Last week Sean and I went to see the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was one of those movies where at the end, the audience leaves in silence.  I assume this is so because they were doing the same as I was--pondering the message and trying to understand how it could be applied to my life.  And honestly, this movie's message had "use in your new blog" written all over it.
          I don't want to be a movie spoiler, so I will just give you a general idea of what it is about so I can share what I am taking away from this film.  Walter Mitty in the beginning appears to be an ordinary man.  He works at Life Magazine, which is in the process of shutting down its paper version and moving toward a digital format.  He is not married, deals with his family as best as he can, and is just trying to do his job in the midst of the turmoil that comes with big changes.  The one thing that sets Walter apart, is that he has the most vivid imagination, and he spends a good part of the movie dreaming what his life could be instead of actually living it.  Because of forces beyond his control, he is forced to move out of his sheltered life and into a life of actually living out some of his dreams. The huge message I got from this movie is that we need to stop imagining what our lives could be and start making changes to make some of those dreams come true.
          When I walked out of the theater, I almost couldn't even talk to my husband Sean because my mind was moving a mile a minute.  As we approach the new year, wouldn't it be powerful for us to ask ourselves the following question, "What in our lives are we just dreaming about that in the new year we can make a reality?"  It is time to stop dreaming it and to start living it!
          I know that when I was obese, I imagined so many things for myself but could not find the drive to get there. I imagined what I would look like after I lost my weight, clothes I could finally fit into, and I even imagined Jillian Michaels was my personal trainer because I couldn't seem to get things together on my own. When I finally realized that I needed to rely on myself for this change, that is when change happened. If you are in this same place I was, what are you waiting for?  I waited too long to change my life, and I would love if you would learn from my experience. Where do you see yourself one year from now? Start making changes in your life today.  Even small ones will begin to move you in the right direction.
          If you are dreaming about upping your fitness levels, start making plans to meet those goals.  Is there a race you have always dreamed of doing but think you could never do?  I am here to show you by example that you should never put limits on what you are capable of doing. I NEVER thought I could complete a full marathon. I remember watching my friend Jill set a goal to complete three full marathons and thinking how I could never even do a 10K.  Fifteen years later I completed an full Ironman--so Never say never! That race that has been on your bucket list, now is the time to sign up, put it on your calendar, and start making plans for how you are going to make that dream a reality!
          Whatever it is that you are dreaming about or wishing you could do, now is the time to get out there and start.  Want some ideas for how to make those dreams come true?  Check out a blog I wrote on 1/05/2013 that contains many links to help you set small goals in order to reach your ultimate goal.  Many of these suggestions helped me to be able to now say, "I am an Ironman!" 

So make 2014 the year you stopped dreaming...make this the year that you can proclaim that you are finally living your dream!

          On Friday, the office staff at the school I work at decided to dress up like Christmas characters.  It was the culmination of a three week long prank on our principal who is not very fond of claymation holiday cartoons and dislikes clutter even more.  After three weeks of placing claymation memorabilia all over his office we decided to make claymation come to life in the form of his office staff elves.  We took a group photo to commemorate the fun, which was then posted on social media. 
          Now as my readers and friends, you know I usually do not shy away from photos.  In fact, I am the one in our group that makes everyone stop to document our antics and posts the evidence for all to see.  However, this posted photo of me and my elf buddies sent me into an entire night of neurotic focus on one very prominent feature--my derriere!  No matter how much weight I lose, no matter how fit I get, my rear end continues to be the more prominent place on my anatomy.  I am okay when my rear appears to be in the Jennifer Lopez range, but the moment it reaches Kardashian proportions, I go into panic mode (see photo above right).
          In contrast, the photo on the left was one I posted last week, and I was honestly concerned that you, my readers, would not understand my fluffiness obsession, because this photo made me look skinnier than I really am right now.  So how can I go from too skinny looking one week, to where does my @$$ end the next week? 
          The answer lies in the fact that pictures are another bad way to accurately judge weight gain or weight loss progress.  I have acknowledged that my eating has been slightly out of control, and I have honestly been too afraid to step on a scale and face the music as to the damage I have done over the holidays.  That is why when I saw the above photo, it sent me into a tailspin of negative body image thoughts.  I was really getting down on myself even though I know better than to trust what appears in a snapshot.
          The sad thing is that when I got up yesterday morning and finally stepped on the scale, my weight had not gone up even one pound from the five I have put on since Ironman.  I let that one photo send me into an obsessively negative view of myself that literally had me dreaming about my "backward slide" all night long.  Why do I do this to myself?  I think I am still so afraid of going back to what I was that I am not even sure what normal looks like.  Do other people have difficulty with treats during the holidays?  Do other people have to watch what they eat as closely as I do?  Is my somewhat neurotic relationship with food something most people struggle with, or am I right to worry about myself?  Does anybody else let photos of themselves define how they see themselves? 
          I must say, at least my little episode was very short-lived.  I worried about it all night long, but once I put it all in perspective I was fine.  I guess that is progress, and that is all I can really ask of myself, right?  If I am taking five steps forward, one tiny, temporary step back should not be a cause for panic.  I am fine and I need to remember that and just roll with the small set-backs.

