Manage My Fat Monday!

Hello there guys and gals. No new weight loss to report today. I'm going to blame it on bloating and water retention thanks to a visit from Aunt Flo. Well that and I haven't been exercising or eating right this past week. But do not despair because we still have some exciting stuff to talk about today.

This past Saturday I auditioned for The Biggest Loser. They had an open casting call right here in Mobile at Veets on Royal Street from 10am-6pm and Matthew and I were in line bright and early at 7:45am. My hair stayed down for all of about 5 minutes. It only took about 15 for the heat to become a serious pain in the butt as we were standing directly in the path of the sun. By 9am I knew there were going to be some stanky folks auditioning!




The news and NBC's website said not to come more than 2-3 hours early so we got there just before 8 and there were already about 115 people in line and it had stretched around the block. I think by the time we left just over 200 people had shown up to audition. Through out the morning a security guy from Veets walked the line checking on people and he said when he was closing the bar at 3am the 'night' before people were already lining up. We waited in the line for just over 6 hours so I can only imagine how wilted they looked by the time they made it in to meet with the casting directors!

With nothing to do other than stand and sweat we got a chance to chat with some of the other people in line. Since the show is mostly looking for couples this season, most had come with a family member or friend, but there were several who were brave enough to show up to audition alone. (Me!)

These two pretty ladies were direcly in front of us in line. I never got the name of the girl with the fan but the other gal's name is Patricia and she was a nut! She had us laughing most of the day and bought water or power-aid for the people nearest us in line more than once! By 2:30 we were all about to pass out from hunger and heat exhaustion so she ordered one hella fantastic veggie pizza from Veets and shared that with us too. I hope she makes the show, she'll be a blast to watch!

The weather man said it was supposed to rain but like usual he had no idea what he was talking about. Thankfully we listened anyway and brought an umbrella because it ended up providing life saving shade for most of the wait! When we finally moved up to a place in line where the trees offered some shade we shared the umbrella with some of our new friends so they could cool off some too.

One of the highlights of the day was meeting an actual 'reality star'!
Me and Marguerite Perrin from Trading Spouses

Also known as 'that crazy Christian lady'

Here is her famous melt down at the end of the show

She kept walking the line and I finally stopped her and asked if I could take her picture. She said 'Well sure honey, would you like to take it with me?'. Then she spent a few minutes asking me about the tattoo on my wrist and said she wanted to get one for her daughter, but was scared it would hurt too bad. I didn't know until after I got home and looked her up, but her oldest daughter was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. Maybe that's why she seemed so much more sedate than I expected.

By 3pm we finally made it inside. They'd started bringing in groups of 24 and then breaking those down into groups of 8 for interviews. The casting assistant said they wanted to give us a few minutes to cool off and compose ourselves before meeting the casting directors and after 6 plus hours in the blazing hot sun we needed it!

They had two casting directors there. This guy ~> and a cutie named Holland who ended up interviewing my group.

Here is my table of fatties, and us lining up to get ready to be interviewed.

Our interview lasted about fifteen minutes. She asked us who was our favorite contestant on the show, if we had any other family members who couldn't make it but were interested in being on the show, had we ever been thin (HA!) and just some general chit chat to feel out personalities and people's determination to be on the show and lose weight.

There were a set of twins in our group who could have been mirror images of each other down to the same hair cut and she messed with them a bit asking one girl if she'd be willing to vote off her sister. The looks on their faces to that question were ruthless!

As everyone was getting up and walking away from the table she stopped me and asked if I was sure I didn't have a family member or friend who could do the show with me. I flipped through my application to some pictures I'd printed of my brother, sister and I all together to show her that fat didn't exactly run in my family.

She smiled at the pictures and said 'Well we'll definitely still consider you as an individual applicant for the show'.

There were 3 other people at my table auditioning alone and I'm the only one she stopped. Made me think my chances might be good!

