BONUS EXCERPT: "MONEY CAN'T BUY THIN"

Thin – ain’t being funny
Thin – but let’s face it honey
Thin – if all it took was money
I’d look like a Playboy Bunny!

- Lyrics from the song “Thin!” on SkinnySongs

I am a People magazine junkie. This may not seem like a cool thing to admit, but I read it every week and I even love to read the letters to the editor, where people write in about the articles from the week before. Every time there is a story about how this star or that star lost weight, there is the inevitable letter from someone who says, “Well sure, if I had a lot of money, I could hire a personal trainer and a chef, and I’d be back in my skinny jeans too.”

I’m living proof that this is not the case.

The software company I co-founded in the 1980s, T/Maker, created the first consumer “clip art” package -- royalty-free digital artwork made for use on early desktop publishing applications for the Mac and later the PC. It is so simple to grab images off the web today that it is easy to forget that there was a time when you turned on a personal computer and all that came up was that glowy, square text and the only graphics were created by underlines and text symbols. When the Mac came along and made graphics a more standard feature, we were the people that let you put a Christmas wreath in the corner of your December letter to your customers, or a firecracker on the invitation to your July 4 barbecue.

When I was 36, T/Maker was acquired by a much larger company and I became an instant (after twelve years of hard work) millionaire. I am not telling you this to brag. I am telling you this so that if you’ve secretly been blaming your weight problems on a lack of funds for deluxe or personalized solutions, you can now get over that idea. Like those People letter writers, you may have been thinking that to be fit and thin requires money, and that if you only could hire chefs and trainers, and go to expensive spas, you’d be exactly where you need to be. Well, I did all that over the course of fifteen years and went from 145 to 190. Remember that one of the richest women in the world, Oprah Winfrey, is also weight-plagued. She can outbid me for the size two Dolce and Gabbana but even her money can’t make it fit.

I know you are skeptical. But I need to get you past this fantasy so you’ll move on to what will work. Therefore, I am going to chronicle my experiences with private chefs, trainers, spas, and even liposuction to convince you that none of these things will solve your problems on their own.

Spas and Health Retreats

As soon as I could afford it, I happily became a spa addict. I’ve been to Rancho La Puerta, the Green Valley Spa, Canyon Ranch (four times) and the Ashram (six times.) I’ve been to spas within hotels, like the lovely spa at the Grand Wailea in Hawaii. I’ve hiked, boxed, pilates-ed, yoga-d, water-aerobicized, tai-bo’d, and even pole danced. I’ve spent $75,000 going to spas over the last dozen years or so. That’s a Mercedes!

Each of these programs is slightly different, and each one promises to give you the tools and training you need to get on track. Let’s just focus on one, which happens to be the most intense of the retreats I’ve taken: The Ashram.

Located in Calabasas, California, about an hour from Los Angeles, the Ashram is tantalizingly close to a kajillion restaurants, bars, and all the great shopping you could possibly ever want in Beverly Hills. But, since they don’t let you bring a car, and there’s no going off campus, Rodeo Drive may as well be a light year away. For a week, you shall remain at the Ashram, so put all that other stuff out of your head – ‘cause you ain’t going there.

Let me describe a typical day at the Ashram. You get up at 6 am, having spent the night in a room shared with a stranger (if you didn’t bring a friend) and shower in a bathroom you share with three other people. You fix yourself a cup of tea (no caffeine, no milk, no sweeteners allowed) and you head up to the Yoga Dome, with the other dozen people who are all there for the week. This is, by the way, one of the best things about the Ashram. You get to meet a small group of interesting people all on their personal journeys, and a lot gets stripped away pretty quickly. I’ve only ever met one nasty person there, who talked on her cell phone during the hikes – an absolute no-no. I suspect they will never let her come back again. But I digress…

After an eye-opening hour of yoga, you head back down to the house for breakfast. But don’t get all excited. Breakfast is maybe one piece of very organic bread, the likes of which you’ve never seen in a Wonder wrapper, with maybe a teaspoon of almond butter on it. This is accompanied by something that looks like orange juice, but it is green and tastes somewhere between citrus and algae – which are in fact its two main ingredients.