          The holidays are always so difficult for me...excuse me while I place the needle back at the beginning of this broken record.  And by difficult I do not mean emotionally, physically, or anything else that would make sense to sane people.  What I mean is that the common sense gene seems to disappear for a couple months when it pertains to my eating. Now I must give myself kudos for continuing to consistently work out despite the fact that I have been crazy busy.  This week I rested on Monday, ran Tuesday (and by myself at that), went to spin class Wednesday, did some swimming and spinning on Thursday, a little more spin on Saturday, and today I went on a 4.5 mile run before we headed out on a mountain bike adventure in the hills behind my house.  Moving my body is not my issue, however, moving my body away from unhealthy food and toward the healthier options has not been great since Halloween goodies loomed their ugly heads ushering in three months of uncontrollable holiday free-for-alls.    

          One of the issues is that we have food in my house that I would normally not allow through the front doors.  But there this food sits on my counters and in my pantry calling my name.  For example, Sean went to Trader Joe's and came back with the box of Sea Salt Caramels you see in the picture.  His rationale was that we could have a little caramel everyday after dinner, which would allow us a small, completely reasonable treat.  I then promptly ate one for breakfast! Now this man has been married to me for almost 25 years, and by this time you would think he would have realized that chocolate and I have this very unhealthy relationship.  It comes in my presence, and I must eat every morsel before anyone else gets a chance to have one.  I swear that if Nathan's had a chocolate eating division instead of a hot dog one, I would win the $20,000 first prize, hands down! 
          I would love to completely blame Sean for my wild feeding frenzies, but I myself brought the other crazy treat pictured above into our kitchen.  What was I thinking?  What good could come of having a product that is called Cookie Butter because it consists of ground up cookies?  And not only did I buy Cookie Butter, but I also purchased the suggested cookies to dip into the cookie butter. Cookies slathered with ground cookies, can you see where my head has been for the last few months...obviously not in the healthy eating mode.
          I did attempt to control this eating by convincing Karrie that we needed to start tracking again. Since last week we have been trying out an app called "Lose It," but from the day we started using the app, I have not tracked even one entire day.  I am afraid my phone might blow up as I frantically attempt to add all the food I have been so unconsciously grazing on. I haven't actually weighed myself to assess the damage, but I am noticing that I have a little more toosh cushion during my bike rides and my stomach is more "stickie outie" than it was in July, which is a much better assessment of weight gain/loss than a scale will ever be.
          One thing I did notice this week is the weird power I give to food.  For example, a very good friend of mine experienced a tragedy in her life.  All I could think of was trying to make sure she took care of herself and that she was eating, as if the food would solve all her problems.  And this is not an isolated incident.  When I am sick, I "need" the magical power of chicken soup.  When I am sad or angry, chocolate temporarily makes me feel better.  When we celebrate important milestones in my family, it is usually connected to some trip to a favorite restaurant or a decadent treat we reward ourselves with.  And if you go on vacation to any place we have ever visited, you can be sure Sean and I will have tons of food related destinations that we can suggest for you.
          So what is the solution?  I don't know.  I even got a nasty stomach flu, which would normally give me the opportunity to slow down and gain control.  However, the first food I ate once I felt better was not dry toast or applesauce, it was a white-chocolate dipped bisccotti.  I think I may just need to survive the holidays by continuing to get outside and play, tracking my food choices on Lose It as much as I can, and continually reminding myself that food is for energy, not to soothe emotions.  I am hoping someday that my relationship with food will be a little healthier, but in the meantime I need to remember that I am a work in progress...fluff and all.