They told us that if we were chosen for a call back we'd get a phone call by 8pm that night. My phone rang at 6:30pm. It was Holland and she said they didn't have time to do call backs for second interviews so she wanted me to make a video and e-mail it directly to her so she could show it to the producers of the show. She said she'd send me an e-mail with all the details of what I needed in my video and I quote "We're definitely interested in considering you for this season of the show".

I've yet to get the e-mail from her but it's only been a day and they are still doing casting calls all over the country so if I don't get it by the end of the week I'll give her a call.

Needless to say I've been a mixture of nerves and boundless excitement since that call came in. I just have to make sure to create one hell of an entertaining video so the producers will like me as much as Holland apparently did!

Keep your fingers crossed!!!!

Now it's Herman, and Sherman, and me..

When I was in elementary school I remember over-hearing a song on the playground that went something like this....

Herman, what have you done to me?
Herman, I think it's pregnancy.
Herman, you stuck your d**k in me.
Now it's Herman, and Sherman and Meeee.

I can hear the parents now 'OMG what kind of elementary school did you go to!?!' A good one actually, but it was grades 1-6 and all ages had recess together, so us younger kiddies were bound to overhear some 'big kid' talk now and then.

I have somewhat of a photographic memory and well unfortunately the song has stuck in my head all these years. There was a pretty naughty one about Batman too but I'll spare you those lyrics.

Now before you think I've lost what sense I have, let me tell you there is a reason for torturing you with that memory.

Yesterday on twitter an online friend tweeted the following:

f**k... one of my best female friends may be preggo... shes gone effin insane.

When someone else asked him if he was involved the reply he gave was 'I dont think i was involved. Could be wrong, but the timing is off...'.

I gave him a halfhearted 'shame on you' and 'you should use protection' to which he answered 'I was protected, but it's still possible something happened.'

Before I hop on my soap box let me share some numbers. Courtesy of www.thenationalcampaign.org

About one in two pregnancies in America are unplanned.(i) 1

• That is, over three million of the 6.4 million pregnancies in the United States annually are unplanned.1 Moreover, about two-thirds of unplanned pregnancies—two million—are unwanted.(ii) 2 In other words, about one in three pregnancies are unwanted.




• The rate of unplanned pregnancy remained constant between 1994 and 2001 at 51 unplanned pregnancies per 1,000 women age 15-44.1 During the same time period, the rate of unwanted pregnancy increased slightly (4%)—from 31.9 to 33.2 unwanted pregnancies per 1,000 women age 15-44.3




• Over three-quarters (76%) of all unplanned pregnancies occur to women in their teens and twenties.1,2 While the majority of all teen pregnancies are unplanned (more than half a million unplanned pregnancies to teens each year), there are also more than one and a half million unplanned pregnancies to women in their twenties each year.

Here are some more...figures provided by http://www.abortionno.org/

• UNITED STATES
  Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
  Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700




• Who's having abortions (age)?
  52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%.




• Why women have abortions
  1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

In 2005 there were 11,340 abortions in Alabama alone.

Now I personally am Pro-LIFE. My mother didn't plan me, but she chose life and here I am. But this post isn't about abortion or my view on it. It's about responsibility, or as shown by the numbers above, the abundant and apparent lack of it.

The only 100% way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy is to abstain from having sex. I think we're all smart enough to know that.

That being said, I'm realistic enough to know that just because someone doesn't want to become a parent, it doesn't mean they're going to give up sex. I sure as heck wouldn't. BUT... in this day and age there is simply NO EXCUSE for grown people to be having irresponsible sex.

My twitter friend said he used protection 'but it's still possible something happened'. He also said the 'timing is off', which tells me he wasn't the only fella sticking his joy stick in this gal who's 'gone effin insane'.

Sure condoms break. But when used correctly and consistently they are proven to be 99% effective in preventing pregnancy and STDs. I've personally never had it happen to me and I've been having sex for 10 years. When I finally started having sex, I went through a (thankfully, very short lived) wild phase and immediately went to the doctor and got put on the pill. Even then I never, not one time, got so caught up in the moment that I 'forgot' to have the guy use protection. I did, by mutual consent, once choose not to use it and ended up learning a lesson I will never forget.

