'Julie & Julia' Please Parallel Me

Tonight Mike and I rented "Julie and Julia" the movie based on two true stories including the life of the famous Julia Child. For anyone who isn't familiar with the basic storyline of the movie, a woman who is unsatisfied with her career and stuck in a rut found solace, a new beginning and her life in the book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," Julia Child's masterpiece and launching point. The movie parallels the modern-day cook, Julie, who cooks all the recipes in the book in one year and blogs about it while giving an in-depth look into Julia Child's life. Although a bit long, the movie was great because the two stories are incredible. Learning to cook brought Julia Child to life and taking on the cooking/blogging adventure brought Julie back to life.

While I was watching the movie, and I have a feeling while Mike was watching it as well, I kept thinking about myself and how some of this plot is similar to my life, but the amazing parts of

this movie aren't paralleling my life well enough. Is it too much to ask for the movie to please parallel me? I'm just kidding.

One of the most important things I have realized lately, whether it's because of my weight loss or poor eating habits, my job or my daily routines, is that life is better when I'm blissful. Amy Adams' character in "Julie & Julia" goes through extreme ups and downs that follow the patterns of her everyday life. When cooking isn't going well, she's arguing with her husband and her job is at its worse she has breakdowns, gets ill and wants to give up. On the other hand, when her chocolate cake is perfection (and looked delicious I must say), she lets the stresses of her job drop off her shoulders and laughs hysterically to Saturday Night Live while cuddling with her husband, she's not only blissfully happy, but healthier too.

When I'm in my highest states and singing merrily to the holiday carols, I eat healthier and in better portions, I laugh more, my back hurts less and I'm motivated to do anything and everything. Adversely, the exact opposite happens when I'm in a bad mood or my overall state is low. My mood is having much too great an affect on my weight loss program. Now don't worry please, for anyone who may actually be reading this, I haven't gained back all that weight and I'm still extremely happy that I'm at a stable 202 lbs., but when I'm having a bad day it's still really hard for me not to eat an entire box of snow caps plus a bag of popcorn, dinner and some frozen yogurt. I refrain quite well, but it's getting harder and harder to be strong as my mood becomes lower and lower this holiday season.

Amy Adams reaches a breaking point in the movie where she has "breakdowns" one after the other and eventually comes to verbal blows with her husband. She stops cooking, omits things in her blog and is really depressed. When she comes out of it however, she shines like the brightest star in her personal endeavors and that radiates clearly into her professional life, her relationships and her cooking. It's really inspirational.

This holiday season is kind of rough for me because I don't actually feel like it's the holidays since we're spending it away from the snow-covered Midwest. That combined with a few other personal factors, and I'm not my normal, sarcastic and happy self. I'm close, but not quite there. So hopefully this is my low and it takes a little bit of inspiration, a visit with my parents and a few days off work on the holidays to rejuvenate my weight-losing spirit to get back (completely) on the right track -- a proverbial turning of my frown upside down.

It's kind of ironic that I've found inspiration in a film that focuses completely on cooking and eating, when my own blog focuses on refraining from over-eating and controlling food and weight. Now, if only I could get the same following from my blog that Julie was able to get and that whole publishing deal wouldn't be too bad either ... hehehe.

As Julia Child's famously crooned, "Bon Appetite!"