          Two weeks ago Karrie and I decided to go back to spin class.  We prefer to do most of our playing outdoors, but when the thermometer drops, one of us, and I won't say who, tends to be less enthusiastic about swimming in an outdoor pool.  So instead of our usual Friday swim workout, there we were at spin class and with a new teacher to boot.
          Right from the beginning we could tell that this teacher was a little different from our previous instructor.  Not to be sexist, but it might be a guy/girl thing.  Our old instructor, Lennie, talked when he needed to, but didn't really speak all that much.  Our new instructor filled every moment with some piece of instruction, a direction, or words of encouragement. The other thing I noticed about this instructor was how heavy-handed she was with adding gears during the workout.  There were times where Karrie and I could hardly move our pedals, and yet the instructor would still tell us to up our gears.
          The other factor I need to mention at this point is that this was my Friday workout... and on Saturday, the very next day, I was scheduled to run more than 15 miles from Oceanside to Solana Beach.  And yet, there I was in spin class absolutely killing my legs on a ridiculous spin workout.  Now, you reasonable people out there might be wondering why I didn't just take it a little easy.  After all, in a darkened spin class the chances of the instructor seeing me pretend to up my gear is probably pretty slim. 
          And this is why I decided to write this blog this week.  I find myself almost unable to back down when presented with a challenge.  I also began to wonder if this might classify me as a competitive person.  If you ask my husband, he would not hesitate to tell you that I was without a doubt super competitive.  Sean likes to (insert air quotes here) "joke" that we cannot be on the same team when we play games, but we also cannot be on opposite teams.  In my defense, as a Pictionary partner, Sean's pictures always look like blobs, which make them very difficult to identify.  And when we decided we should not be partners, I found he smirked at me across the table anytime he did well and I did not. I am also pretty certain that when we said our wedding vows almost twenty-five year ago that Sean promised to love, honor, and make sure his wife never loses. Does that make me competitive?
          So this week I decided to do a little research, and I asked some people who might be a little less close to the situation and see how they would weigh in on this debate. First, I asked asked my friend Kay.  As we ran down the road on a cold, dark and rainy Thursday, I say to her, very seriously, "I need you to look at me so I can see your reaction...do you think I am competitive?"  Now I must admit, I was sure Kay would say that I was not that person, so I was completely unprepared for her response.  She started with a hearty laugh and then just stated, "Do you really need to ask me that question?" Hmm...maybe I am a little more competitive than I realize.
          To continue the research, I asked Kay's husband Jim, "Do you think I am competitive?"  As I waited for him to respond, he squirmed a little as he carefully picked his words, "Um, slightly!" Okay...maybe if even Jim is seeing this in me, maybe I am a little competitive.

          And to top off my research, I found that I didn't even have to ask my friend Darcy if she thought I was competitive. As I was browsing through Facebook later that same morning, I came across the following comic that Darcy had posted the previous day.  I still can't stop laughing when I look at this illustration of just how obvious my competitive nature is to others and how completely unaware I was of this fact.
          It is at this point that I would like to present a little evidence in my defense and offer a different way to look at the same situation.  My major focus, especially in running, has been to get a little faster so my workouts don't take as long.  In addition, my goal for the next year or so is to complete a half-marathon in under two hours.  In order to achieve these goals, I find it really works for me to try to stay as close as I can to the fastest runner (within reason). I find if I push myself this way, it is actually cutting time off both my long and short runs.  I am actually terrible at pacing myself. It seems to work when I use my friends' paces to push me to increase and maintain my pace. My focus is not on running faster than someone to beat them...I want to run faster than them to beat my previous times.  Does that make me competitive?  It does, but hopefully not the bad kind of competitive.
          Another thing that drives Sean crazy is that when I ride with him I sometimes share with him how tired my legs are and then blast right past him on the hills as we ride. I am pretty sure I also do this to my Ironman training buddies on our rides and runs as well.  I do apologize for how that sounds, but I again want to state that this has more to do with me being unable to back down from a challenge or the constant need to improve my practice. I am honestly not trying to beat you up the hill...I just love the challenge of riding and running hills, and I am striving to improve my times as well. Does it make me competitive to be happy when I reach the top of a big hill at a quicker pace than in the past? And if the byproduct is that I made it before some of the others, does that then change the way I should look at this experience?

