Day 19 = :(

Calories Burned:2553 Calories Consumed: 1200 For a difference of:1353
( This was because I wasnt feeling well at the end of the day and missed some workouts)

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. I headed off to breakfast which was an English muffin with bacon and eggs on it. Pretty tasty.

I opted to do the hike "White Rocks Reversed" It was a slower pace which is what I was hoping or because I am trying to give my ankles a rest after yesterday. The scenery was stunning :) We were climbing around on crazy sandstone formations. There is one called 'piano rock' that has a rock shaped like a grand piano on the very top of the hill. I of course had to make sure I did a dorky picture "playing" the "piano". lol During the hike one guest fell on the sandstone and ended up breaking her ankle. The paramedics had to come get her off the trail. Thankfully it was her last day here so she didn't have to cut her visit short. I hope she is feeling OK.







After the hike we had cardo intervals. I enjoy that class because it always goes quickly.

Lunch was sloppy Joe's.. yeaaaah definitely not my favorite dish! It had a good flavour, but there were white beans in it that had a funny texture. It was a fun lunch because the group of women I was sitting with decided to torment the poor kitchen boy.. His cheeks were quite red by the end of it..lol

After lunch I went to circuit training and developed a really bad headache on the top of my head. It felt like my brain was rattling around. I pushed through and it wouldn't go away :(

After circuit training I went to cardio disco jam. The headache progressed and I ended up quite pasty looking and dizzy. My vision as fuzzy too. I went outside and sat against the wall and Sharon came up and asked what was wrong. She was so great. She went and got me some electrolytes and told me to go to my room and take some advil. I ran into Paige on the way and she was great as well. She said that i had been doing really well all week and not be so hard on myself. It frustrates me so much when i cant give 100 percent.

Unfortunately the days events resulted in a lower caloric burn than usual. I am hoping o be rested and feeling great for Monday so I can leave FR with a bang. I have a massage tonight. I am really looking forward to it. Lianne and I might be doing a private hike tomorrow with Marjorie instead of the stop sign hike.. I want to do Gila again because its been a mental block for me since I did it the first time. I don't want top let that hike beat me.. ..



Until tomorrow!

Day 18= I Am Proud Of Myself!

Calories burned 4016 Calories Consumed: 1091 For a difference of:2925

I woke up Thursday morning with ZERO motivation and ZERO drive! The thought of the hike was blah, the thought of doing more classes was blah. I tried to think positively and that was blah! I managed to squeeze out barely 20 minutes on an elliptical. Blah :P

Breakfast was meusli again so I opted for a toasted sandwich thin and it tasted like heaven. Im afraid that reflects my emotional eating backgroud. Feel blah- go for toast and "butter"

I decided to do the stop sign hike again because it seemed like every other hike was Third Ravine. Lianne and I walked tpogether at a pace that wouldnt impress. We made it to the mini stop sign and back down. Feeling blah. The whole way back all I could think of was that I couldnt imigine doing anohter class. The thought of it made me nauseous. I was trying to think of every reason under the sun to hide under my covers and not attend anything.





When I got back I had gym class and I had a few spare minutes so I got online to talk to my boyfriend. He was so sweet and cheered me up and gave me a pep talk. It worked! Suddenly I was feeling more enthused and figured I should go push through it! I ended up working harder than I have yet. Sweat pouring off of me and giving it 110 %. It felt great!

Lunch was a turkey sandwich. It was yummy.

After lunch I had treading 3 times. I kicked butt in the first one, the second one I tried to kick butt, but jogged when I shouldnt have and my ankles started to ache.. The 3rd one I was spent. I tried a few minutes of every machine in the gym and couldnt find anythign to hold my attention..lol I felt great though that I pushed through all of the classes and felt really good afterwards.

Dinner was stuffed green peppers. They were full of ground turkey and rice and veggies. Dessert was vanilla pie.

I talked to Joshua and Mark on the phone for a while and had an early night. It felt good to get some sleep :)

Day 17- Burning Out :P

Calories burned: 3675 Calories consumed: 1097 For a difference of 2578

I woke up this morning feeling a lot better than yesterday! I went to open gym and got on the elliptical machine. Its so much more difficult doing it early in the morning! There were a lot of us in the gym which was good to see. The group that came in this past Sunday is a great group!

Breakfast was yucky! (In my opinion anyway) We had an English muffin toasted with scrambled Egg Beaters, turkey sausage, spinach and tomato. Sounds good right! Other than the fact that they put little bits of green apple in the turkey!!! EEEEWWWW. Definitely put that in the X list with the fritatta! LOL

I chose to do Third Ravine for the hike today. It was very rocky and killed my ankles at first, but once I got going they warmed up and felt better! It was a pretty challenging hike. There were very steep inclines and a great cave. We did some cliff hanging too! I had a devastating moment though.. I thought my pack was closed, but it wasn't. When I looked at it later I noticed my $$$ Versace glasses that I heart were completely scratched up on the lens and frame :( gouged them across he rock face when I shimmied through tight spot :( I am so sad that they are toast. BOO







After the hike we had stretch class *sigh* I LOVE stretch class!

