Gaining

Just being in Australia for a while has a fattening effect on many visitors, but we're happy to help you get faster results.

Some areas, like the Gold Coast, are absolutely packed with restaurants, cafes and fast food outlets. You could commit to buying and eating (or drinking) at least one thing from every place you see, so that you walk in one end of a mall hungry and walk out the other end totally stuffed.

Otherwise you could try having a three-course meal of three different meals every night for dinner (or do it for lunch and breakfast as well).

I think you should measure your capacity once a week, just for a challenge.

Just once a week, keep track of EVERYTHING you eat. Then a week later, eat exactly the same thing...plus a little more.

Do that every week, should be fun!

OK, if you want to take it to the extreme then the favourite recipe around here is heavy cream (called "double cream" in Australia). Get used to drinking it from the carton and you'll be getting fatter in no time. If you mix it with soft drink at first it will go down much easier.

A simpler and possibly cheaper method is to buy ice cream, let it melt and drink it. Try a tub of that if you like. Switch flavours often.

If you ever want something more savoury, buy peanut butter and eat it from the jar. A jar a day is good for about 5 pounds a week.

This is a common misconception, that there's ONE thing you should eat to get as fat as possible. The trouble is, it turns eating into a chore and is very hard to do.

I say: Variety, variety, variety!

Plan ahead so that you have food with you always, and make sure to eat something every 2-3 hours, whether or not you are hungry. This helps make sure you really go through a lot of food in a day. Also, it makes food central in planning your day, which is fun, and most likely will inspire you to eat more.

And what everyone else said

This intrigues me. Soda and heavy cream? How well do they mix? Root Beer or Fanta with cream added seems like a great idea. Sometimes the chemistry doesn't always work on stuff like that though.

make friends with Aussie gainers would be idea?