Day 5 - Friday!!!

Those mountains just keep on getting bigger! We are in Third Ravine hike here. I took the picture in the ravine and we hiked to the top of the mountain in the middle!!! YES WE DID!

Here's my van girls. My room mate Sandy is on the right. She 65 and ex Navy. What a firecracker:)

Beautiful rock formations.

Our guide Anthony took Chelsea and I (brave souls) up to Bat Cave and we hiked all the way through it.

Here we are in Bat Cave on a boulder, that we climbed of course.

Lots of boulders...

More boulders and a great view from the top.

The hike back is great. You walk along a rim with a canyon on each side of you. I'm guessing we are at about 4,000 ft. This is Anthony our lead guide for the day. Love all the guides.


So you had to pull yourself up to get up over the rock, ok just kidding, I'm not there yet.
The coveted menu board, we rush in every morning to see what's on the menu.
Best breakfast this week. Fresh fruit, eggs, turkey bacon, and french toast with a raspberry drizzle.Roasted Red Pepper soup!! Awesome and only 54 calories.
Oriental chicken salad with orange slices and a peanut satay dressing. Served with chopsticks of course. This is Reg's salad cause I forgot to photography mine and ate half of it before I remembered LOL!Friday night Tour of Italy...well, almost! Turkey meatballs, parma cheese, and lettuce with steamed carrots. We also had a totally wonderful choc. and vanilla pudding parfait with fresh strawberries and blueberrys on top. Deleted the pic by accident though.

Wow - Friday! It seems like I've been here forever and time has flown by as well. Can that happen? It's actually Saturday now since instead of blogging last night I colored my hair. Here's the best part, since we only work out half a day on Saturday I'm typing this by the cabana at the pool on a soft and cozy wicker sectional while Julieann takes a little snoze next to me. Reg is floating in the pool and several other people are hanging out on the lounge chairs working on their tans. The intoxicating smell of suntan lotion mixed with laundry detergent fills the air as we wash our stinky clothes. Oh and its 87 degrees and breezy with no humidity. Life is hard.

So back to Friday. Our hike today was Third Ravine. I should have suspected it would be hard when Paige one of the trainers (with the body of an Iron Man) said, "Oh, that's my favorite hike." I can't tell you how hard this hike was. Monday killed me because I was new to it, but now that I'm used to hiking every day, Third Ravine still worked my muscles til they screamed. The great thing is, everybody finishes the hikes. You may think you can't go on until you look over and see your girlfriend hoofin it and you know you can do it too. Anthony was our guide and he was so great. Chelsea fell behind and in trying to catch up got out of breath and was gasping for air - hey, air is wimpy here! So Anthony took her to the front of the pack and got her breathing down and told her, "So now your going to lead us." I got tears in my eyes. He put her right where she needed to be. When you are up front your whole perspective and attitude changes. You feel more relaxed and comfortable. She and I ended up being the only takers for Bat Cave which went farther and higher than the trail and Anthony gave us the grand tour. He said we were getting our money's worth with him:) The best thing I got from the whole day was something he said. "We are the ones who set up boundries in our lives." Think about that. We say in our minds we can't do it and then we start to believe it. We may be successful in our everyday lives, but there's something we just can't overcome. What walls have we set up for ourselves? What lies has our brain told us? Don't believe the lies. What ever it is, you can do it. Push yourself, find the time, do it for you. Why? OK everyone all together, "Because we CAN and we are WORTH IT!"

I have some great girlfriends here. There are pics tomorrow of us eating at the table together. There's like 15 of us that sit together and for the most part we will all be here next week. Except for Elizabeth, LOVE YOU ELIZABETH! Shout out to ya! Missin you already. I have had so much activity on my blog from people on the Biggest Loser Fitness Ridge Alumni page. They are people who have either been here before or are coming back soon or coming for the first time. I met several people who will be here while I'm here. Looking forward to meeting you guys! Actually I met my room mate on there who will be here next week. Going to miss my Sandy like everything, but looking so forward to meeting Julie face to face.

Some of you have been asking my about the meal plan and the exercise schedule. We do have a few choices. They fix a certain thing for each meal, but if you don't want that they have about 5 other options. They fix for vegatarians, vegans, people with allergies, they accomodate everyone here. The workouts run on a rotation most of the week. For the first week you have to do lectures too then after that they are optional. If you really like something though, like Zumba, you can go to two Zumbas and one Circuit training, and skip the pool. They do take attendance and if you don't show up for class they come looking for you! Looking forward to Saturday and all that time off.