Join me for a series of honest, hopefully funny, slightly more than half-hearted attempts at getting myself into shape.

Part Three: Edible Indiscretions

Well, I’ll call it like it is: It’s slow going on the home front.

As I stood stuffing an almond croissant into my mouth in the kitchen while cooking dinner for myself and my boyfriend who was sitting in the other room, I thought, why is it taking me so long to get it together? What is the hold up? Why does it always take me so long to get myself organized enough to move? Why aren't I sharing my pastry with my boyfriend instead of shoveling it into my mouth with the ferocity of a lioness who is luxuriating in her coveted kill?

I entered the living room, sure that there were some errant flakes of croissant clinging to my dress; unmoved by the ceremonial brushing of the flakes, a ritual I need to go through any time I eat something without the aid of a table under me. Generally, bits of crumb and dustings of whatever my more buxom bits have brushed off the counter while I was cooking populate the front and hips of my dress; most seeming to congregate on the hilly curvature of my belly. This happens nearly every time I cook, and has since I first developed hips.

But the question remains, why in the world do I feel the need to get everything all set up just so before I can embark on making a life change? Would I feel better trying to get healthier if my house wasn’t so cluttered? Yes. Would I feel more equal to the challenge if I could get myself to go to bed earlier so that I could get up early enough in the morning to practice my belly dance or walk to work? Yes. Would I feel better if I felt encouraged by all the other things in life that I need to get it together on being gotten together? Yes. Of course. But I live in a real world with real consequences and real constrains on my time and on my mind. I need to adapt. Adapt and learn the real nature of the limitations on my time and on my attention.

I realize that in this struggle, organization is my friend. But I also realize that my personality tends to also make the inability to find the time to organize a pathway to procrastination.

So, little by little, I have started to get my butt in gear. Naturally, there is nowhere to start but at the beginning. For me, the beginning was this past week when I actually dragged my patootie out of bed and made it to yoga on Sunday morning, and the Monday evening previous. This is in addition to the belly dance classes that I take twice a week. It’s not all I need by far to get back in my groove with the cosmic rhythm of the universe, but it was a major step for me, and I’ll tell you what - the two go hand in hand, and their ability to make my body feel better and make me feel better about my body are virtually unparalleled.

Truly, the mental process it takes to culminate in me just getting my body moving is…extensive. But once I’m up, we’ve got momentum, see, and that’s the goal. So I may be the tortoise winning the race, but believe it or not, I have lost a bunch of weight before and been even skinnier than I was in high school. That’s not what I’m after here. Losing weight is not my goal per se. I just want to treat the body I have with respect and have it be as healthy as possible - and that is a battle that for me will be long and hard won. My budget and my temperament won’t allow for a personal trainer or life coach, but if that’s your thing, go for it. For me, I can’t take all of the pretense and the judgment that goes along with American culture’s preoccupation with radical weight loss to attain some bizarre cultural “norm” that frankly in most cases is unhealthy and doesn’t exist. I’m trying to find my happy medium: normal weight loss brought on my being healthier, while maintaining my personal shape that I’ve come to love. There is more work ahead obviously, however, this time I’ll have you all along for the ride. Stay tuned for belly dance practices, yoga class thoughts and my general debauchery with food.

*Updated information: In the future, installments of Confessions of a Curvy Girl will be published every Wednesday. This has been changed since this entry originally posted.

You can contact Elizabeth by e-mailing her at elizabethpalmer@annarbor.com.