Lunch was beet soup and BBQ pizzas. SO amazingly tasty, but they forgot to put the little hearts on the soup this time, so I gave them a hard time about it..lol



After lunch I had kickboxing and mountain and mountain again.

Dinner was a cafe salad. I like them, but because I was feeling grumpy and exhausted (totally burning out) I decided to opt for the Boca burger. It was actually very yummy and only 250 calories WITH THE BUN! MMMM

I am multi tasking right now. Talking on he phone to my boys and blogging. I want to go to bed early and see if it helps my burn out a bit. I started bawling on the phone. I didn't realize that I was homesick until now. I guess I was repressing the feelings. I feel better after a good cry though.

Good night everyone!

Day 16- Stomach Pains And Dizziness..

Calories burned:3863 Calories consumed:1223 For a difference of 2640

This was not such a good day :( I woke up at 5am with excruciating abdominal pains. They had me doubled over. Not sure what caused them. I went back to sleep opting to skip the 6am optional class and sleep it off. I woke up feeling a bit better. No pain, but kind of nauseous ans tired.

Breakfast was a yummy English muffin with "butter" (some kind of natural spread) and a raspberry smoothie. It was very seedy LOL



I chose to do the Chuckawalla hike. It was a beautiful day. The hike was not too difficult which was god seeing I didn't feel too well.After the hike I had free weight workshop so I did cardio because free weight workshop burns no calories.







Lunch was yummy. It was an Italian tomato sandwich..MMMMMM and a bowl of squash soup.


After lunch I had cardio intervals, total toning, and cardio intervals again (instead of pool) n the 2d cardio intervals I got queasy and dizzy again.. NOT cool!

Dinner was effing great! We had baked penne with snap peas. Desert was CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES!! So good!




After dinner I did some laundry and had a massage *sigh* popped two Advil PM and knocked out. ZZZzzzzzzz

Day 15= AN AMAZING DAY!!

I am writing this in the main building so I don't have any photos and I am missing some info which I will add in tomorrow :)

Calories burned: 5413 Calories consumed: For a difference of :

Today was GGRRRRREAT! I woke up with stiff ankles, but no pain. I went to pilates at 6am then to breakfast which was fritatta. :P Its pretty much the only thing here I do not like so I had cereal :)

Today was the stop sign hike. I got in the van and realized I had forgotten my headphones for my ipod! They told me I could run and grab them which was great because I couldn't survive that hike without music screaming in my ears! I JOGGED back to my room! Yay! I jogged with no ankle pain! That made me happy and also made the stop sign hike better!

I kept a decent pace the whole way up, but I found I wasn't winded and my heart wasn't racing so I thought I probably added a lot of time to my original time of 1:12. I got up to the top and found out I had only taken 1:15 to get up there! I was surprised because I wasn't trying to even get close to my time, I was just trying to make it up with no further pain! The best part was I remember the first time I did that hike my heart rate went above 180!! This time I never got past 155! I only added 3 minutes on! I am pretty impressed that my cardiovascular has improved that much :)

After stop sign we had mountain, It was the first time in over a week that I was able to really push. It felt great. My energy was through the roof today!

Lunch was chili with cornbread! PERFECT comfort food for today seeing that it is literally freezing cold with gale force winds! I forgot to take a picture of it though:( it looked to tasty and I ate it..lol

After lunch we had circuit training, step n pump and pool, which i swapped with cardio.

Dinner was chicken breast and purple potatoes. They look like play dough but taste like regular ones..lol MMMM.

I got a letter from my son today and a package form my friend Justine and her kids. It was really sweet. Made my day!

Today was an amazing day :)

Days 13 and 14- The Weekend In A Nutshell

Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful. The weather put a damper on things!

Breakfast was a tasty warm strawberry muffin and a plate of mixed fruit.



I didn't wear my heart rate monitor because I was finding that I am replacing the scale number obsession with the caloric burn obsession. Due to my injuries the number had been lower for the last week and I kept trying to push to make the number bigger therefore restraining my ankles. I am happy that I didn't wear it because I took it easier.

The Saturday stop sign hike was brutal. My ankles were so sore and there was a mixture of snow and rain falling from the sky. My pant legs were soaked and caked with red sand... needless to say it was gross. I didn't even make it to the mini stop sign.






