meant sitting at the uncomfortable desk in my room.  Wireless allows me to sit on my bed and type – so I will probably be better about posting on this blog this time around.  Now it’s time to get off the computer and get some sleep – tomorrow is another long day!

Here we go again!

So, here I am again, back in Malibu, California at the Biggest Loser Resort.  This will be my third visit to BL. Both times I was here before I swore I wouldn’t come back!  Yet here I am.  So what happened?

First of all, I really want to lose 10 more pounds.  I know that coming here for a week will help me get closer to that goal. There is no way, left to my own devices, I would exercise to the extent I exercise here.  The meals are completely planned out and put in front of me – so it’s basically brainless.  A joke here is that it’s like jail – you get your 3 meals a day and do what your schedule says to do!  That’s funny, but it is also true!  Sometimes not thinking makes it possible to do hard things!

The last time I was here I made some really good friends – including Brenda M. from Glasgow, Scotland.  We really “clicked” when I was here in June.  About a month ago Brenda emailed me to tell me that she and 5 other ladies I knew from my last visit were going to come back to BL in August,  and did I want to join them?  My first response was “Heck no! Why would I torture myself again?”  What really got to me, though, was thinking about my friends here without me!  There is a bonding that takes place when you go through an intense time with people, and if my friends were going to be here, I wanted to be here too.  I asked Rick what he thought of the idea and  he said he thought I should come back.  So, there you go.  That’s what happened.  And here I am!

Thinking about coming here this week has been stressful, but the bottom line is, this is a great program.  The people that work here are good at what they do and I trust them.  I can’t think of a better place to come to do what I really don’t like to do!  The thing is, I know exercise is a necessary part of a healthy life.  I don’t really like it,  but I don’t like a lot of things – and I do them anyway.  I will never run a marathon (I have no desire to even walk that far!) I will never do a triathlon.  I will never be a gym rat.  But I want to be healthy and live as long as I can.  That is why I’m here.