The food here at Movara consists of 3 meals, carefully developed to provide you with about 1,200 calories a day, a fully stocked salad bar, and paired snacks (ie – a snack would be a banana and peanut butter, or an apple and a piece of cheese, etc.). Stay with the 1,200 calories if weight loss is your goal, or help yourself to all the other stuff your body needs. personally, I ate an added salad with lunch and dinner, and I had a snack around 8:00 pm each night. My total calories here were about 1,500/day.
Knowing I was going to work out 6 hours/day, I thought I was going to starve. But I didn’t! In fact I was completely satisfied all the time.
Filling up on nutrient dense foods ensures we are satisfied, and our body will signal we have fuelled it. If you respond to hunger by eating unhealthy food, your body will figure out it did not get what it needs, and will signal hunger again in just an hour or two.
Living in a Bubble
While you’re here, you have an intense schedule of activities. There are some options (for example you can choose a pool class over a HIIT class, or free time over a lecture). This was my typical day:
7:00 am breakfast
8:00 am – 8:45 am – Stretch Class
9:00 am – 12:00 pm – hike
12:15 pm – lunch
1:15 pm – 2:30 pm – lecture (eg Restriction/Chaos Diet Cycle)
2:30 pm – 3:15 pm – Treading Class (pick a cardio machine then go hard for 5 minutes, active recovery for 5, go hard for 4, active recovery for 4, etc etc)
3:30 pm – 4:15 pm – Total Body Tabata Class (20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest, 8 sets – then move to the next station. Stations included battle ropes, push-ups, burpees, Russian twists, etc).
4:30 pm – 5:15 pm – Choose pool class, stretch class or additional HIIT class
5:30 pm – Dinner (with desert)
6:15 pm – Lecture (eg Intuitive Eating) – this is when I would drink my extra electrolytes.
In the evenings I either watched tv, blogged, processed my pictures, got a massage, or played board games with the other guests.
The problem is, when you leave this place, you have to start making all your own choices. You have to shop for yourself, cook for yourself, decide whether or not to go to the gym, and on and on.
So Why Come Here if it Isn’t Representative of Real Life?:
Most of us have jobs and kids and a life. We won’t workout 6 hours/day when we get home, and we don’t have a chef cooking our meals and making sure we eat with optimum nutrition in mind. We don’t have a massage therapist down the hall, or a life coach to talk to when we need it.
For some, the purpose of coming here is to learn. For others, they come here to train. This is not a fat farm – there are real athletes here.
Most of the lessons taught here were ones I already knew on an intellectual level. However, living it for two weeks, and experiencing the truths behind the rules, is a whole different level of learning.
*I will walk away from here knowing I worked harder than I ever have in my life and I survived it. I have detoxed all the crap out of my body and it is beginning to tell me the truth again (your body’s hunger signals lie to you when you don’t eat properly). I have made some wonderful new friends who I will stay in touch with. I have experienced some fresh, clean Utah air, and drank in the beauty of my favourite state.
As for my results? See above*. But for hard numbers, I’ll find out tomorrow. Seriously though? Those numbers are secondary.
Me On A Trip 