Day 6 - Tennessee Fitness Spa

It's our final full day at TFS and we actually have some free time. I'm feeling a bit guilty that I'm not going anything, but then again, this is the first time I've been bored and it is vacation! And it's not like we bummed around all day...

6:45 - Breakfast - still love the oatmeal. I'll be cooking this at home now with tofu to give me protein. Good stuff.

7:40 - Christy Lee and I decided to start the walk early (2 other people had already started) because we already knew the way to go, just needed to get back while it was still cool out. So we started at 7:40 instead of 8:00 and believe it or not, that 20 min made a difference. There is a long dirt road out of the property and then you get to a small 2 lane highway that we've been walking on almost every day for some portion of the hike. Today it was all highway, but riiiiight before we got to the highway, Christy slipped and fell and got what I call a strawberry (she calls a scrape) on her left leg. Before I go on, let me remind you what Christy Lee did yesterday: she had a massage that involved a lot of alignment...on her left leg! The woman told her that she may walk a bit off today, but there was no way to prevent what happened. Anyway, she was ok...thank goodness. She used some water on her handkerchief to wipe off the road from her leg and then I had 5 band aids (for this exact reason) in my backpack and we fixed her up good as new. She promised me that she was ok...I have to admit I didnt believe her at first, thought she was being strong just to get through our last day. But she really was ok. The sreams didnt occur until she was in the shower a few hours later. So, because we left early for our walk, we didnt have our walk leader. I felt that I could keep the pace and we headed on down the road. We did 4 miles out and turned around for 4 miles back. A very good 8 mile hike at a pace of a 15 min mile. I got back right on time and Christy Lee was close behind. yay us!!

This requires a new paragraph: Just in case you wanted to know, Christy Lee and I accomplished an amazing task. We hiked a total of 36 miles this week!!! And all at a very fast power walking rate. They say that you burn 200 calories per each mile while power walking (arms moving and doing a heel toe roll). That would mean that we burned 1600 calories today with our 8 mile walk and let me remind you that our calorie intake each day is between 1200 and 15oo calories. Doesnt really add up...that leads me to our progress.

9:45 back from the walk and hit the showers. I had a lovely shower, but Christy Lee had quite the opposite. That cut on her leg made her scream a few times, but she's ok now. It's a badge of honor if you ask me.

10:20 Kirstie Lou does a 30 min stretch class of her own on the floor of the bedroom. Had to make sure I did well on the fitness assessment (there's a felxibility element). So I've managed to remember every element of our structured stretch classes and proved to myself today that I could do it on my own.

We interrupt this program to give you an important message!!!!! Kirstie Lou has been accepted to grad school!!!! She will be attending the Milano Graduate School for Management and Urban Planning at The New School and getting a Masters Degree in Nonprofit Management!! If you dont know the New School, it sounds like a fake school when in fact it's a great school. Have you ever seen Inside the Actor's Studio on Bravo? That's a branch of the New School (but I seem to remember it breaking out on its own in the last year or so...I'll have to look into that) and the Parson's School of Design is also at The New School. I'll be starting in a few weeks!

...Now back to your regularily scheduled program...

11:00 Fitness Assessment Appointments. below are the generic results to protect those involved ;)

Kirstie Lou
loss of 3.75 pounds :)
loss of 3.5 inches
loss of 1.2% in body fat. I'm not back to the body fat I was at in high school :)

Christy Lee
loss of 5.75 pounds!! :)
loss of over 8 inches!! :)
loss of 1.8% body fat. That's the number that really counts and Christy Lee rocks!

We did an amazing job this week. And we have plans to have a standing gym date each week together to keep up the motivation.

12:00 Lunch - turkey burgers with an actual bun! This sounds very unexciting to those not here, but this was a great moment. It was made even better when we realized we had access to mustard, ketchup AND get this, mayo (non fat, but it was still good). We also had a pickle which was the first bit of salt we had all week. And we had strawberry sundaes for dessert, but I'm lactose intollerant and I didnt get affected, so I know there was no milk in it. Must have been yogurt or something else. Not quite sure. Didnt matter, it was good.

1:30 We hadnt seen the cave that sits behind the TFS office. We had heard that it stays at 58 degrees at all times back in the cave so we thought we'd see it for ourselves. There was a bat in the cave and they won't bother you, but it's a bit intimidating to go in there knowing one is flying around. Oh and the ceiling isnt all that high, so you will come within 12 inches of the bat. I pushed on through and got into the cave but Christy Lee was stopped at the enterance because the bat was hanging/flying around the opening. I was all the way in the cave and telling Christy Lee to keep talking while entering because the bat will hear it and not go towards you. But she didnt realize my error (partially done on purpose). See bats work on a sorta sonar thing...they send out their sound to see where it hits and they know where not to fly because I think their visiion is really bad. I kept telling her to sing or talk so that the bats won't run into you. But I'm not sure that really affects the bat. But it made her more able to get into the cave and calm her nerves. Sorry Christy Lee ;-) On the way out, we sang "Close To You" by The Carpenters.

Then, we went to the Natural Bridge again to video tape and take pictures. We did our "after" pictures and we will find really sad, fat pictures of us for our "before" shot. That's how it works right?! We also hiked up to the top of the hill to look into the natural bridge from above.

2:15 We have been sitting in the TV room watching TLC and VH1 this afternoon. This is the first bit of TV we've watched all week besides the occassional glance at the news and a few nights ago some people were watching a movie.

At 6:00 we have dinner (Cod, eggplant, brussel sprouts...doenst sound like a good combo, but it is what it is). And at 7:00 we have movie night. We are going to watch Under The Tuscan Sun...love that movie.

This vacation was not what most people would consider a vacation, but it was still great. Instead of gaining weight on a vacation, we lost it. Instead of spending money each day on food and activities, we paid a very reasonable price ahead of time and had only a few additional costs (massages and I bought a cookbook). I would recommend this place to anyone interested in meeting a bunch of great people and to get in shape. Let me know if you would like to come here and I'll share even more details. Or go to http://tfspa.com