Let me start by saying thank you so much for all the encouragement. I had myself convinced I wasn't going to do it until I saw all the comments!!
Saturday started at 5:30am. The night before my sister and I were laughing about how this was the one day of my life I'd ever get dressed trying to look as fat as possible :) Everything I had read about auditioning for the show suggested dressing as if it were a job interview. Myself and about 10 other people took that advice (including one woman who had on the same dress as me!) The rest were a hot mess. Literally.
Walking to the end of the line was weird. Everyone was staring at everyone walking by. I felt thin by comparison which was really new to me. I didn't bring a chair because I didn't want to be the one lazy fat person with a chair. HA!! EVERYONE had a chair - some even had huge shade structures. People were SMOKING! People were eating DUNKIN' DONUTS. People brought huge coolers FULL of food. I had an iPad and a bottle of water. I was beginning to wonder why I was there.
This was my view of the line behind me about 30 minutes after I arrived. It was hard to judge how many people were in line ahead of me. I met the people I was destined to spend the next 4 hours with. All of them super nice, I was the oldest and thinnest of the bunch - by 60 pounds. I know this because we all shared our weights. Most of my line-mates at one point told me I didn't need to be there but I weigh exactly as much as Olivia weighed when she started and she WON!
We had about an hour of shade until the sun was directly on us and that's when it got a little more challenging. My horror turned to sadness as people started heating up. There was kid who couldn't have been a day over 16 needing oxygen from the paramedics. There were people that couldn't stand or move to even get out of the sun. I grabbed the umbrellas I had in my car and handed them out to the ones that looked the worst - not caring if I ever got them back. After seeing some of these people struggle I thought If I did get on the show I might have to give my spot to someone who was really sick.
About 9:00 we got numbered applications. I was number 167 in line. Not bad considering the line had grown to at least 1,000. It had similar questions to the online application which I think everyone should fill out. It asks some really tough questions and requires a lot of deep thinking.
You can download it here if you're interested. 
Finally they let the first 200 in the building. The whole process was very organized and they were trying to get everyone inside and out of the heat as quickly as possible. The crew were a lot like when I went to see Oprah. Trying very hard to rev up the crowd and keep everyone excited about it. I was just happy I got a chance to pee and fix my makeup! My hair was flat and un-fixable by now but because of the 2 years of hot yoga, I wasn't as affected by the heat as much. Score!
After 4 hours it comes down to one group of 10 and one casting director. You leave your application, one photo and have about 30 seconds to answer one question. The question was "who do you want to inspire?" My answer was you. My faithful readers. I told the casting director that for over three years, I've been keeping a weight loss blog that almost 600 people read and haven't really ever lost any weight yet people say I inspire them.
She was trying to be all cheerleader-y with everyone saying things like "this is the first step - you're here today" blah blah blah. It's really not true. It's not a step at all unless you're chosen or happen to be inspired by the shear amount of sick people around you.
That was it. I was kind of hoping it would be more than just the decision of one person. They said you would hear by midnight if you had a call back but I wasn't expecting the phone to ring. I had as much chance of getting called back as I did of winning the lottery. I just let it go. And had a shot of Patron and a beer.
But I was sad. More sad than I thought I would be. Sad for the people who weren't going to do anything to help themselves if they didn't get on the show. Sad for myself that at the end of the day, I still have a hundred pounds to lose (again).
With sadness can come inspiration and I do feel inspired. I'm not too far gone to ever come back. I'm running 6.2 miles a week from Wednesday. I'm going to do some food journaling to help me figure out why all this exercise isn't helping me shed any pounds. The last month I've barely had a carb and only lost 5 lbs. I suppose it's better than nothing but I'm tired of hauling around this other person on my runs. I might as well have my 90 pound friend on my back. 90 pound friend once told me she didn't weigh 90 pounds so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and call her my 95 pound friend. :) She's also my biggest fan and I couldn't do this without her.
Wow this was a long post but it was very therapeutic. I'm training really hard this week so stay tuned...all leading up to the worlds biggest (and hottest) 10k.