          The final thing I looked into was the exact meaning of competitive and some of its synonyms. As I peruse this list to the left, I still am not sure I would classify what I am as competitive.  Am I ruthless, aggressive, or combative?  And as I have stated, I am not really trying to be faster than a particular person. I don't really have the ambition to be more successful than others, just more successful than I have been in the past. What is the word for the kind of competitiveness that I so obviously display? Driven? Ambitious? Determined?
          My research leads me to realize that I really am a "competitive" person (or some other word that is a little less negative), but I hope that when you understand the reasons and motivation behind my competitive nature, you can see this in a different light. I do realize that I need to take more time to thank my training friends for helping me improve.  I would never be where I am today without all these friends supporting me and allowing me to use them as gauges for my pacing. I also need to make sure I never communicate my injuries and sicknesses to my husband and friends, because I tend to just push through these annoyances and make it seem like I am trying to make them look bad.  Am I "competitive"?  I guess this answer is a definite "YES"...but I hope you will love me anyway!

*Note from Sean: Michelle's new goal is to be the least competitive person in the whole wide world by next year.

          It's been a rough two weeks in the McCarthy House.  Despite our healthy lifestyles, despite all of us getting our flu shots this year, one of us has been down and out at all times for almost fourteen days.  And Eoin and I have been hit with a flu that knocks you flat for almost 48 hours. I don't remember being this sick since I was a little girl, and I literally could not get out of bed at all yesterday.  In fact, writing this short and sweet blog is the first productive thing I have done since Friday.
          Now with our track record over the last couple weeks, it may seem funny for me to share ways to avoid the flu, but if I can help anyone avoid what I just went through this blog will be worth the effort:

1. Avoid the McCarthys like the plague--we are obviously the center for all things germy and sickness-inducing.  
2. Get your flu shot (unless you are allergic to eggs).  Yes, I know we had our shots and we are all still sick, but that is just dumb luck for us.  Every year the producers of the flu shot predict what the top three flus will be and then they make the serum based on those predictions.  We just happened to get a different strain of flu this time, but if any of those top flus come around, we will avoid those with the preventative shot we all endured.  By the way, it is a fallacy that you can get the flu from a flu shot.  The shot is not a live version of the virus, but it triggers your immune system to produce antibodies. That way when you do get exposed to those particular strains, your body will know how to fight it off.  This antibody production does take two weeks, so it is also possible for you to get the flu in those first two weeks after getting your shot.
3. Stay away from sick people (see #1).  I know this seems almost impossible, but when people tell you they are not feeling well, believe what they say and stay away. And the reverse is also true.  If you are sick, stay home.  I must admit that I am the worst person when it comes to this lat piece of advice (I know my co-workers are rolling their eyes right now as I suggest this).  Again, see #1!
4. Wash your hands. Because so many of us cannot resist putting our hands near our eyes, nose, and mouth, washing off germs can keeps us from accidentally passing these germs into our bodies. If you are sick make sure you sneeze and cough into a Kleenex, and if you are nowhere near tissue, sneeze into your elbow.  Eoin's preschool teacher taught him this, and it is a great way to keep germs off the hands.
5. Practice Other Healthy Habits to avoid the flu--clean and disinfect any areas at home or work that are frequently touched by your family or others, especially when sickness abounds.  I know this takes time out of your busy schedule, but in order to avoid the hell I went through over the last two weeks, this is time well spent.  In addition, practicing a healthy lifestyle by getting plenty of sleep (hmm, this may be where I went wrong), managing stress (or maybe this one), staying physically active, making nutritious food choices, and making sure to drink lots of fluids could help you from succumbing to the sick around you. For more information on the flu
   

          So here's hoping that you and your family stay healthy during this holiday season.  The few tips above should help you prevent some of the chaos we have been experiencing in our household.  I am hoping that we are through the worst of it, only heaven help us, the flu season doesn't really get in full swing until January...