Green Mountain at Fox Run is a weight loss haven in beautiful Ludlow, Vermont. But it is not the place to lose ten pounds in a week. Green Mountain has a long history of helping women develop a healthier relationship with food, and with themselves.
It’s where you come from when you want to stop dieting and start healing your relationship with food. This is where you come to put aside the “good food / bad food” model, diet and deprivation. And in the process, you develop a healthier relationship with food that makes you healthier.
Most women come for four weeks because it takes so long to change the habits of a lifetime. The program is highly structured, with an emphasis on three key areas: behavior, nutrition, and physical activity.
Talented and Passionate Professionals
An incredibly talented team delivers lectures that help you become a skilled eater or find your physical soul. Experience a healthy, structured diet and fun exercise. Personal counseling can help if you have behavior problems, such as bingeing.
There are many kinds of exercise and time to walk (called “Vermonting”) on an old log trail. As you go through the program, you have fewer lectures and more activity. The facility itself is a sixties motel, nicely remodeled. It is simple, but very comfortable and clean.
A new way of eating
I was surprised at how good and filling the food was. We had three meals a day where they taught us how to follow “the plate pattern”: half an eight-inch plate filled with green vegetables, a quarter for their starch, and a quarter for their protein. (This is a feeding tool that Green Mountain has been using since the early 1990s, and that Michelle Obama introduced to the nation.) We could have two healthy snacks.
“Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and enjoyment is good medicine,” said Marsha Hudnall, a registered dietitian who is the program’s director. Eat what feels good. That doesn’t mean downing off a gallon of ice cream, but rather starting to pay attention to what you really like and what makes you feel satisfied, and developing a diet to accommodate that. We learned to be more mindful when eating.
My daily diet at home is generally healthy, but I found that I need more structure, more variety, more flavor, and more regular “treats” for dessert a few times a week. Since I don’t include that in my usual routine, when it’s available, in a restaurant or at a party, I overdo it and feel bad afterward.
A woman I befriended said that she lost five pounds in a month last year. He wouldn’t do that on “The Biggest Loser.” But he dropped dramatically in inches because he lost fat and gained muscle, which weighs more. Better yet, he learned to secretly stop eating. A year later, she dropped four dress sizes. “It was a life-changing experience,” he told me. That’s because the changes you make to your eating habits here are sustainable.
I was advised to cut back on my morning weigh-ins, because it makes you focus on one number rather than how you feel.
Green Mountain at Fox Run may be a healthy weight loss program, but it’s not just about losing weight. It’s about feeling good, eating well, and being active. I’ve never really been anywhere that addresses these topics about women and food, health and body image, exercise and vitality, so compassionately or effectively. I felt like they were lifting a huge weight, even if it wasn’t 10 pounds in a week.