After stop sign we had Circuit Training and then lunch. I do not remember what lunch was lol

The rest of the weekend was so boring due to the extreme weather conditions. Yuck.

Sunday was pretty cool because I got to meet a bunch of people from Facebook and my Blog. Jerica, Rachelle, Michelle, Bobbi.. to name a few. Suzy from the Biggest Loser 2 is here as well for a week. She is really sweet and has an insane sense of humour, really funny!

Dinner was ummmm... I think it was chicken and spaghetti squash? lol Dessert was banana cream pie. (of course I remember that) LOL

Some of the guests went to see "Valentines Day" for graduation. I opted not to go, I opted for ANOTHER massage instead.

My curiosity is killing me right now. I haven't wanted to weigh in until my trip is over, but I needed to change my weight in my Polar watch to make the calories accurate. I got Cody to weigh me while I didn't look and put my weight in my watch for me. So umm yeah, for the last 2 days I have been walking around with my current weight in my watch and have forced myself not to look at it! Talk about TEMPTING!!

I am writing these posts in the main building at FR so I will have to add pictures at a later time.

Day 12 = A Long But Great Day!

I burned less calories today because I woke up exhausted and burned out. I decided to skip the optional 6am class.

Calories burned:3487 Calories consumed: 1088 for a difference of 2399

As I said, I skipped the morning class. I went to breakfast and had a pineapple parfait.. It was OK, it looks better than it tastes.lol



Lianne, Tammy and I decided to do the hike called "slots" The scenery was spectacular! There were a lot of steep inclines and declines, but it was well worth it. There were 2 slots you get to go into. They are very narrow and very deep. The second one we went into was called "birth canal" It was really really narrow and we had to crawl feet first into a little cave hole thing to get further into the crevasse. even got to do some rock climbing moves to get up and down some of the steep parts. I enjoyed it so much I decided I might try rock climbing again some time! We decided we wanted a longer hike so we made it into a private one where you pay the guides to take you around. It worked out well because we got to miss our next class which I didn't feel like going to. I am getting tired of the gym because I have had to skip pool so I am in there more than usual.










Lunch was the most amazing Caesar salad! It only had 151 calories! t had croutons made form sandwich thins and chicken breasts... so freaking good! The soup was parsnip. Nice and warm and comforting..



After lunch we had our lecture for staying through another week. We had to say what we are proud of. I said that I am proud that I am pushing to continue to work out to the best of my ability along side my stupid ankles..lol I had circuit training 2 times and ended the day with Cardio Disco Jam. Its probably the funnest thing in the world! Ill have to demo my dance moves for all my friends back home when I return.AHahahah!

Dinner was a turkey burger..MMMMM Very tasty. Dessert was chocolate sorbet.




I am sitting here wrapping up my blog because I have a massage at 9 and Ill be going straight to bed. I Have the stop sign hike in the morning. :P lol I am very happy its the weekend because I came close to burning out today. Goodnight!

Day 11 = Amazing Hike!

Calories burned: 4024 Calories consumed: 1088 for a difference of 2936

I woke up this morning and was happy to find my ankles were feeling a bit better! I went to open gym around 5:30am and did 1 hour of cardio on the elliptical trainer. It was nice because it didn't hurt.

After gym we had breakfast. It was the "bacon" and egg English muffin which I have already had, therefore there is no picture :)

I opted to go on the Red Mountain Trail hike because it said it was a slow steady incline. I am trying to stay completely away form inclines to keep my ankles healing. When we got to the hike I was excited to see trees! I haven't been near any trees since arriving in Utah! I think they were Juniper bushes and there were some pine trees. Reminded me of other than they were short ans stubby.lol but it smelled wonderful! The terrain was very rocky for the most part so we had to really watch our feet. After the rock ended it was deep sand, almost like a beach. The path opened up to an absolutely amazing view! We took a bunch of pictures and headed back. I think round trip it was about 6 miles. We were at an elevation of 4600 ft.







After the hike we had a stretch class. It was sooo relaxing. I am getting really flexible I can practically bend in half while sitting on the floor with my legs stretched out in front of me! That's something new! lol




Lunch was amazing. It was french onion soup (minus the crouton and cheese) and a Greek pita filled with ground turkey, feta cheese, mushrooms, olives etc.




After lunch I spoke with the producer of the Rachael Ray show. They are going ahead with taping after all. She just asked a few questions about me and my reasons for attending the resort. I think we Will find out who they decide to focus on tomorrow. It would be a fun experience, but who knows! I will at the very least get to be in the background!

