The Care and Keeping of Intense Humans: A Personal Project

This post has been a long time in the writing. As most of you know, I consider myself an incredibly intense human. I demonstrate intellectual, emotional, imaginational and sensory overexcitabilities – every area except one. I have come to embrace every aspect of my highly intense nature. Well almost everyone. I struggle with my sensory overexcitabilities. In particular, I struggle with overeating and the like.

I have had a significant weight concern most of my adult life. In truth, I struggled in my childhood as well, though the form of the struggle was different. Then, I was bulimic; my struggles with self-image and overeating were hidden behind an average weight profile.
As I began to heal from my bulimia, I stopped purging, stopped the obsessive exercise. The result – my weight ballooned. I tried many things to manage my weight. All of them worked in the short-term. But I never connected my intensities (emotional and sensory) to my physical self.

This, I believe, has been the biggest problem.

Now, I am not saying that my weight is just a matter of intensities run amok. Many things have contributed to the weight issue over the years: trauma and sexual abuse, physical problems related to my yo-yo dieting (thyroid and pre-diabetes, among them), and a lack of exercise in recent years have each played a role. But it wasn’t until I connected my normal intensities to my “whole” self that I understood everything. Really understood.

Enter this personal project.

For many years, I have felt that my inner me and the outer me were out of sync. Inside, I feel healthy, vibrant, centered. Outside, I do not take care of myself in a way that reflects this.

That changes now.

From food, to sleep, to exercise, to play, my new project is about aligning my inner and outer selves. And I am bringing you guys along for the journey.

I plan on being pretty open and exposed (at least, as much as is comfortable), with this project. I will share my weight loss, excerpts of my journaling, and how I am achieving my results (good and not-so-good). The goal: to end the year a LOT healthier than I am now.

Here are my beginning stats:
I am fat. Like obese-fat. My goal is a healthy weight for my height and build.
I am sedentary. Like under 6000 steps/daily. My goal is an active lifestyle with daily cardio, 3x weekly strength and flexibility training.
I take meds for all sorts of obesity-related things. My goal is to be off of all meds.

How will this happen? I am starting with a functional medicine doctor, changing my relationship with food and exercise, and continuing my meditation, journaling and “play” I started last year.

I will check-in every other week with my progress. This is more about my accountability than anything else. Regardless, I hope you’ll join me to whatever degree makes sense for you.

Sometimes it’s hard to care for our intense being. But it doesn’t have to be, right? I – we – can change that narrative!