The End of the Journey & My First Evening at FR (Too Tired for a more Creative Title)

It's been awhile but I've been so rushed and tired that I haven't been able to update everyone. One good thing is this: Since I'm writing this blog today, you will know that I managed to survive my FIRST DAY AT FITNESS RIDGE!!! It is unbelievably cheesy but I'm really really proud of myself. I am also in severe pain and I know it's going to be worse tomorrow.

To catch up on everything after I left you guys last time:

After I arrived in Salt Lake City, I had to wait 10 hours for my next connection. You read that right. 10 Freaking HOURS. It was miserable. I had to stay awake so that I could be ever vigilant about my belongings and safety. I never drink coffee but I had some espresso to help with the situation.

After boarding the bus, I had another 6 hour journey to St. George. You meet a lot of very interesting characters on Greyhound buses. I overhead a lot of weird stories, including one where this woman was explaining to another person how she was on this bus journey because her son had been stabbed in the neck (I believe she used the word shanked) because someone was trying to rob 60 pounds of pot off of him. You read that right. 60 pounds of pot. Oh my goodness!! Then she said, of course it wasn't his.. um, ok. I did however make a nice friend on the bus. We spent the time talking about common interests and snickering at the amounts of crazy that surrounded us.

The weather in Utah is nutty, let me tell you. We went from one extreme to another in 40 short miles. When we left Salt Lake City it was snowing. 40 miles from St. George, there was snow AND hail. Once we arrived in St. George? It was gorgeous. Nearly 80 degrees and sunny.

So,after we arrived in St. George, I took a cab to Fitness Ridge. I pulled in just as one of the shuttles from Las Vegas arrived and I was greeted by Denae and some of the other FR staff. Everyone was very friendly and I was shown to my room where they already had some of my packages nicely settled. I was blown away that I was actually finally at FR after all that time that I had been dreaming about it.

So they were kind enough to give me some extra time to get cleaned up before my initial weigh in and measurements. They told me to get into comfy clothes as well. I grabbed the quickest shower ever and headed down. I got measured and weighed quite efficiently and they took a picture of me as well and to be honest I was a bit shocked at the numbers.

I normally weigh myself at home, nearly naked, on an empty stomach (I even make certain to use the bathroom beforehand. (You know you've all done it!)) for ideal weighing conditions to be present. Recently the numbers have been going up and according to my scale at home, I was 187 pounds. At FR, it said that I was 193. Now, remember,ideal weighing conditions were NOT present AND I was also wearing my sneakers at the time. I figure my sneakers are roughly 3 pounds or so, right? (At least, that's what I'm going to tell myself) Anyhow, the fact that WITH my sneakers on, I was in the 190s really freaked me out. I re-vowed that I was going to give FR my all. By the way, when they tell you to get comfy for your weigh in, you can go in any old clothes or shoes. I had interpreted it to be my workout clothes. Don't make the same mistake I did!

After my initial weigh-in, there was a short meeting with Jen who told us a bit about the program at FR and then I got a chance to meet my first new roomie, 'K.' I immediately let her know (and I find this is a no-no) that I snore if I'm sleeping on my back and before you know it, without my knowledge, she requested to switch rooms. She also came up to me in the packed dining hall and announced quite loudly that she requested to switch rooms because she couldn't deal with the fact that I snore and that she hoped we would still be friends. Um, ok, thanks for yelling that across the room! Anyhow, I have a new roomie now and she's pretty awesome, I like her a lot.

So the first dinner was a chicken breast with spaghetti squash, broccoli and cauliflower with a tomato sauce over it. It was pretty good, the chicken was a bit dry but it was edible. (Yes, I forgot my camera) Dessert was a Key Lime Pie with a purposely soggy Grape Nuts crust. It was also pretty good. A bit sour (they don't use sugar here but they do provide Truvia/Stevia and some other alternatives) but it was creamy and nice. Made of tofu too, I hear! I was pretty quiet through dinner because my brain was so foggy and my muscles were starting to get achy because of lack of sleep.

After dinner, there was an orientation and a roundabout introduction of most of the new guests, as well as a few old ones. Let me tell you, there are some people with truly amazing stories here. My roomie included! It's very inspirational and it's also wonderful to hear how a lot of people have hopes and dreams about their aspirations for their stay. Everyone claps and cheers after you make your introduction, even if you make a silly one or barely say anything. (So don't worry!)

When I got up to make my introduction, let's just say I wasn't quite eloquent. lol. I had already been up at that point for 24 hours straight and had barely any sleep in the past few days. I was pretty incoherent. I think I said my name, where I was from and that I had taken a train from New Jersey to FR. I may possibly also have mentioned how I had been thin in the past but had never been in shape and that I hoped that by being at FR, I could finally get in shape for the first time. I got my nice claps and all that and after the roundabout was over, Denae made quite a long introduction about all of FR's rules and customs and things like that. I was struggling to stay awake. She's also got quite an amazing talent up her sleeve but I won't ruin it, you'll see when you get here. ;)

So after the orientation was over, I headed up to my room and went straight to bed at around 10PM. I have some other nice, new pics of my trip, etc; but those will have to wait for another day. I have a million videos right now that I want to show you guys and I'll try my best to post a few tomorrow. For right now, I am off to bed! My Day 1 & hopefully Day 2 update will be up tomorrow!