General

In all seriousness while I haven't ever gotten to this point I can see two sides of the coin really a desire to be as fat as possible can be quite dangerous and for most people many would value their lives and well being over a fetish let alone a fantasy, not to mention for some individuals it may really end up being something else instead. But anyway back to what I was saying there is an important balance to have between responsibility and indulgindulging/ letting go for if one falls too far into one or the other their life can end up being hell, as once they go too far in one direction they become less free to do anything that they want. Things that are more often important than having another 10 or 50 pounds. It can be painful to make a sacrifice like that but in the end it usually is for the better since the goal can either be accomplished later or turns out to be something you didn't want in the first place.

I really slacked off on my healthy lifestyle and indulged in a bit of my gainer fantasies in the first part of last year, becoming the most sedentary I've ever been and developing a near daily habit of hitting up local coffee shops for vanilla bean lattes and yummy baked goods (the perils of working from home when your neighbourhood is full of great places to grab a quick bite). I hit my personal highest weight in March (240 pounds) and was still 235 in July when I had some bloodwork done, and my blood sugars were well up into the diabetic range and my cholesterol had spiked.

Obviously my body just doesn't hold up well to that lifestyle. I got started on Metformin for the diabetes, cut out the majority of carbs (including almost all sugar), and got back to moving around more in general and getting in at least 20 minutes of more intense activity each day. It is pretty much impossible to replace all of the calories I was getting from carbs, and I'm being more active, so my weight has plunged down to about 200 pounds, the lowest I've been in over two decades.

It has been a pretty weird mental space to be in, fantasizing about pigging out and getting flabbier while eating in a very disciplined way and losing weight. To some extent it is an extension of where I've been for ages, because I've pretty much always had these desires and tried not to give in to them most of the time, but never before has the conflict between my internal desires and external actions been so large. Leaves me feeling almost disoriented at times.

I've had a similar experience. Didn't gain that much weight during the pandemic (15 pounds) but cut way back on activity once the gyms closed. My checkup results were alarming, on the cusp of type-2 diabetes plus a host of scary (probably related) symptoms, including high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Have markedly increased my activity level and have lost the weight I gained during the pandemic, but I think that some drastic dietary changes (e.g. very low carbs) may be required to make progress on the blood sugar and A1C categories.