On another thread, a coupld of ladies were talking about having gone to the same weight loss camp when they were younger and what a bad experience it was. It got me thinking about a book called "Fat Camp" that talked about the author's experiences at one, and also about the MTV "Real Life" series that features a bunch of teenagers at one of these places.
What's odd is that my personal experience was great and I was trying to figure out why. I'd say the main reasons it "worked" were that:
1. It was all girls, so there were fewer distractions and less worrying over how you looked and it was easier to bond with the other girls since nobody was thinking about, or competing over boys.
2. The camp focused on teaching portion control and had a low calorie but healthy eating plan. They emphasised that you could eat anything, just not a whole cheesecake or pizza. They made sure to have lots of so called "forbidden foods" just in smaller amounts. Sunday brunches were typically a "treat" sort of thing like a donut or pancakes so you did not miss any particular type of food or think "man, the second I leave here I can wait to eat ______"
3. There was lots of exercise, both scheduled and also lots of normal camp activities like Capture the Flag and relay races. The morning exercises were for around an hour and everyone did them together so we encouraged each other and everyone sweated and ached as a team. The fun activities let you exercise and be active without feeling like it was a boot camp.
4. Each girl got to pick three "elective" activities that were just normal camp stuff like arts and crafts or music. There were more active electives like volleyball and aerobics, so it was basically if you wanted to get more exercise you could, but they also emphasized that you didn't have to thinking of weight loss 24/7.
5. We had several field trips so we never felt like we were in this isolated "bubble" in which we were forced to eat low cal and workout but we'd evntually leave. The counselors constantly talked about how when we were out without supervision, what we ate was our choice and it was up to us to decide what we were going to do with that freedom. We knew how hard we were working at camp, and even though we might "cut loose" a bit, we also were made to think about the fact that we might be undoing a lot of hard work.
Sadly, I guess in the vein of results not being typical, the camp shut down. Maybe the recividism rate wasn't high enough
Does anyone else have any tales of fat camp either good or bad?
What's odd is that my personal experience was great and I was trying to figure out why. I'd say the main reasons it "worked" were that:
1. It was all girls, so there were fewer distractions and less worrying over how you looked and it was easier to bond with the other girls since nobody was thinking about, or competing over boys.
2. The camp focused on teaching portion control and had a low calorie but healthy eating plan. They emphasised that you could eat anything, just not a whole cheesecake or pizza. They made sure to have lots of so called "forbidden foods" just in smaller amounts. Sunday brunches were typically a "treat" sort of thing like a donut or pancakes so you did not miss any particular type of food or think "man, the second I leave here I can wait to eat ______"
3. There was lots of exercise, both scheduled and also lots of normal camp activities like Capture the Flag and relay races. The morning exercises were for around an hour and everyone did them together so we encouraged each other and everyone sweated and ached as a team. The fun activities let you exercise and be active without feeling like it was a boot camp.
4. Each girl got to pick three "elective" activities that were just normal camp stuff like arts and crafts or music. There were more active electives like volleyball and aerobics, so it was basically if you wanted to get more exercise you could, but they also emphasized that you didn't have to thinking of weight loss 24/7.
5. We had several field trips so we never felt like we were in this isolated "bubble" in which we were forced to eat low cal and workout but we'd evntually leave. The counselors constantly talked about how when we were out without supervision, what we ate was our choice and it was up to us to decide what we were going to do with that freedom. We knew how hard we were working at camp, and even though we might "cut loose" a bit, we also were made to think about the fact that we might be undoing a lot of hard work.
Sadly, I guess in the vein of results not being typical, the camp shut down. Maybe the recividism rate wasn't high enough
Does anyone else have any tales of fat camp either good or bad?
