Gaining

Stopping is hard, as many people who want to lose weight can tell you. There's the body's setpoint that says "hey, you have to be eating X amount of calories now or I'll dial everything down so you'll gain even if you eat less." There's the higher amount of calories your body wants just to maintain.

Although it can be less sexy maybe, less perverse maybe, I think gaining over the long time is much more sustainable.

You're 275 now and want to be 350 tops. Stuff like crazy and get there in 1-2 years...or eat just a bit more than needed gaining 5-10 lbs per year and you're having fun the next 15 or 7 years.

Weight gain has upper limits. If it was easy to drop down and do it all over again who cares, but it's not easy. So, make it last as long as possible.

A while back I intentionally gained and ended up packing on 50 lbs. from stuffing. At first I really had the enthusiasm to stuff and keep eating even though it was difficult. I tried and learned a bunch of tricks after I was completely full to keep going. Such as drinking milkshakes, milk and even water....the end result was big bloating, gaining and stretching out my stomach.

Pertaining to a couple of your questions .....after about a month my appetite was huge from stuffing and stretching out my now big gut. I not only could plow through meals that I used to get stuffed on .....I would still be hungry and keep eating. Not to mention from stuffing I ended up craving and creating a sweet tooth that I never had before, coupled with always craving heavy calorie based meals and even craving fast food all of a sudden. I thought it was fun watching how much I could eat and never get full and the size of my gut would only keep encouraging me as well as wanting my wife to notice how big I was getting and to either tease me or have a serious talk about my new huge gut. She didn’t mention it or seem to mind it.....in fact she seemed to like it and make me huge fattening meals and serve me seconds and thirds without me even asking.....I became a “bottomless pit”.

I decided after 2 or so months that I should try and cut back and eat more healthy. Well, healthy at this stage was a massive lasagna at lunch and try not to have desert or sweets after. At least I wasn’t eating $20 at a fast food drive thru. It was extremely tough after I would finish my nearly 2,000 calorie lunch I couldn’t even hold back and would break down and go and get two large king size snickers bars and stuff them down in ecstasy. This went on for several more weeks and I continued to gain......I couldn’t control myself I was an eating machine.

It took a lot of effort and time to get back to wear my stomach was t so stretched out and start to eat somewhat normal. I finished around 260 lbs. and some years later the Weight gain side of me thought I should have just kept going and hit 300 lbs. it would have been so easy....but then again how easy would it have been to stop there. This coming from a gym rat weight lifter that could never gain weight when I was younger. Over the years I have gained and lost these same lbs. not as intentionally but let go for a while and it Packs on quickly. I am probably 245 lbs. currently.

It would definitely make it much tougher to lose weight if I was in an openly mutual gaining relationship though. My wife gains weight much to my liking but never lets herself go completely heavy like I would love....she mostly likes eating and has a big sweet tooth.

1. It wasn't hard for me to stay at a certain weight... body hovered around it within a couple pounds. If I lost weight, or overate for a couple days, my body course-corrected and got me back to that "normal" weight.

2. Occasionally. Not super often.

3. Not on purpose. Your body can take the occasional overindulgence.

4. Initially, difficult. But it becomes a lot easier if you know how to use environmental cues to your advantage. For example, when I was in college, there was one building that I'd walk into and get hungry because, just as a product of my schedule, I ended up eating a couple big lunches there when I first went to that school (hadn't started packing lunches yet, didn't;'t want to carry food, so ate a ton). When I wanted to avoid stuffing, I'd have a snack before going to that building.

So, a really good way to control stuffing behavior would be to intentionally have some kind of ritual(s) around stuffing. Like, wear particular clothes. Have a phrase you say before you start. Or only stuff in a certain place, or with certain foods (and then don't buy them when you don't want to stuff).

5. my advice might be less helpful here. Mine was over a long period of time. But I have, over the years, occasionally taken up stuffing as a hobby for a couple weeks, gained a couple (5?) pounds, and then returned to life as usual.