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!!!!