Chapter 3: The Fat Friend

My freshman year of college was very liberating for me. I know most people say that, but specifically in my case it couldn’t have come at a better time. I made new friends and got along great with the girls in my dorm. Most importantly, I wasn’t worried about my weight nearly as much as I had been back home. My new friends didn’t know that I had gained a bunch of weight really fast, so they didn’t see me as “that girl who got fat”, they just saw me as a chubby girl. I don’t know why but I was totally fine with them thinking I was a life-long chubby chick as long as they didn’t know I used to be thinner. It’s strange how we rationalize things like that sometimes. I guess it was just a big relief not having to feel embarrassed all the time, like people were judging me. Since my doctor visit over the summer I had begun exercising regularly in an effort to cancel out my slow metabolism, but it didn’t stop me from gaining, it just slowed it down. My metabolism must’ve just stopped working all together, because anything I ate seemed to go right to my belly and butt. When I had first arrived at the school I was around 165 pounds, and by the end of my freshman year I was about 185. I probably would’ve been absolutely huge if not for my time on the treadmill.

An interesting change for me was my role amongst my new friends. You see, within my group of friends back home I was kind of in the middle weight-wise; there were girls who were thinner than me and some who were bigger. But in my new circle of college friends I was the biggest girl in the group. I was the token “fat friend.” Not that anyone called me that or anything, but looking at the other girls and then me, you could put two and two together. I wasn’t even fat at that point, just kind of pudgy, but the fact still remained that I was the largest girl in my little circle. I remember when that kind of dawned on me and how I got so upset. I didn’t cry my eyes out like I had about my doctor visit, but it definitely made me want to work harder at the gym. Of course, with my laziness, that extra hard work stuff never really happened. I did still run on the treadmill, but I kind of knew it wasn’t going to do too much good. Besides, while I wasn’t in love with all the weight I was gaining, nobody was really judging me about it because I had always been chubby since they knew me. And the way the extra pounds spread out over my body, accentuating my curves, made it much more bearable than if I was just growing a big flabby gut or something.

Although, to be honest, my belly was getting kind of big by that point. By then I had a soft roll hanging over my waistband when I sat down. I was definitely not a fan of that. But my boobs looked real good and I had some nice cleavage going for me. I’m so shallow, I know. My butt was getting really big, but it was still nice in my eyes. The biggest change, at least for me, was in my face. I was definitely getting some chubby cheeks, and my face looked much rounder than it did before. My jaw line was real soft and, while I didn’t have a double chin or anything, there was definitely some chubbiness around that area. I was definitely not a thin girl anymore. If you had asked people to describe me I think the word “chubby” would have come up quite often.

By the time I was finishing up my sophomore year of college I was almost 200 pounds, probably like 195. Those were hectic times for me. I thought about my rapidly-increasing weight almost nonstop. It’s hard not to think about it when you’re body is changing so fast. My belly had basically become one big, soft ball. It wasn’t even possible to hide it if I wanted to. My boobs had also blown up. My chest was starting to resemble the chests of all the large-breasted ladies in my family. I had always had good-sized boobs, but there’s a difference between big boobs on a thin person and then the big, heaving breasts of a heavy woman. I never thought I’d be in the latter category, but I was certainly on my way. When I didn’t wear a bra I could see some noticeable sagging going on. It was kind of surreal to have it happening to me.