One of the most successful reality shows on television, to the surprise of many, is NBC’s The Biggest Loser. This program follows chubby couples and fatty families through the highs and lows of an intense weight loss competition. Millions tune in each week to see how the contestants are holding up without junk food, what techniques they’re using to get the pounds off, and which dieters break their commitment by binge eating. The show’s payoff is immensely satisfying: The rotund contestants invariably lose tremendous amounts of weight, and the before-and-after footage unveils makeovers as extreme as plastic surgery, without the scalpel.

If there’s one frustration with The Biggest Loser, it’s the nagging lack of reality in the reality show. Make no mistake: the weight loss depicted is real. But you can’t help but feel that if someone (say, a major broadcast network) made it your full-time job to get skinny in a hurry, you probably could get back into your thin pants in no time. Most dieters will tell you their biggest enemy is time (no time to work out, no time to cook healthy), and yet the Biggest Loser contestants have nothing but time on their hands.

Luckily, a few entrepreneurs have figured this out and have set up special resorts where you, too, will have nothing but time to get thin. Removed from the distractions of daily life, these fitness getaways are much, much more than fat camps – they’re full-service vacations that promise to send you home thinner, smarter and healthier. But mostly thinner.


THE BOOT CAMP VACATION
The first element to any successful weight loss resort is seclusion – it is crucial that you select a camp situated far from 24-hour drive-thru windows or Krispy Kreme factories. One of the most popular getaways is nestled among the redwoods of the Santa Monica Mountains: The Ashram. A favorite of celebrities for its proximity to Los Angeles as well as its proven results, The Ashram calls itself the “roughest, toughest, leanest, meanest, sweetest health retreat on the planet.”

For $4,000, Ashram clients can expect to drop 8-15 pounds over the course of a one-week visit. But they’ll have to work for it. A day at Ashram begins at 6am with an hour of morning yoga. A breakfast of juice and tea gets dieters amped up for a five-hour, 20-mile hike through rugged, mountainous terrain. You’ll no doubt be ready for lunch when you return from this heinous workout, and Ashram chefs will have prepared the perfect weight loss meal: half of a cheese sandwich. Eat quickly, because you still have an hour of weight lifting, an hour of pool aerobics, an hour of dance class, an hour of Pilates, and two more hours of yoga to squeeze in before you collapse into bed at 10pm. Did we forget to mention dinner? An all-vegetarian, all-organic, macrobiotic meal (usually brown rice, or maybe some fruit salad and yogurt) will help your growling gut make it to morning.

According to The Ashram, this intense schedule and 1,000-calorie-per-day diet will help you tap into your innate power to overcome obstacles. Hey, it worked for Renée Zellweger, who allegedly dropped her Bridget Jones heft after two consecutive weeks in residence.

Not every fitness resort is set up like a North Korean prison camp. In fact, most shy away from the gulag starvation techniques of The Ashram and instead spend big money on celebrity chefs who can make a plate of veggies sing with flavor. At Green Mountain, an equally secluded forest getaway in Ludlow, Vermont, overweight guests will still be kept moving for most of the day (aerobics, hiking, weight training, and swimming classes dot the daily schedule), but won’t be starved. In fact, with Green Mountain’s motto of “weight loss without dieting” comes another trademarked phrase: “Lose weight by eating, not starving.”

Typical Green Mountain menus include mouthwatering meals like maple-glazed salmon with wild rice pilaf, or baked Cornish hen with sweet potatoes and veggies. In contrast to The Ashram, the women at Green Mountain (sorry, fellas, this resort has a female-only policy) are fed at regular intervals – for every calorie-burning class, there’s an accompanying meal or snack – and pampered: To help pass the time, aromatherapy massages, relaxing facials and movie nights (with low-fat popcorn, of course) are included in fees that run in the neighborhood of $3,000 per week.


HIT THE BOOKS
One or two weeks of accelerated exercise and conscientious eating will cause anyone to lose weight. While Green Mountain offers guests a class on nutrition, experts agree that permanent weight loss cannot happen without long-range lifestyle changes. For adults who’ve spent a lifetime eating incorrectly, weight loss training includes much more than lifting barbells. Cooper Wellness Center in Houston, Texas fills this void with a program not unlike Green Mountain’s – days filled with kickboxing, yoga and spinning classes – but ratchets up the education component.

