The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I don't have any doubt that different body/personality types have different metabolisms, and that "high-strung" people burn off a lot in nervous energy. Me, I'm what they used to call "phlegmatic" in the old days of the four humours: cool and slow and damp. My natural body type is (again, to go back to the ancients) "Jovian," big and expansive and somewhat fleshy.

The one thing I've finally accepted is that energy in minus energy burned equals energy stored. How fast or efficient the burn is differs from person to person--mine is relatively slow and yours is probably relatively fast (and hence the "no trouble with weight despite eating loads of junk food")--but the basic laws of physics don't change.

For a brief period about two years ago, job stresses ratcheted my internal furnace up. I was high on adrenaline for months. I barely ate, I slept four or six hours a night, weight started falling off, and it was incredible. My personality changed. I loved it. And I knew it would kill me if I kept doing it.

Fortunately, it was a limited term job demand, and came to an end, but it gave me a taste of what it must be like to be a high-burner, and it certainly wasn't conducive to my good health.

On Joe's Goals and other tracking tools: usually I find that when the allure runs out and I wander off, I've still gained some lasting change from the experience. I expect it will be the same here.