MANCHESTER, Vt. -- Don't bring a 'fat farm' attitude to the Equinox Health Spa, the idea that this is a one-stop place to sweat off your excess tonnage and then resume your old lifestyle.
If your goal is to shed 'x' number of pounds, spa co-director Susan Thorne-Thomsen may tell you to take your flab elsewhere.
The philosophy at this small, user-friendly spa is to put customers on a fitness regimen through intensive coaching and assistance, followed by encouragement to maintain the routine when the customer returns home.
'Spas should be used as a learning experience. Quick fixes do not work -- in anything. Fitness is just another part of your life,' says Thorne-Thomsen.
'You have to take the routines back with you and apply them to your own lifestyle,' she said. 'There has to be a total behavior modification if you want to be healthy.'
The spa opened in 1987 on the grounds of the Equinox Hotel, an elegant 200-year-old facility with stately white pillars that reopened in 1985 after an 18-month, $20 million restoration.
Once the centerpiece of this summer resort town, the Equinox is a hotel with history. Mary Todd Lincoln and her children spent their summers there. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, William H. Taft, Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt signed into the guest register at varying times.
Directors Roger and Susan Thorne-Thomsen ran their own Nautilus and cardiovascular training centers in the Hartford, Conn.-Springfield, Mass., areas before starting the spa last year.
Both are certified fitness professionals. All members of their staff, which numbers from seven to 12 depending on the season, have degrees in varying aspects of fitness or physical education.
The spa program limits its enrollment to 15 persons at a time, though facilities are open to other hotel guests on an a la carte basis.
The Equinox program begins with a computerized body composition analysis. Electrodes placed on one hand and one foot measure the body fat percentage, the amount of lean tissue and the percentage of body water -- all of which are used to determine ideals for exercise, weight gain or loss and nutrition.
The regimen then shifts to a spa cuisine, personalized Nautilus and free weight training, exercise and swim aerobics classes, and seminars on exercise physiology, nutrition and stress management.
The program is topped off with a daily massage, use of sauna, steam bath and whirlpools, and a skin conditioning phase that includes an herbal wrap and a Scandinavian loofa scrub.
'The media has confused everyone so much about health and fitness,' Thorne-Thomsen said. 'Magazine covers show a woman who looks slim, gorgeous and 25. In many cases, she's really 16 or 18 and made up to look 25.'
She recommends a gradual increase in exercise levels, so each individual can learn their own limitations and what works best for his or her body.
'Too much exercise and you'll get injury or burnout,' she said. 'You have to look at exercise time as 'self time,' too. If you take that little bit of time for yourself, it's a stress release.'
While exercise regimens vary with each individual's available time and scheduling, Thorne-Thomsen personally prefers working out in late afternoon.
'It's a time in the day when the body's metabolism naturally begins to slow down,' she said. 'If you can make time to go work out, it really helps put your metabolism on an upswing again.'
Equinox Spa rates, including lodging and meals, begin at $728 for three nights, $1,401 for a full week, based on accomodations and season.
For more information, write: The Equinox Spa, Manchester Village, VT. 05254. Telephone (802) 362-4700, extension 888.