In fact, would-be dieters might be surprised to learn that more than half of the day at Cooper Wellness is spent not in the gym, but in the classroom. Guests are schooled in the science of nutrition, adopt healthy eating through gourmet cooking classes, and learn to set (and keep) personal goals in success management courses. In addition, therapeutic and informative seminars are held on topics of stress management, anxiety reduction, relaxation training, and other behavior modification techniques that address the root causes of problem eating.

If you thought $3,000-$4,000 per week was expensive, Cooper Wellness might give you sticker shock. Packages here can run up to $4,795 per person, and that doesn’t include accommodations (an additional $135-$345 per night), physical exams, body weight testing and other nutrition assessments ($645-$2,400 per individual), or spa treatments ($60 per hour and up). On the plus side, Cooper Medical leaves behind the summer-camp cabin motif in favor of a more upscale setting. Still, the emphasis here is on weight loss, and with all the doctors, specialists, medical technicians and nurses running around, many might have a difficult time fully unwinding.


THE POOLSIDE DIET
If you put a premium on relaxation, pull up a chaise lounge at the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Aventura, Florida. Another popular getaway for celebrities (populist Michael Moore betrayed his blue-collar roots by plunking down $4,800 per week for a recent month-long stint here), Pritikin is kinda like Hawaii’s exclusive Mauna Kea Hotel turned into a fat camp. Sprawling grounds are filled with swimming pools, championship golf courses, and multiple spa centers that offer everything from reflexology and acupressure treatments to Botox injections and pulsed light skin treatments.

If guests can be coaxed from their luxury hotel room balconies, they’ll have plenty of chances to eat – at minimum, five a day – en route to thinning down. Working off a luxury, er, diet menu developed by the center’s founder, 1950s inventor Natahn Pritikin, guests gorge on a lean-meat/no-dairy menu of stone crab, grilled filet of bison, tuna carpaccio and even chocolate mousse. The Wall Street Journal joked that guests may need to go on a diet before checking in to Pritikin, although with a heavy schedule of exercise-based activities, it’s unlikely anyone will leave heavier than they arrived.

For many, attending a fat camp – even one disguised as a hiking adventure or a tropical resort – doesn’t really sound like a vacation. After all, vacations are when you leave behind schedules, get away from being told what to do, and actually put in some down time. While the aforementioned programs have their respective selling points, relaxation doesn’t seem to be a key component in the marketing.

Enter Canyon Ranch, the most incognito fit farm in the United States. To the casual observer, Canyon Ranch is simply a domestic version of Club Med: an upscale, all-inclusive family resort (located in either Lenox, Massachusetts or Tucson, Arizona) packed with free activities from skiing to kickboxing to kayaking. But here’s the catch: You don’t have to do anything. That’s right, rather than putting you on a daily schedule like a grade schooler, Canyon Ranch treats you like an adult. They assume you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t want to lose weight (why else would you pay up to $8,430 per week) and simply provide you with the calorie-burning options to get the job done. It doesn’t matter if you want to squeeze in a dozen activities a day, or would rather lounge around between occasional rounds of golf and dips in the pool – Canyon Ranch doesn’t care. They even feature pizza and hot fudge sundaes on their dinner menu. It seems that by emphasizing the “vacation” element of “diet vacation,” Canyon Ranch has been able to get amazing results – with the constant pressure to diet removed, clients focus on an active lifestyle. Here, you won’t see the pouting faces of calorie-starved boot camp slaves, as you might on a visit to The Ashram, but the smiles of people discovering the fun of outdoor exercise in a relaxed atmosphere. In fact, Canyon Ranch is considered so laid back and pressure-free that many guests return long after they’ve lost the weight just for the amenities and activities.

Truth be told, you don’t need a book to eat healthy, you don’t need a gym membership to work out, and you certainly don’t need to fork over several thousand dollars to a fat camp to get it through your head that more exercise + less eating = thinner you. But, if your diet has stalled (or can’t get properly started), a fitness vacation could be just the fix. Stop the carb counting and pack your bags: The new, thin you is waiting in baggage claim.

Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa
Aventura, FL
www.pritikin.com

Cooper Wellness Center
Dallas, TX
www.cooperaerobics.com

Canyon Ranch
Lenox, MA and Tucson, AZ
www.canyonranch.com

The Ashram
Santa Monica, CA
www.theashram.com

Green Mountain at Fox Run
Ludlow, VT
www.fitwoman.com