Three more minutes and Day 2 is over!” screamed Sharon, our six-foot trainer, punching the air with her fists and tossing back her slick black hair, which perfectly matched her shiny black tracksuit.“Or should I make it funner?” she yelled.Knowing by now that Sharon’s favorite grammatically incorrect word, “funner,” was synonymous for “harder,” no one said a thing. Instead, the 20 of us in Group Orange remained focused on our circuit training activities — running, pedaling, lifting, squatting, climbing, lunging and sweating — the latter being something we were all doing quite well after nearly three hours of continuous exercise.“Guess what is on TV tonight?” Sharon shouted, standing beneath one of the many inspirational posters on the wall, this one of Heba Salama, a contestant from Season 6 of “The Biggest Loser” who lost 138 pounds and won $100,000. Those who could still breathe yelled back, “The Biggest Loser!”Barely hanging on to my treadmill, I refused to respond.

Right now, I hated my favorite TV show.That evening, immobilized with fatigue in our matching queen-size beds, I introduced my friend and roommate, Teresa, to the competitive weight-loss show she had heard about but had never seen. After witnessing the contestants pull themselves across a pool on a rubber ball, sprint a mile through the desert and burst into tears in the middle of their “Last Chance” workout, Teresa looked at me and said in her Virginia accent, “Honey, if I had seen this show a week ago, I never would have come here.”Two days earlier, on my 50th birthday, Teresa and I had checked into the Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge in Ivins, Utah, one of two residential exercise camps affiliated with the television show (the other is in Malibu, Calif., near “the Ranch,” which is where the actual show takes place). For Teresa and me, a fitness getaway was hardly our idea of a vacation, particularly as our friendship had begun 15 years earlier when we were both living in France, enjoying expensive wines over multicourse dinners.

But after sharing concern for our expanding waistlines, I knew exactly what we should do. Although fitness resorts have been around for decades, I had never, until now, been particularly tempted to go to one. But given my recent weight gain, and the fact that I was turning 50, I wanted to jump-start a program that would make 2012 the year I finally got in shape. So it only seemed fair that I should take a break from my husband and children for a week and invest in my health (and, yes, my vanity). Years ago, my father, my siblings and I fended for ourselves while my mother attended one of the earliest fitness resorts in the country, which Elizabeth Arden had opened at her summer home in Maine, called the Maine Chance. There, my mother told me, women padded around in slippers and pink robes, eating low-calorie meals from vegetables grown in the backyard and engaging in calisthenics and leg lifts.FLASH forward 40 years, when the words “institute,” “retreat,” “camp” or, more ominously, “boot camp” tagged onto a resort name are code words for “exercise and health.”

It might be a spa that also has a sleek gym offering exercise classes along with a vegan menu, or a full fitness program revolving around yoga, tennis, hiking or other sports, like Canyon Ranch, which opened in Tucson in the late ’70s and is now one of the most popular health retreats in the country. The “Biggest Loser” programs are some of the most recent entrants in the field, and their regimens, I would soon find out, are among the most rigorous.Vinyl Wood Flooring ForumDuring our one-week stay, which cost Teresa and me $1,995 each, we were placed on a diet of 1,200 calories a day (the lowest amount allowed without medical supervision). Yellow And White Elephant CurtainsAlcohol and caffeine were not allowed. How To Make A Lightbulb Light Up In Your Mouth

Each day, which began as early as 6 a.m., we engaged in three hours of exercise — one class took place in the pool — and a two-hour mountain hike. We attended lectures on emotional eating, nutrition, fitness, health management and meal planning. Our day officially ended at 6:15, though there were additional lectures offered after dinner. When we checked in on a recent Sunday afternoon, neither of us had any idea that weight loss was a 12-hour-a-day job. Certainly, our first impressions of the resort gave no indication of what we were in for. Following the winding paths that led to the red brick, Southwestern-style hotel building, we were relieved that the place looked more like a luxury resort than a fat camp. Tanning chairs and overstuffed sofas were scattered around the outdoor pool (later we would learn that Sharon made one class hurdle over them), and there was a bubbling Jacuzzi and a steam room. The resort also had a full spa, though treatments were extra.“This place doesn’t look so scary,” I said to Teresa, as we plopped our bags down in our room, decorated in burned orange to match the color of the spectacular mountains surrounding our wonderfully isolated resort.

There was little time to unpack. We had to turn in our signed agreements stating that Fitness Ridge was not responsible for any “injury, including death to any person suffered while at the resort or participating in the program.” Though standard for any health club, it felt strangely ominous when I looked at the weeklong schedule we were given. There was no free time unless you counted the 10 minutes we had to change for swim class or jog to our next “mountain” or “core” cardio class.“I don’t see a rest hour in here anywhere,” Teresa said, sounding panicked.Our paranoia only grew as we passed not one but three gyms on our way to the office and lecture building where we would have our official weigh-in. One was packed with cardio equipment, another filled with balance balls and free weights, and the last was a basketball court, where I would soon take my first-ever Zumba and kick-boxing classes, the latter with Sharon jumping and kicking around me kung fu style.Despite our wariness, we enjoyed our first low-calorie meal: a strangely filling dinner of turkey meatloaf with roasted sweet potato fries.

At the well-stocked salad bar, the only way to get some vinaigrette was for someone in the kitchen to bring you exactly one tablespoon. The meal ended with two strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. Less is more, we were quickly learning, as we hurried off to the “Welcome/Orientation” meeting, where Teresa and I were eager to size up our fellow campers, literally.Of the 41 of us checked in (many for several weeks), either cleverly or stupidly for the week before Thanksgiving, there were, not surprisingly, only six men. What was unexpected was how many of the women, like me, seemed to need to shed only 20 pounds or so — only a third of our group looked seriously overweight. Guests’ ages ranged from 19 to 69, and nearly everyone had come alone, happy to bunk with a stranger. But as we stood up, one by one, introducing ourselves, it became obvious that the weight everyone wanted to lose was minor compared with the reasons people were here. “I wanted some time to concentrate on just me,” said an unbelievably fit mother of four from the West Coast, who ended up spending her week in the most advanced-level hiking group.

“I want to get my mobility back,” an older man from England said, breaking down as he described a series of back surgeries he had undergone. (Sharon, whom we did not yet know, quickly ran to his side and rubbed his back, making us believe she was a gentle life coach, not a brutal trainer.) Teresa and I went to bed that night energized by everyone’s commitment to good health.AT 6 the next morning, we were doing sun salutations at the optional Yogalates class. By 8 a.m., after a 300-calorie breakfast (a frittata with spinach, feta and roasted red pepper), we were on our two-hour “assessment” hike. Having been told by an experienced guest that hiking quickly over the sand and rocks would only get us thrown into an advanced group, Teresa and I took our time, breathing in the chilly morning air as we hiked through canyons and valleys. Our plan worked, landing us in a midlevel hiking group of seven women with three guides, one of them a 70-year-old man.Later that first afternoon we met our trainers — Robin, Tiffany, Nicole and a host of others — the most popular being the handsome Sione Fa, a former TV competitor who is now a trainer for the Biggest Loser Resorts.