“This is the longest day of my life,” I heard a woman exclaim during our last workout of the day.  We were in the pool and had been swimming and treading water for 40 minutes.  I was inclined to agree with her, but I was too exhausted to say anything.  I was just trying to keep my head above the water.  I have just completed my first full day at The Biggest Loser Fitness Ridge Resort in Ivins, Utah, and it was pretty brutal.

We started the day with an “evaluation” hike designed to see what kind of hiker we are.  The vans picked us up at 6:30AM and dropped us off at various trail heads in the beautiful southern Utah mountains.  My group was told we would go on a “moderate” 6 mile hike, but it didn’t take long to realize that our leader was setting a pace that was far more than moderate.  Two hours and 7.5 miles later, we finally returned to our vans.  We were told that because we went so fast, they decided to tack an extra 1.5 miles on to the hike.  This would have been fine if it would have been the only workout of the day…but it wasn’t.  We ate a 290 calorie breakfast then headed straight to the gym for a 45-minute “mountain” workout where we used a cardio machine to “climb” to ungodly resistance levels.  A 439 calorie lunch was followed by three additional one-hour workouts: weight/cardio circuit training, core training (a brutal workout designed to make mincemeat out of the stomach and back muscles), and then H2O intervals in the pool…where one of my teammates yelled out about this being the longest day of her life.

And now, it’s 8PM, and I’ve never been more ready for bed in all my life.  Sleep is so tempting, but sleep leads to day 2, which will include another early morning hiking marathon and 4 more intense workout hours.  I’ll be here for 2 weeks – which seems like an eternity right now, but I’m here with 70 other people, many who are having a much more difficult time than me.  It’s inspiring to see people with serious weight and medical issues working through pain and exhaustion in order to try to turn their lives around.  My goal is to lose some weight, learn how to eat better, and figure out a sustainable and effective exercise plan – all in two weeks.  A  major part of this is sleep, so I must be off to bed.  Here are some pictures from my hike this morning.