1 Million Kilo Challenge: Final Update!

I am so happy to announce that Leslie and I have met, and in many cases actually exceeded, our goals in the 1 Million Kilo Challenge that we started all the way back in January.

We began the challenge as a way of raising money to aid research into preterm birth at the Royal Women's Hospital, where Max was born. The challenge was also a chance for us to make some positive changes to our lives, in the hope that we would gain fitness and strength to help us through what has been an immensely harrowing time.

Friends and family donated money to us after we pledged individual weight loss goals. Leslie pledged to lose 8kg and I pledged to lose 5kg.

I am so proud to say that Leslie exceeded his weight loss goal by 2kg, losing a whopping 10kg as a result of changes to his diet. He is looking so wonderful, and so handsome, and I know he is feeling the benefits in his energy levels, as well as pride in his achievements.

I only lost 2.5kg of my 5kg goal, however I believe I may have been a little ambitious in my goal-setting! I now weigh 54.4kg, which is slightly less than I did when I became pregnant with Max. Though I would have liked to reach 53kg, I am still pleased with the loss I achieved. Both Leslie and I will continue, unofficially, on the challenge, and will report in on our efforts to create healthier lives from time to time.

By far our biggest achievement, however, has been the astonishing sum of money we have raised, with the help of our family, friends, and networks, for the Royal Women's Hospital Foundation. We started with a goal of only $1000, which in itself felt like quite a challenge at the time. Soon, however, we'd met our target and we found ourselves moving our goal posts...to $2000, then $3000, then $4000, and then to a whopping $5000!

Not only did we meet our revised $5000 fundraising total, but we actually exceeded it! Our grand total at the end of the challenge was:

$5236.06

Wow!

We would both like to take this opportunity to thank our very generous friends, family and colleagues, who not only donated money in memory of Max, but some of whom then raised funds amongst their own networks to collect even more money (and lose even more weight!). 

Special heartfelt thanks go to Andrea, Kate, my Aunty Jill, her friend and colleague Catherine and my cousin Stephanie for their passionate and dedicated fundraising efforts. We could not be more grateful.

And our congratulations go to all those others who undertook the weight loss challenge with us, including my cousin Kristy, who lost a signifiant amount of weight in her own right, despite having just given birth to her own baby a short time beforehand.

We could not be prouder of you all.

As if that is not enough, at the end of the challenge, In Memory of Max was still the top fundraising team from the whole event!

Top 10 Fundraising Teams at the end of the challenge

The raising of these funds has been the first thing we have been able to achieve, as Max's parents, to honour him. We want to make sure that his life and his memory brings as much light to the world as he brought to ours. Though we do not yet know what our future holds without him, we know that we will always strive to do good things in his name, and to be better people in his honour. 

Thank you, everyone, for helping us start that legacy. It means so much to us that Max meant something to each of you.

1-Million-Kilo-Challenge Update

It's been a while since I've given an update on our 1-Million-Kilo-Challenge progress. To date, we have raised $3627, and we've reason to believe there's at least another couple of hundred dollars coming. Our initial goal was $1000, so to reach this four times over is truly astounding. I can't wait to send a letter to my obstetrician at The Royal Women's Hospital to tell her how much money we have raised for her programs in memory of Max.

I'd like to take a moment to express my sincerest gratitude to all of my family and friends who are either participating in the challenge with us, or have raised money amongst their own friends and networks for us. My dear cousin, Kristy, has been the most passionate participant of all. So far she has lost 10kg towards her goal of becoming fitter and healthier and almost every day she has contacted me to tell me what she has achieved that day and how much closer she is to her target. I've looked forward to those updates with a smile each and every time. She has three small children, including a newborn baby of her own, and I'd like her to know how immensely proud I am of what she has done, and what I know she will continue to do to improve her life in Max's honour. I know that she, and every one else in my family, are thinking of Max each and every day, and I feel so very happy that he is inspiring them to make changes in their lives, as he has also inspired me.

I have lost 2kg, which sounds terribly insufficient when you compare it with 10kg. When, in another life. I was a participant in Weight Watchers, though, the leader told me that it is usual for someone of my size to only lose up to 250 grams per week. It's hard to stay motivated when you're not really seeing any benefits and I think I have not been trying as hard as I could. But there are still five weeks left of the challenge and many other chances for me to achieve my goal. Leslie has lost a significant amount of weight already (I'm not sure of exactly how much) and is already getting comments on how much thinner he looks. He is very proud of the dent in his stomach where his gut used to be!

I'd really love to get our fundraising total to $4000, so please, if you can, remind your people that there's still time to donate! You can point them to this blog, and the widget on the left hand side of the page, or forward them our fundraising page. We are still the number one fundraising team!!