Thusly nourished, you get in the van and drive 20 minutes to a trailhead, with your Camelback water pack on your back. The hikes range every day, from the ‘short’ nine mile day to the long fifteen mile day and they always seem to have more ‘up’ than ‘down’ to them. These hikes take anywhere from three to five or six hours, depending on length, difficulty, and, of course, on the condition in which you arrived.

Midway through the hike, you get a snack. If you call carrots, celery, watermelon, orange or apple a snack. And, don’t eat too much, because you might puke on the second half of the hike -- which inevitably at least one or two people do on the second full day, affectionately known as “Detox Tuesday,” because that is when your lack-of-caffeine headache and your sugar withdrawals are climaxing. On my fourth trip to the Ashram I took my friend Diana, who was definitely not an exerciser at that time. She cried herself to sleep the first three nights, until, she said, shock took over. She was the slowest hiker of that week’s group, but on Detox Tuesday she came down ahead of two others. “I beat two people down!” she exclaimed. “Does it count if they were puking their guts out?” Sounds pretty glamorous, no? Wait, we are just warming up.

Back in the van, there is hushed anticipation about lunch. Hushed, because we’re all tuckered out, not because we expect some big fancy meal. Back at the Ashram, we are given a few minutes to freshen up, and then all are seated at the communal table, where we are served delicious but eensy weensy entrees, with no meat, no butter. Yes, for all that exertion you are rewarded with a vegan quinoa salad. My favorite day is Taco Day where they give you a couple little corn tortillas (think like the equivalent of five chips) and what I call a one-lick salsa dish. Please don’t make me explain how I came up with this name. Taco Day is usually around Thursday, and trust me, by Thursday you have no shame.

Now, after such a morning in the real world, you’d be giving yourself a gold medal (or maybe a purple heart) – but at the Ashram, your day is just kicking off. After lunch, there is pool class – another hour of doing leg kicks, running in the pool, and playing volleyball. I hadn’t played volleyball since high school and it turns from an awkward and polite exercise on Monday to a trash-talkin’, all-that-matters-is-winning brawlfest by Friday. The good news is that the pool is about 95 degrees, so your muscles get some good relaxing even while you are burning those calories.

There is a daily massage. This becomes what you live for. You get your massage at some point during the afternoon classes, and your goal the rest of the week becomes how to get the massage slot opposite the class you dislike the most.

After pool class, we head to the gym for an hour of strength training. Then there’s some other class using the ballet bar or dancing or some other way they’ve come up with to disguise exercise as something new and fun. It’s tiring just reading this, but no, the day’s still not over. There’s another hour of Yoga. After all, you need to stretch out those muscles because you’re gonna be using them tomorrow.

Now it’s time for dinner, which again, is macrobiotic, vegan, served on a single plate, and of course is not accompanied by a fine Merlot. After dinner it is time for bed. If you think you are going to read, forget it. You are too tired. God forbid you go there as a couple expecting some nookie. For a place with close quarters and thin walls, it is the quietest evening environment you have ever experienced.

And, need I say -- there are no chocolates on your pillow when you turn in for the night.

In fact, I was once there over Valentine’s Day, and Doctor Husband sent me a dozen red roses with a Kit-Kat bar on a stick in the middle of the arrangement. He called me later to ask how I liked the flowers, and asked about the Kit-Kat bar. I reported that, when the flowers were delivered to my room, there was no Kit-Kat bar. Turns out it had been confiscated by the office administration before they delivered the bouquet to my room, just so I wouldn’t be tempted!

So, why on earth would a reasonably intelligent, self-respecting, value-conscious woman like me repeatedly subject herself to torture like this?

Well, I kept telling myself that a spa trip would reset me and put me on the right track. I’d go there, break my old habits, come back renewed, refreshed, lighter, tighter, and ready to turn over a new leaf. So, once or maybe twice a year, I’d hire a sitter, kiss my family goodbye, and traipse off to one of these places, filled with good intentions, a Camelback, and new hiking shoes. I’d faithfully follow the diet plans and go to all the classes. Yep, every time, it was the start of a new life.

