Biggest Loser Resort...Day 5!

Today was unbelievably hard, but I'm ending it feeling absolutely amazing..both physically and mentally. Well..more mentally than physically (if you're not sore when you're here, you're not doing it right)...but you know what I mean.

The massages last night were wonderful, but we still woke up really sore and extremely tired.  Even with 8 hours of sleep, our bodies still feel like they're running on empty.  We're working out 4-5 hours a day and they're HARD workouts.  Every single one leaves you feeling like you're going to die.  You feel extremely accomplished when you survive them but man...I've never wanted a nap at 7:30 in the morning more than I did today.

We went in for our usual 6am workout with Betty.  We knew that today would suck because we were redoing our crossfit workout from Tuesday and were supposed to try and do better than we had then.  Can I just say that burpees are not any more fun now than they were two days ago.  I was sure I was going to fail miserably, but by some miracle, both Amy and I did more than we did two days ago.  I couldn't believe it. After breakfast we were scheduled to head out to the stadium to do bleachers, which I was dreading due to horrible knees, but luckily there was a lightening storm and we stayed in.  I say luckily, but it really wasn't lucky at all.  They kicked our butts even harder than I think they would have haha.

We were split into two groups.  One group went with Betty to the cardio room (with the treadmills, stairclimbers, etc) and the other group went with Mark (season 10) into the bigger room where he had set up 10 different stations that we had to do for 45 seconds each with 15 second breaks between.  These stations included things such as jump rope, rope pulls (not sure that's their technical name but if you watch the show, they hold two ends of a HUGE rope in their hands and wave them while in a squat.  Worst exercise ever behind a burpee) smash balls, wall balls, squats and lots of other fun stuff.  Including this lovely thing that Amy managed to do!!  She was basically going sideways down the ladder in a plank.  I had to do mine against the wall.

We would spend 10 minutes in one room and then switch until we'd switched 5 times.  It was TOUGH.  My first time in the cardio room I decided to be brave and chose the rowing machine.  Betty, being the lovely person that she is, gave me a goal for distance and made me STAY IN THE ROOM until I had reached it...even after everyone was done with their 10 minutes.  She's a brute but she makes me want to work hard!  Each room was hard as hell and each time I wanted to break down and cry, but we survived.  Mark's room also included some lower level box jumps, but at the end of the class, Amy and I decided to try a higher box and we both did it.  Our first box jumps ever.  We were so proud of yourselves!!!

Needless to say, we were very sweaty after all of that.  Notice the sweat line halfway down my shirt hahaha.  But as Betty likes to say... "Sweat is in style...and it's free!"

After all the hard work, Betty let us have some fun.  We split into teams and had to build a house using only 20 pieces of equipment.  My group's house won.  Helen was our exercise "Budda" sitting inside with our exercise bike in the garage on the side haha.

We were all starving at this point and got to have this amazing, but very unique lunch.  It was steak and feta pizza on gluten free pizza crust tortilla kind of things I believe.  It had a bit too much feta for MY liking but it was incredible.

We had some great lectures today surrounding our meals.  Mostly on reading labels and planning meals, but we had a really great one about planning our futures and setting some realistic goals for ourselves once we go home.  My goal(s) are to restrict myself to 1-2 treat meals a week (instead of letting it turn into 3-4 days of bad eating) and keeping my calories UNDER 1500 a day.  I had lowered my calories to 1300-1400 a few months ago and have found that by the end of the day I'm so hungry I binge and end up over 2000 easy.  So I decided to raise my number a bit and see if that helps.  Amy's going to help keep me in check!  It will really help that BLR is sending us home with a lot of awesome new recipes.  And even some for desserts! (such as the amazing chocolate creme pie we had today.

Our afternoon workouts were really tough.  At 2pm we had "Cinco Speed".  Everyone picks a cardio machine to use for the entire class which consisted of this...  warmup...2 minutes hard as you can...3 mins recovery speed...3 fast, 2 recovery, 4 fast, 1 recovery, 5 fast....and then the same thing backwards.  Holy crap.  It was so hard.  And just when I thought I was dying, she singled ME OUT.  Just me.  And made me raise my arms over my head and just use my legs as hard and fast as I possibly could for a whole minute.  (I was on the elliptical).  It was hard, but I managed it...and even did it again on my own for the very last 30 seconds.

Our last workout of the day was in the pool with the same trainer who'd done the 2pm. Her name was Anne-Marie.  She was super tough, but made sure to let us have fun in the water too.  We did some laps and some core work and then we got to play water football.  It was a blast.  Everyone was tackling each other and we got to forget that we were in pain for a while.  This group is so much fun and I'm going to miss them all when we leave!

The best part of the night was after dinner when we got the resort's bowling alley all to ourselves!!!  Most everyone said they were too sore to go and didn't want to go, but Amy and I convinced about half of them to come.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.  The guy running the alley said that most of the time no one from BLR ever shows up and he was surprised to see us haha.  I'm glad we went though.  It was a nice break.

Just to wrap things up I need to say a bit more about/to Amy.  I know I spent an hour or so saying most of this stuff to her today but I need to say it again.  This girl is such a perfectionist that when she works out on one of the hardest machines in the gym for 10 minutes she thinks she's not done well enough.  No one else challenges themselves like that.  Everyone else tends to pick the easier machines (myself included some of the time) when we know that we're going to be on it for a while.  But not Amy.  She goes balls to the wall.  EVERY TIME.  When I think I'm going to collapse, she tells me "JUST ONE MORE!"  When I feel like I can't keep up with everyone else she gets me refocused on  my OWN efforts and gets me to just push harder.  She's the first one to try something new and won't stop until she does it.  She sweats more and goes longer than anyone else here.  Anyone.  This girl is a role model to me and these things are the reason I brought her with me this week.  I could not have gotten through half these workouts without her in front of me motivating me to take a breath and just keep moving.  I am beyond proud of her accomplishments this week and am grateful for the things that she has helped ME to accomplish.  I don't know what I'd do without her and I'm so glad to know that I'll always have a friend like her to push me in the future.  Love you girl.  Be proud of yourself.  Own your accomplishments and celebrate them.  YOU...ARE...TEAM...AWESOME!!!