The Journey Begins

A few weeks ago my friend Ali sent me a link to apply for the 100 day heart challenge.  I filled out the form and clicked "send".  I didn't expect to hear back, but I DID!  I was so excited!

As part of the challenge, I had to have a doctor sign a release form.  It's been a while since I had my last physical, so I went to the Dr. the day before the challenge began.  Everything came back fine...including a positive pregnancy test (I already suspected I was pregnant, so I had taken an early detection test two days earlier that also came back positive).  I wondered if this would affect my ability to participate, but the Dr. said all pregnant women should be eating right and exercising, so he was all for it.

Friday morning, in the spirit of full disclosure, I informed Janet of the positive pregnancy test.  She said the same thing my Dr. did, so I just thought I would do my best, but not have a goal of dropping a lot of weight.  I told a couple of other people, and I'm sure a few others overheard.  I normally don't share news this early (especially with my history of miscarriages), but because the news came the day before the challenge started, I was just trying to figure out how to do this challenge well and grow a baby at the same time.

As it turns out, Saturday morning brought cramping and bleeding and I spent the weekend miscarrying.  I only knew I was pregnant for three days, and I am grateful to have this challenge to focus on. So...hopefully my belly (and other things) will be shrinking instead of growing.  I am more determined than ever to give it my all!  I worked out this morning.  It may have been too much too soon, but I figured since it was a very early miscarriage, it wouldn't hurt.  I did just fine and am excited to keep on going.

Just a couple of highlights from the weigh-in Friday morning:

I do not like to watch myself on video or hear myself speak on camera, but since I had signed a form that said I would be willing to be video taped, I knew I couldn't avoid the camera man.  He interviewed me and Darin not long after we arrived (at 7 am).  He was asking why we wanted to participate in this challenge.  Darin gave a perfectly good response, then the camera man turned to me.  I said something about healthy habits in our home, mentioned that we had 5 kids, then I started to say, "...and I thought it would be really fun to do it together"...and then I realized that I had just said that we had 5 kids and saying "fun to do it together" might make people chuckle so I tried to recover (not so gracefully) and said, "I thought it would be really fun to do it...to do the challenge together". Awesome.

As we sat down to eat breakfast, another participant said, "Spotting the trainers in the room is like playing the Sesame Street game 'One of these things is not like the others'."  She apologized profusely, thinking that we were offended.  We were too busy laughing to be offended.  Can I just say that meeting the other participants made me even more excited to participate.  They are all great, and I can't wait to get to know them better and go on this journey of wellness with them.

I am also very grateful to have so many talented and fun people heading this thing up.  I can't wait to learn all that they have to teach!