It has become so very much a class issue. And that has such complex interactions with size acceptance and body positivity, because even people who might not give a fig if someone is fat or not may very well care about having thin privilege in its various forms, including assumptions about abilities, intellect, virtue, and social class. That is, fat discrimination can be carried and amplified because it is a way to buff up the perceived value of thin people.

I think there are two parts to wanting to be seen as attractive.

-One is pragmatic, people tend to treat attractive people better. (from minor things like how helpful store staff are to chances of getting a job/promotion)
- One is vanity. We get a boost to our ego, of course, when other people admire us, pay positive attention to us, and so on.

As others said above, you can live your life without making how others view you so important. Mostly that means giving up vanity, because we all have to live with the pragmatic effects. As I got older, balder, and fatter I didn't have a lot of choice but to give up vanity because it wasn't doing anything for me, but all the same it was darn hard and I still backslide and find myself looking for those ego boosts. But it is something you can learn to recognize in your behavior and thoughts and tamp down on, reducing its roll in your life.

Most people gain the weight back eventually, but 'eventually' can be well down the road.

Generally changes in life that disrupt habits make it easier to slip back into a fatter life (it typically takes organization and discipline to live the lifestyle that keeps weight off)). Although sometimes those disruptions in life can lead to weight loss, all depending on what they are and how the person reacts. But by the sounds of it she is leading a moderately disciplined life right now, so it seems less likely that a change would lead to even more weight loss.

Basically, I wouldn't count on it, but it is reasonable to still hope for it

Something I forgot -- if you can get ahold of those measurements, used the size charts on stores' sites to figure out her (theoretical) size at that store. I say theoretical because not everything fits true to the size charts, but at least it is a starting point. And yah, if she is continuing to gain, lots of stretch sounds key

I enjoy reading various bits of history in a non-academic context. Also well researched novels set in historical periods can help bring a time and place alive. I'm kind of scattershot, but roughly speaking I like those transition times and starting of things points. When the fur trade was spreading through Canada, dark ages Europe or just after the black death, as Protestantism was spreading through Europe, archeology of very early humans, things like that.

But my wife has an MA in history, so I leave the heavy historical lifting to her.

You could look into canned coconut milk, it has a lot of the fat still in it. But:
- I don't know how healthy a fat it is
- I suspect part of heavy cream's near magical powers are due to its dairy nature, that it is basically meant to be perfectly digestible when we are babies so for those of us who can still consume, it is still pretty much the perfectly digestible food, in a form that our bodies make use of the most easily.

Cheese is good, if it is not convenient to be cutting it up you could pre-slice some, or buy Laughing Cow or Babybel.

Peanut butter works (you just need a spoon and grab a big spoonful of it). I did just keep a jar in my desk drawer at one point.

Any kind of seed or nut, although some of those can be a bit messy.

Really dark chocolate is pretty low in sugar (not sugar free, but you are not getting much if you don't have too much chocolate), although some people don't like the bitterness of it.

If you have access to a fridge for snacks, high fat yoghurt isn't bad (plain, the flavored stuff is full of sugar). Or simply milk, the calories are not that high but it is very easy to consume calories (or if you have access to a private fridge, cream!)

Good luck!

I think getting her some bigger clothes is an excellent idea. Clothes not fitting can be a really strong reason to stop gaining/lose a bit, as it isn't comfortable and doesn't look good.

If you do, make sure to look at the brands and styles she is currently wearing and go up a size (or 2?) in those, because sizing can vary a lot between stores and even brands in a store, as can the fit of items. i.e. if she's been wearing a size 12 jean from Old Navy and you buy a size 14 jean at American Eagle it may not be a good fit, while the size 14 (or 16, depending how tight the old ones are) at Old Navy you know will work for her.

Or, if stores in your area are open and allow use of fitting rooms, go shopping with her and get her to give you a fashion show of various styles and sizes and then buy from what really works best for her from that.

He sounds like a lucky guy

I did some web searching one time trying to find out how many calories we could process in a day, without getting any hard numbers. The closest I could find was that people can probably absorb up to around twice what their maintenance calories would be (so if at your current weight and lifestyle you'd need about 3000 calories a day to maintain your weight, your body could probably manage to process around 6000 calories in a day).

I'm pretty sure that had never been tested on people who were deliberately over eating for a while, nor for that matter people who are just really fat in general so needing higher maintenance calories. Still, it is a starting point for thinking about things like this. And it suggests that for most people more than 7k a day may not really add much to the gaining.

(gaining is about a lot more than just raw calories in per day, but still it is a decent first-order approximation)