Fat Camp - the beginning

Day 3 at the fat camp (http://rockafellaskank.blogspot.com/2009/05/fat-camp.html) and the last day and a half have been amazingly confronting. I can only hope that this experience – challenging as it currently is (mentally as well as physically) - helps me grow as a person.

Physically the camp has been hard, from the fitness test the morning after our arrival (day one) and the subsequent ‘outdoor’ training which meant running up and down hills. I have long-hated hills since an episode in Zimbabwe, when I found it really hard and got incredibly sick, climbing the stairs out of the ravine after whitewater rafting at Victoria Falls.

I came with an injury and the trainers have been spectacularly unsympathetic. Instead I feel like a hypochondriac of sorts when I remind them that I am not supposed to be actually running (or fast walking) this week. In fact I ran on my first day here and have continued to do so, hampered more by my fitness than my foot.

Existing on 800 calories or less a day is easier than I thought, particularly when your day is filled with exercise, classes and cooking. And, when you retire to your bedroom at 7pm with only sleep on your mind.

To date, we have essentially had three training sessions a day. Unfortunately many of them involve hills.

Yesterday, Day 2, I started to miss the things we go without. (Absolutely no carbohydrates or sugar – including fruit, some veges, and milk-based products). As someone who had been binging on hot chips and tins of caramel with meringues and lemon crème yoghurt (don’t cringe, I assure you that the combination is lovely), I suspect I will feel the loss. Of the 12 campers here sharing my pain, 8 are in their second fortnight. They tell us the detox is horrid and they all suffered to varying extents.

So far, my symptoms have manifested in grumpiness. Yesterday the manager here told me I HAD to try the stuffed mushrooms at lunch. I refrained from telling him that I was 41years old and, ‘didn’t he think I had tried mushrooms before’. I was very good the night before and tried the cauliflower mash (it was promised to be like potato mash – it wasn’t). In the end I ate the mushroom toppings for a 42 calorie lunch. And I was like a petulant child. More than ever I wanted to go home and the idea of living like this for almost 4 more weeks felt like more than I could bear.

And when confronted with a post-dinner stretch and meditation session at 7.30pm I wanted to revolt. I just wanted to go to bed, I didn’t want more – even if it wasn’t exercise. Again, I was petulant.

I heard last night that this morning’s pre-breakfast exercise involved driving to some mountain, so I obsessed about what would be before us. It wasn’t a huge climb, but up and down and around the mountain, with some pauses to run up hills and stairs on the way. Towards the end (of the hour or so) I wanted to throw the towel in. I rarely give up. If ever. Today I came close. I wanted to just fall over in a heap and have someone else take care of me (like my fantasy of being hospitalized and being taken care of!!!). Instead I had to keep going and eventually staggered to the end of the hill as we completed the training session. I wanted to swear and scream. I wanted to vomit and almost did on the crowded bus trip back to camp.

Having recovered from the early morning training session and had breakfast, we were to embark on another training session. On the schedule it read ‘interval’ training. This I understood to be in the gym and, like yesterday’s aerobics session, more in my comfort zone.

Instead the trainer gave everyone a choice and all bar two of us voted for outdoors. Obviously in the absence of equipment, I knew the training would involve that which I feared most – more hills. I was furious with my fellow guests. I was furious with my lack of choice. As I walked near the back of the group (down the first hills) I was livid and I was upset. Again I was the petulant child who didn’t want to play.

The trainer instructed us that we had to run up and back down this hill a number of times. Instead I walked at the back – not fast and not caring – with an injured member of the group. The trainer seemed to have forgotten that I had an injury anyway. I suspect he just thought I was fat and lazy. While I did the work, I wasn’t happy and in the comfort of my fellow guest, I burst into tears. In her third week, and the heaviest girl in the house (I am next) she was sympathetic.

I know myself well. It isn’t exactly the detox that is throwing me. The experience has been emotionally confronting. I am a control freak. I live alone, I am responsible only for me. I organize my own work program and that of others. I usually have complete control of all aspects of my life. Suddenly I am here and I am in control of nothing. I cannot decide what I want to eat. What I want to do. Instead we have a menu we adhere to. We have a 9.30pm curfew – which isn’t required as we are in bed by then anyway. We are told when to be where and where to be when.

In addition, obsessive by nature, I have tried to live without numbers for some time. Recalling my devastation each time I stepped on the scales I stopped weighing myself. At one point my doctor had me on a ‘healthy eating plan’ which didn’t allow me to count calories, or points, or fats, or any other kind of number. I was nervous about the seeming lack of parameters or controls, but it worked. For a while.

Here, it is all about the numbers. We wear a heart rate monitor all day. It is programmed with our height and weight and so it counts our calories as we burn them off. I easily burned off over 5000 on my first full day – and consumed less than 700 (though not all days have I burned off this many). We religiously write down our calories as we consume them and our calories burned after we expend them.

Day 4 has seen an improvement in my state of mind. Despite four training sessions today I feel much better, though some of this could be because those sessions involved no hills and no queasiness. It meant that I could engage more with my fellow campers and I attempted to be less negative about the whole experience. I really struggled on the previous two days. I hate to think how the others have perceived me. I am hoping that my stay here and my mindset are starting to turn themselves around.

We have a session tomorrow that involves climbing 1000 steps. Everything I hate in one fell swoop. I have obsessed about it since learning of it but realize there is nothing I can do in advance. Worrying won’t help me at all and in fact, it means my dread grows. My certainty that I am not capable of doing them needs to be challenged – I realize this. I can’t even imagine how hard it is going to be. Am I resilient enough? I never give up but I wonder if pushed hard enough, will I? I can only hope not.

Written on day 4 (14th May 2009). Subsequently posted.