Hello, Mountaintop...Goodbye, Muffin Top

“It’s not canyon ranch,” my Naples neighbor Jimmy LeSage tells me for about the fourth time in this conversation. “New Life Hiking Spa isn’t a lavish resort with imported linens and gold-plated bath fixtures. If you want white-glove room service, go to Canyon Ranch. It’s a great place, and [founders] Mel and Enid Zuckerman are my dear friends.”

Jimmy, a former gourmet chef with a master’s degree in counseling, coincidentally established his program in 1978, the same year the Zuckermans opened the famed Canyon Ranch. One operates year-round in palatial surroundings. The other takes over an anything-but-posh Killington, Vt., ski hotel during the off-season. Both win accolades. This year, MSNBC named New Life Hiking Spa among the top 10 fitness vacations in the world. 

New Life is boot camp. Literally. Don’t even bother to show up, Jimmy warns me, without high-top, ankle-supporting hiking boots. 

“Is losing weight your goal? Take advantage of my program and you probably will,” he says. “If you want to jump-start a healthy, fit lifestyle—or just do some great hiking in Vermont, I guarantee you the tools to do that.”

There will be no weigh-ins and no personalized program plan (unless I sign up for one). A marker board in the lounge lists each day’s schedule of fitness activities, demonstrations, adventures and lectures. I can do as many or as few as I want. And here’s the spa part: Every third day of my stay, I get a complimentary massage, facial, reflexology or personal training session, or $75 toward other spa services. Everything’s included, down to the backpacks, hiking sticks and water bottles. The rates are shockingly low—about $200 per person, per night for the 11-day package.

I adore glamorous destination spas. I do. But here’s the bottom line: I have this beloved pair of lavender silk pants and a hot pair of stretch jeans that I haven’t been able to zip up since I got smacked by a truck a couple of years ago. Being sedentary for two years has a way of reducing muscle mass to a softer (unmentionable) body element, and it also gives you the lung capacity of a peanut. I’m ready to (temporarily) get off the therapists’ tables and onto the trail. 

That’s how I came to be flitting through a deepening sunset in a nine-passenger Cape Air Cessna 402 toward my new life at a funky lodge in the Green Mountains of Vermont. I plan to keep a detailed log of every minute, as the inches melt away.

Arrival day—Tuesday

Stashing the chocolate

8 p.m.: With “weather” all over New England today, my flight into Rutland, Vt., (near Killington) is cancelled. So we’re flying into the nearest airport in Lebanon, N.H. A distinguished-looking fellow passenger, who turns out to be a retired attorney, is also bound for New Life. He wonders if I’m planning to ditch the remaining half of my dark chocolate bar before arrival. No way, dude.

10 p.m.: The Inn of Six Mountains is pretty much asleep. The night clerk hands me a key and some papers and directs me to my second-floor room. It’s the only time I’ll use the elevator for 11 days. I stash my chocolate in the back of the desk drawer. Too tired to unpack, I grab the top item in my suitcase—some sweat pants. Sleep comes easy.

Day 1—Wednesday

Droopy Muffin

The guide has to be joking. Our hiking trail is named Droopy Muffin? How cruel is that? No woman named this trail. It’s the intermediate choice among today’s hikes. “Beginner,” called a nature walk, takes a level road to a farm, where they may be shearing sheep today. But most of the women at my table are choosing “Intermediate.” My pride is at stake, so Droopy Muffin it is.

Intermediate hikes combine gravel back roads and snowmobile paths, forested mountain trails, marshes and ponds, rocky climbs and mountain peaks. But I’m ahead of myself.

Backtracking to 7 a.m.: A gossamer mist drifts over the sharp mountain peak beyond my window. Pico, maybe—a 1,967-foot vertical drop. (Please, Lord, don’t let that be my destination today.) Some people in sweats are walking across the lush lawn toward the arched white trellis in a tall, manicured hedge. On the other side is a huge white tent. According to my paper from last night, this must be morning stretch followed by qigong. I run a brush through my hair, grab my gym shoes and go.

“The Tent” turns out to be the hub of New Life’s fitness program. Except for the hiking, water aerobics and spinning, everything physical happens here. Stretch class is gentle and refreshing. I confess: Kip, the exquisitely toned qigong master, would be very compelling to watch as he leads us through the controlled energy movements of this dance-like meditation. But I’m starving, and breakfast starts in five minutes.

With the main restaurant closed for the season, the casual dining room is reserved for New Life. Four tables of eight are nearly filled, mostly with women 30-ish to 70-something. There’s an anesthesiologist, a psychologist, several doctors and nurses, two female soldiers, a caterer, an artist and various business people. One guest is training for a half marathon; another for a climb to Machu Picchu; another for deployment to Afghanistan. 

We get three breakfast choices. There’s a blueberry/banana protein smoothie and half a whole-grain muffin with a minuscule drop of fruit spread—no butter. Or a scrambled egg or a tasty one-egg omelet du jour. The center of the table is piled with boxes of herbal teas, non-salt condiments, water pitchers and a carafe of decaf.

9 a.m.: Thirty hikers are gathered beneath the porte-cochère. Jimmy is whizzing around like the cartoon roadrunner, organizing vans, checking lists, making sure everybody gets a water bottle and an apple.

Then we’re off.

It’s a gorgeous, blue-sky, 70-degree morning. But why do I see everyone bounding up the mountain so fast, and what is that awful wheezing and panting sound? Oh, it’s my lungs, about to explode. And we’ve only gone half a mile. A guide drops back to keep an eye on me.