Gaining

there was a post that touched on the point of "no return" a little while back, but it was locked when it started to drift way off topic... i wanted to post about my experience over the last few weeks.

long story short: i was fit/athletic/muscular for most of my life. i moved to a new city (ottawa), started dating diane, a ssbbw, and fell out of my gym habits and started to get fat (i posted about that here if you want more background: fantasyfeeder.com/forum/posts ).

so... after the pandemic began, and with family stuff and work stuff complicating life, i had to move cities again. my girlfriend and i eventually decided to amicably split up rather than kill our relationship slowly by distance.

like everyone else, i had put on a few pounds during the pandemic (ok, more than a few!) mostly due to my reduced physical activity (like, almost none, lol).

what surprised me was that, months after we split up, my weight was still increasing. i just assumed that, being away from diane, i would start to drop weight, without the influence of her enthusiasm for good food around.

looking back, diane completely changed my relationship with food. she wasn't into feedism at all, she was more of a foodie - and she absolutely loved food. where we would eat, or what places we would order food from, were the prime considerations when we were dating. what movie we saw was not as important as the restaurant we had dinner at before the show! this excitement and interest in food is what really rubbed off on me, and led me down my gaining path. before i learned to enjoy the feeling of being really full - stuffed to the brim - i learned to really appreciate flavours and textures of food more deeply from her. i was like her apprentice in eating!

now i can look back at the combination of this change in my relationship with food with having given up on the gym (due more to the embarrassment of my growing paunch than any other particular motivation), and the change in my lifestyle makes sense. my desires have changed, my daily motivations, and how i seek pleasure.

fast forward to 2021... we are still stuck in the covid pandemic. i am now 320 lbs, more than double my weight 3 years ago. i have started to date a self-professed "chubby chaser," emily. she was not aware of feedism until i introduced her to it, and she isn't sure it has much appeal for her. in her words: "i just like fat people."

from my perspective now, as a fat "foodie," it is really interesting dating someone who is a fat admirer, and being the fat object of her admiration.

i mentioned to emily that i was a little surprised that i was fatter now than when i had split from my ex. emily wasn't surprised, she asked me, "have you seen how much you eat??" so she suggested i track my calories with an app to see what was i really eating.

so i got an account at fatsecret.com/ which is normally used by people trying to lose weight... but you can put in a higher goal weight if you want to, as well. they have a really great database of foods which makes it easy to track what you are eating, and it does all the calorie math for you. it was kind of surprising to see how everything adds up, to be honest.

after using the app for a few weeks, most days i can see that i consume between 6,000-7,000 calories, which apparently is about double what would be required to maintain my weight given my level of activity. that kind of surprised me. my highest day was over 8,000 calories! when i made an effort to "rein in" my intake, i managed a few days between 5,000-5,500 calories.

this is why i think i have past the point of no return. to actually lose weight would require such an incredible change in my lifestyle at this point, i think i would be absolutely miserable. it's like my brain's pleasure-center has been rewired. i used to challenge myself on the treadmill to run further, or longer, or faster - but that no longer inspires me. in some ways, i think of how much time i spent running in place, not getting anywhere! but the thought of giving up pizza, mashed potatoes with gravy, lasagna, tiramisu, freshly baked donuts... oh, the feeling of being deprived that way just makes me sad.

i am not sure what will come next for me, but i feel very content where i am right now.

i would be interested to know if anyone else has felt similarly in their gain, or their change of lifestyle?

I really liked your post, I have been with my boyfriend for almost two years and in the last year we were living together, I’ve gained almost twenty pounds just by eating habit changes. He’s 360 and very food picky as in he only things fried and or grill(burgers). It’s been so very hard to try and change my diet due to the intense cravings I don’t want to go back. I also just downloaded this app you mentioned and it is already so informative!!

i found the same thing - when you live with someone, it is very hard not to get caught up in their lifestyle, especially around food prep. (i have also known couples where one is a vegetarian or vegan, and the other isn't - and so meal prep is much more complicated! but i don't think this is the norm.)

i am glad you are enjoying the fatsecret.com app - it really was eye-opening for me. looking back, i think i probably have always eaten more than my basic caloric requirement, but i was just way more active, and burning lots of calories. to cut my diet down to the 3,500 calories it says i require just seems like a punishment at this point! i don't want to give up the will to live, lol!

here's a recent example of having past the point no return, i think.

since the pandemic started, i have been working from home. i used to be quite active at work, on my feet and walking a bunch. i didn't count, but easily 10,000+ steps a day. now, for the last year almost, my activity has reduced dramatically - down to maybe 100s of steps some days! this has no doubt contributed to the 60 lbs i have put on over the last year.... of course, access to snacks all day has helped, too.

last week after seeing how winded i got walking up two flights of stairs, emily (my gf) brought up the subject of my inactivity... and i agreed, for my health i needed to try to become more active.

so i went for a long walk on the weekend, just around my neighborhood. i walked for an hour with two breaks to catch my breath, where i sat for maybe 10 minutes each time.

on the way home i passed a bakery... so i stopped in and brought home a treat: a half-dozen super-sized chocolate cupcakes with icing! i figured i earned the extra calories from all the walking, and i would share them at home for dessert at dinner...

so i had one, and it was soooo good! i couldn't resist, so i had another... anyway, to make a long story short, long before dinner all of the cupcakes were gone. i just couldn't resist!

the weather is getting nicer here, so i am sure em and i will be walking more, but somehow i don't think i will be losing much weight.

Canuck, totally that habit of going for a walk and getting a treat is such a mood, and such a way to lock in your weight.

so true! an interesting impact of my walking this week has been an increased appetite. tracking my activity and eating on fatsecret.com is showing that i am still consuming more calories than i am burning, by a long shot, lol!

the exercise might be helping my breathing a little, but i find my hips are getting sore, so i think i need to take some days off between walks.

I agree! At over 400lbs I know I'm past the point of return. Being so big, any moving around is difficult and makes me only more lazy. And what to eat next is really the only thing I think about. Making me even bigger. And when I look into the future I can only see my self getting bigger.every pund every inch every roll and each new stetch makes me only want to get bigger. And yes it would be torcher to not eat what ever I want when I want it and as much as I want. I'm just a greedy lazy pig and I love it!

The point of no return is very real. Once you change your lifestyle and accept being a pig, it's hard to find and keep the motivation to go back. Also, once you gain, your body does what it can to maintain the weight. I've gone weeks of eating 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day with practically no activity and I didn't lose any weight. Lastly, I've gotten to the point where my mobility is limited. It's painful dragging myself through a supermarket so I rely on drive thru and delivery. We all have our vices...food and fat just happens to be mine.

this was a big issue i noticed, even after a gain of just 50-70 lbs... it really demotivated me when i tried going back to the gym. not just being lazy, but being unable to perform at exercises like i had before... which just drove me to being more lazy, lol!

Also: stretching. Both being sedentary and getting bigger can cause your muscles to tend to tighten up, at which point they may not stretch properly and so put more stress on your joints. Do those old gym class stretches as best you can, and figure out new ways to stretch despite your new inches, and it should help (as will just walking regularly)