Not.

In fact, I finally came to the following almost-comical realization (though it took me many years to act on it.): I was out to dinner with my old friend Julia, who has been the same size since high school, and once again she was eating steamed veggies, skinless chicken breast, and foregoing the wine.

“Isn’t it funny,” I said to her. “You run, lift weights, avoid alcohol, watch every calorie, and eat no sugar -- so that on your vacation, you can spend thousands of dollars to go to some nice resort, drink cocktails with umbrellas in them, eat juicy steaks, get no exercise and lie around in the sun reading all day. I on the other hand, live my regular life eating red meat, using sugar, drinking wine, and rarely getting exercise -- but then on my vacation I spend thousands of dollars to go to some fancy spa where I skip red meat, get no alcohol or sugar, watch every calorie, and get tons of exercise.”

What’s wrong with that picture? I’ll tell you. Health and fitness is a lifestyle, not something you bring home like a souvenir from a week at camp. Anybody can be awesome for a short time in a completely controlled environment. Away from the stress of work and kids, with every meal prepared for me, with lovely walking trails and enthusiastic trainers, with no wine in sight, and with a host of companions all determined to ‘be good,’ I am freakin’ Wonder Woman. But that is not my life. And unless I want to go live at Canyon Ranch (which, by the way, some people actually do) and give up my job and my family, this is not the solution.

What a fitness vacation experience can do for you -- especially if you can go for a week, and you really put your mind to it, with something as intense as the Ashram – is give you a glimpse of what a dramatic change you can make to yourself even in just six or seven days. Every time I’ve gone to the Ashram, I’ve lost 5 or 6 pounds in a week. Guys do even better, most dropping 10 or more. If you are mildly addicted to anything (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol) you will rid your body of that over the course of the week. That has both psychological as well as physical benefits – it is nice to know that you won’t keel over and die without your morning latte or your evening martini. (As one of my friends proudly proclaimed at the end of Detox Tuesday – “Look, I’m not even shaking!”) And you will be amazed at how quickly your muscles and your shape respond to exercise. Even after only six days, you might spy a rib cage, a waistline, or an abdominal cut. Whoa!

All that said, after my sixth trip to the Ashram when I, remarkably, weighed in on the first day at more than my prior weigh-in a year earlier (yes, they keep records) and found the week harder than it had been before, I remember saying to my roommate: “I’m done. I’m never doing this again.”

I realized, that after six times, I was not learning anything new. I already proved I could physically survive the program. Already felt like Superman at the top of the hill on Friday’s hike. Already survived without Cosmos, sugar, caffeine, and meat. Already learned to swallow the algae citrus goop.

More importantly, I realized that I was spending my precious week of vacation, and thousands of dollars, to put a temporary fix on a recurring problem. As I said, it was a great experience, but it was not the solution. I needed a permanent solution, and this was not it. Spas are great in many ways, but they didn’t provide a permanent solution to my problem, and they won’t solve yours either. So let’s move on.[1] <#_ftn1>

[1] <#_ftnref1> DOCTOR HUSBAND WEIGHS IN. I went to the Ashram once with Heidi after a doctor buddy told me about all the naked movie stars with sore muscles he once massaged in the Jacuzzi. Unfortunately that was in the '80s and things had changed by our visit – the celebrities were all off at various rehabs. The current regimen left me so used up the only sexual fantasy I had was to be tied to the bed and left there alone. I humped the trails with a 40-pound pack, as I was training for a medical relief mission in the mountainous jungles of Burma. This was a nice boon to my fellow Ashramians, as they could use my rucksack as a convenient storage facility for water and cast-off clothing. I looked like an aerial refueling tanker with people trailing behind sucking off Camelback hoses. The Ashram has intense exercise and reduced caloric intake down to a science and you’re guaranteed to lose at least five pounds. At $1000 bucks a pound, I'd prefer to accomplish the same thing for free with a backpack and a trail map of a hilly wilderness area.

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