The afternoon classes were tough. I had pool which I skipped again due to my injuries.. I did cardio instead, then we had ball works which is not as easy as it sounds (think major squats and lunges ) and then treading. I started to get discouraged in treading again because my ankles feel better, but I know they are not. I wanted to push so badly, but I had to plug along at a slow steady pace while everyone busted ass. :P Lianne kept me positive. She must have sensed it because she said "don't get depressed, you're up and working out! You're pushing through your injury!" Lianne and Tammy are amazing support, I would probably have gone home if they weren't here

Dinner was amazing! We had stuffed chicken (spinach and tomato stuff) with wild rice, and peach cobbler. MMMMM! I managed to make it through the day without straining my ankles. Then I managed to just move my foot the wrong way at the dinner table and felt a zap and now it hurts again :(



I better get ready for bed. Until tomorrow!

Day 10= Things are looking up! Kind of..

Calories burned: 4254 Calories consumed: 1222 for a difference of 3032

I decided its time to force my ankles to heal! I woke up at 5am and headed to yoga. The more I thought about it I realized that it would be extremely painful to bend my feet and ankles in certain ways so I left and went into ope gym. I tried out the recumbent cross trainer because it takes all of the pressure of of my ankles. It felt great and made my quads burn.

Breakfast was Muesli so I had toast and jam. (no picture provided due to everyone knows what toast looks like!)

I decided to do west canyon hike because its flat and I am not subjecting my ankles to anymore inclines for now. I am not even going to push to beat stop sign hike on Saturday. Id love to beat my time but I live having feet even more. The hike was beautiful and scenic. It went well on the way out, but when I turned to come back the distance started to get to me and the pain got worse.

I did circuit training using only the recumbent machine instead of the treadmill and it helped a lot :)

Lunch was Mediterranean pizzas which I have already posted a picture of so I wont bother doing it again.

We had mountain class, a 2nd mountain class (instead of pool) and kickboxing. (I just punched)

Dinner was extremely tasty salmon fillet and wheat orzo..mmm mmm mmmm




I went on the target trip to pick up some shampoo etc.. it was nice to get out.

I have been listening to my massage therapist and alternating ice and heat on my ankles and staying off of them whenever possible. It frustrates me to burn less calories but I'm definitely feeling n improvement so I guess its worth it..

Really missing my boys tonight :( Cant wait to see those of you who arrive this weekend!

Day 9 = Bad Day, Good Day, Bad Day, Good Day

Calories burned: 4031 Calories consumed: for a difference of 2876

I woke up in a mood. Reason being.. my stupid ankles. It is SO frustrating to know I am capable of so much more, but having limitations due to injuries. I went to the Hardcore class. It was OK, all ab work. There were a few moves I couldn't do because of my ankles.

Breakfast was the most tasty peach muffin in the whole universe! It cheered me up a bit! You would never think a muffin and fruit could fill you up through a 2 hour hike and hold you over until lunch, but somehow it does!



I was cheered up by the fact that there was a hike I could attempt that wasn't the stop sign hike, and wasn't west canyon. It was called Anasazi Ridge and it was nice and simple for my fitness level (easy on my feet) as well as very scenic and full of petroglyphs! It was pretty amazing. It definitely boosted my mood to be able to do a different hike. The calorie burn wasn't really what I would prefer, but positive Brandi is reminding me that its WAY more than I would burn laying in bed watching TLC and A&E!








After the hike we had a choice between a free weight workshop or pool. SinceI despise pool, and I already know a lot about free weights, I asked a trainer if I could just do the treadmill. They said that was fine. Lianne joined me and we busted ass!

Lunch was tomato soup and quinoa lettuce wraps. MMMMMMM!! I have always wanted to try quinoa, but have never had the chance. I even bought some that is in my cupboard back home, but had no clue how to cook it. Ill tell you one thing! Chef Cameron cooks some mean quinoa! It was very appetizing!





After lunch we had pool :( ,Cardio intervals ad total toning. By now I was so in pain from my ankles that I was having little silent crying moments. I am so frustrated that I cant just do anything full bore because of my injuries.Pool makes my ankles hurt worse.

Sharon the trainer noticed something was wrong and asked what was up. I told her and she gave me some encouragement and told me to go into the gym and do somehitng that doesn't hurt, rather than do total toning. It helped a lot and leveled out my mood.

Dinner was shepherds pie. I was a fan of the potato on top, but not a fan of the huge quantity of veggies lurking underneath. I prefer moms beef and potato version..lol




I had a massage after dinner. It was AMAZING as usual. They have some talented massage therapists here. I was like gumby when I was done. I asked him about my ankles and he gave me some pointers on how to deal with them.

I didn't fall asleep until about 11pm. A bit too late for my liking. I am happy that positive Brandi seems to be out-matching negative Brand, because she used to rule my brain. I find myself being able to take over those thoughts and squash them before they turn too ugly. I can definitely feel a difference in my mind set in regards to anything which is a nice change.