1 Million Kilo Challenge Update

I initially thought I was pushing my luck trying to raise $1000 for the Royal Women's Hospital's research into factors affecting preterm birth through the 1 Million Kilo Challenge. Since then, however, I've had to revise my goal three times, to $2000, then $3000, and now $4000, as the response to our story from family and friends has been so overwhelmingly generous.

Family and friends wanting to make positive changes to their own lives in honour of Max have also joined our team and pledged their own weight loss targets and exercise goals. If they too, can urge those they know to donate even a small amount each, we have the capacity to make a massive difference here for ourselves and for other people who might find themselves in our position in the future.

Because of your support, 'In Memory of Max' is the top fundraising team so far in the entire challenge! Look!

More than that, though, the fact that Max's name will be associated with something good, and that is story is known by others, is so important to me, and really soothes my heart.

Please click through to the widget on the left side of this page, or click this link to help us reach our goal. Every little bit helps, whether it's $1, $5 or $50. And please leave me a note to tell me how Max's story has inspired or touched you. It would be music to my ears.

Thank you so very much for showing your support for this very worthy cause.

1 Million Kilo Challenge

As you can see from the clever widget I've put there on the left-hand side of the page, I am participating in Channel 10's 1 Million Kilo Challenge. I don't watch Channel 10 and nor do I have 1 million kilos to lose, but when I heard you could participate in it whilst raising funds for charity it struck me as something tangible I could do to honour Max. There's no way I'd survive a marathon run in his name. I watched Leslie come over the finish line in a half marathon and his nipples were bleeding, which scarred me forever. I also would not be any good at climbing a mountain or trekking through a jungle in order to raise money. I would not have the appropriate footwear, I whinge wholeheartedly upon receiving a single mosquito bite, and some poor bastard would get stuck carrying my bag as I collapsed under its weight.

Something I do know how to do, though, is count calories. I am the queen of imaginative diets. Ask Anika about my yet-to-be-patented 'Furry Friend' diet in which I ate only Furry Friends for about 3 months, yet still managed to lose a few kilos. Anika is about the only other fan of my creative eating ideas, having had quite a few herself over the years. She also saw me through the Sustagen diet - you guessed it, where you drink only Sustagen for as long as you can put up with it. And Kate has witnessed, though never condoned, the diet shake revolution. I've also been to Weight Watchers and done Lite n Easy, which was easy, but not tasty. Hence that did not last long. Weight Watchers was also short lived because everyone hated me there and I did not like the idea that you had to keep your shoes on when you weighed in. How have they got away with bypassing the most important rule of weight watching, which is to get rid of every conceivable weight-bearing item before you step on the scales?!

I know all of this sounds obscenely stupid as I am quite a slim person. But I'm a slim person trapped inside a fat person's mind. Some people label this kind of paradox as a 'syndrome' or a 'disorder' but I'm not as pathological about it as all that. I think I loathe myself just the usual amount, not a 'clinically significant' amount, so there's no need to worry.

Anyway, this is all just an aside. What is important is that losing weight and making myself healthier and stronger through exercise is something that I can commit to do for my son. I hope that this experience will help me to learn to appreciate my body more for the amazing things it is capable of; for everything it did to help Max grow big and strong. Despite how sick I was during my pregnancy, Max was in close to the 90th percentile for his gestation which means I must have been doing something right! I have also been very angry at my body, though, for failing him. I think it will take a long time for me to shake this feeling, and to trust my body again, but I want to try.

The other important side of this challenge is the opportunity to raise funds for charity. I did not hesitate to choose the Royal Women's Hospital as the recipient of my fundraising efforts as everyday I am reminded of the constant care, compassion and treatment Max and I were both given during our time there. We could not have been in better hands, medically speaking, and the staff who cared for us, both midwives and doctors, were also amazing people who I felt fortunate to meet.

My obstetrician, Dr Fiona Cullinane, set up the Preterm Labour Clinic at The Women's, and it is through this clinic that I would be managed for any future pregnancies. They have had wonderful successes in treating women with histories like mine and all in all, most women who are patients there will eventually get to take home a little baby to love and care for. Whilst it is promising that there are more and more treatment options, there is still so much that is not understood about what causes women to go into preterm labour and how they can prevent it. Researchers at the hospital are undertaking a number of projects whose findings will benefit me, and other women like me, in the future. You can read about those projects here.

I would be so grateful if you could sponsor me, no matter how tiny the amount, to help researchers turn these studies into tangible outcomes. I am already overwhelmed by the support I have received, and the number of people who have joined my team to achieve their own personal goals whilst helping out this cause. Max has touched so many people's lives and I am so happy to be able to do something good in his name. I hope he would be proud of his mummy and daddy. I am pledging to lose 5kg and Leslie is pledging 8kg. Wish us luck and send any helpful tips and tricks our way!

And most importantly, click on that widget at the top of the page and donate some money!

Thank you all!