Of course using condoms as your only source of protection puts most of the responsibility on the guy, so if you're going to have sex, especially random sex with multiple partners wouldn't it be logical and responsible to do what you can to cover the bases more thoroughly? I mean how hard is it to schedule a quick visit to your doc ladies and ask for a prescription for birth control? Hell most health departments these days will give them away for free, or damn near.

So what's the problem? What's the excuse for all of these 'unwanted' and often murdered babies?

Plain ole' stupidity.

Unless you are in a loving committed relationship and WANT to become a parent it is your and your partner(s) responsibility to make sure you do EVERYTHING possible to prevent an 'oops'. Because children are not 'oopses'. They are not mistakes. They are not accidents. They are living, breathing God given blessings.

Just like you.

So before you decide to mount up for a round of the wild thing take a moment to think about what the consequenses are of not being responsible. And if you're too embarrassed to talk to your partner about protection then you shouldn't be having sex to begin with.

Muffin Top(ple) Update

I guess since I'm not doing Part Two of Operation Muffin Topple I need to come up with a new name for my weekly installment of all things diet, exercise and scale throwing related.

Ask and ye shall receive... This just popped in my head:

"Manage My Fat Monday"

What do you think? Catchy? Eh, it will do for now, until I can come up with something better.

Update - On my last Muffin Top(ple) post - June 22 - I'd lost 12 pounds. I am excited to say that number has increased by 3. Since June 1st I have lost a total of 15 pounds. Three pounds in two weeks might not seem like much, but considering the fact that I haven't worked out once in those two weeks and have fallen off the 'no junk wagon' in a serious way I'll take my 3 pounds and be happy.

I had planned on resuming my workouts yesterday but felt like poo all day. Unluckily, my OnDemand date with Bob Green of Biggest Loser will be postponed yet again, as the poo feeling has followed me into today.

Speaking of the Biggest Loser - open casting is THIS SATURDAY!! I'm pretty nervous. They're looking for couples again - parents & kids, couples, cousins, friends etc., and I'm applying by myself. The website says feel free to apply anyway even if you don't have a partner but I can't help but wonder if it will hurt my chances of making the show by trying out solo.

I remember a few years ago they had a couples show and two single people who made it and they paired them up and that worked pretty well. It was a bit harder for those two than the other contestant because they didn't have a friend/family member there with them to keep them from missing home quite as bad, but it also gave them more incentive and motivation to kick butt!

I'll be tweeting from the line starting at 8am Saturday morning. The actual casting is from 10a-6p and they say not to arrive any earlier than 2 hours before casting begins or they won't let you in line. I only live about half a mile from the casting location so I'm hoping to be at the beginning of the line!

Wish me luck!!!

Little Miss Sunshine

I went to MS last weekend to do the cook-out, hang at the pool thing with my family for the 4th. As usual, when I visit I spend most of my time playing with my niece Marley.

I know most people say they have the most beautiful children, neices, nephews etc, but that child is really truly gorgeous. I've mentioned to my sister before that maybe they should think about putting her in modeling, or even checking out acting for kids. She's hilarious and has such a flair for the dramatic. You can't be around her for more than a few minutes without smiling or laughing at something she's said or done. She just lights up the room like a bright ray of sun.

When she was younger my sister sent in her picture to a Baby Photo Contest or two, but the older she is the more beautiful she gets so I think if she entered them now she'd surely win!

This is completely off the subject, well sort of, but have you heard the newest about the Jon & Kate Plus 8 show being 'investigated' for potentially not following Child Actor Laws? I don't really watch it but I thought that was a reality show. What kind of acting are those kids doing exactly?

Sorry for the ramble but talking about kids acting brought that to mind.

Anyway, I got some great pictures this weekend of Marley, and of her new sister Paisley (who is also just beautiful) and I'll be posting them later on this week. I know I've been seriously lagging in the blogging department but I promise to catch up soon!