As Myrtle always tells me, “You have to take your measurements and weigh yourself to see if you’re losing weight. You can’t just rely on whether or not your clothes fit looser when they just came out of the dryer.”

She’s right. I know it. But the thought of actually pulling this nebulous weight problem (it’s nebulous in my head) down into a tangible reality by attaching numbers to it makes me nervous. Generally, when things become so concrete and full of arithmetic something inside makes me stubbornly resistant to conformity. I feel a strong natural aversion to not allowing myself wiggle room. That’s why counting calories for me is like prison. Never any time at all when you don’t have to be tabulating your day, never a time without a constant barometer of failure lurking.

I’m not in the habit of carrying around a tape measure or a owning any manner of scale, so I wonder what people will think when they see me wrapping my silk scarf around my hips and waist, etc., then holding the length up to a 15 inch straight ruler several times. Let them wonder. This is for the purposes of science! Hold on a sec while I do this…there.

The scarf and ruler method has revealed my measurements to be the following:

Bust: 36.5
Waist: 34.5
Hips: 45.5
Bum: 47
Height: 5’1/2”
Self-consciousness after writing this post: Scarf potentially not long enough.

This is obviously a very precise science :). The problem is that I don’t know what any of this means, let alone care. I mean really, all I am concerned about with my size is my health and whether or not my clothes fit comfortably. I don’t like having to buy new clothes to accommodate a growing bootie or a torso that has been known to pop tummy-level buttons. Obviously I have purchased new clothes as the pounds have come on so that I don’t look like a complete maniac with my tummy hanging out and a serious case of plumber’s butt, but I don’t like it. Actually, even telling people I am going on a diet is anathema to my process of success. It goes to the fact that I rarely feel that I ever do what I make a point of telling people I will do; or, at least, I rarely ever do it in the time frame expected. It’s because I rarely (almost never) plan for anything correctly - my sense of time, money and proportion is generally based on a lot of what if’s rather than the certainties alone and that misconstrued conception can lead to overcommitting, overeating and overflowing with anxiety.

This bites me the worst when it comes to time management. As anyone who reads this blog regularly can tell you, there have been several “Wednesday” posts that have appeared sometimes on say a Friday. I just don’t have a realistic idea of how long things will take, and that results in me always scrambling to put things together. You’d think after decades now of being in school of one kind or another and having deadlines all the time that would have changed. Unfortunately, my experience has been that I am more creative under pressure, which exacerbates the whole time management issue. During my undergrad (photography), there was one time that I made a point of doing my research paper ahead of time. I can’t remember even what class it was for, but for all of that plodding and planning what I do remember is that the grade I received on that paper was by far one of the worst grades I had ever gotten in my entire life. In contrast, when I took 20th Century Photography, with the absolutely incomparable and wildly intelligent visiting professor (for one semester and I was lucky enough to have him) from Purdue, Michael Weinstein, my writing was always being done at four o’clock in the morning on the day of class, and I produced some of the best things I’ve ever written. The combo of a teacher that was constantly blowing my mind, tearing down the walls of the narrow paradigm I had lived in before entering the room, and my own mind naturally coming into its zenith during the night created a mixture somewhere near deep philosophical thought.

So when it comes to a personal wellness plan, I hesitate to release any tangible numbers so that they can’t be judged and picked apart. I have always wanted to do things at my own pace and in my own way. I write about it because writing is far and away my strongest method of communication, and it still allows me to feel that sense of security writing offers as a somewhat clandestine medium of expression. Unless I’ve had a sip of wine or two I’m not always the best conversationalist when I’m outside my comfort zone (and sometimes even then), and as a public speaker - forget about it. Not good. Writing allows me to arrange my thoughts and to craft exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Bodies are not so easy to craft. Biologically, we do mold to our circumstances. Everything we experience informs this. The food we eat, the stimuli we come in contact with, the amount and quality of the sleep we get - all of this forms our bodies and our overall health over the long term. The problem with the crafting of the body is that it is such easy work to destroy and such difficult work to find your balance again once you’ve lost it.

Good habits started young can only help us as we grow. When I think of the celery and carrot sticks my Mom used to pack in my lunch when I was little, next to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been squashed and had the jelly had soaking through the bread, it gives me a pang in my heart because I would give anything sometimes to have another lunch like that. Something my Mom packed for me specially. Something my Mom packed for me because she cared about me and wanted me to be healthy and strong. Most of us are given good health when we are young and it is our job to steward it through to our old age. Sure, I resented not having chips and twinkies at the time, but when I grew up and eventually started buying my own lunches, the trays of French fries and ranch dressing and blue slushies just didn’t cut the mustard.

Now here I am, able to make my own decisions about what goes in my body and I find the struggle against the lure of pop and chips and things of that ilk invading my senses too often. I don’t even really like these things all that much, but they are convenient and they are designed to be substitutes for real food, which makes them effective at fooling my system until later in the day when I crash and remember that “food” like that really does only make me feel like crap. Is organic, local food more expensive? Sometimes in the short run it does cost more; that is to say that it can cost more money, but financial concerns are only one factor of cost. Eating organic and sustainable food is definitely less costly in terms of the effect it has on the earth, and in terms of the disease we can potentially avoid. Even just the dollars we can save in healthcare costs by taking care of our bodies the right way now - it’s all well worth it.

More Confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every Wednesday. Also, look out for the two new “Curvy Girl” supplements, “Unfit” and “Food/Foe Thought.”

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