this is soooooo true.

guys, if you keep having unsatisfying interactions with others over and over again, it's probably not them - it's you. so take a moment and examine: who are you interacting with? how do you interact with them? how do you think they perceive that? mentally step into their shoes and see if from their perspective.

there is something like that here, if you go to someone's profile and look at the "gainers."

i have not used it, but i know a bunch of users here have tracked their gains that way.

it's so different for everyone. i put on more than 100 lbs and it didn't change my face in a significant way. it's been looking fuller more recently, and the double chin eventually arrived, lol.

it's not real life, but the same rules apply for the most part.

if you are going to message someone, or approach people them in chat, remember that your first impression is just as important online as it is in the physical world.

people come into the chat room all the time and make an inane comment to "bait" some kind of fat chat. from people. i ignore them, i think most of us in chat do. just like real life, you have to read the room - who is your audience.

i think most of us appreciate compliments on our appearance, but we also are more than just fat people or feeders, etc. there's a lot more than just the fetish if you want to make a personal connection, and i find that some people who log on here with a single-minded focus on the fetish often run out of things to chat about, honestly.

ok, i looked at your profile and your activity on the site... and i will throw in my two cents for what it is worth.

any place (online community or otherwise) will give you what you put into it.

if you want to be casually interactive, not invest too much, don't expect much in return.

i have made real friendships and real connections here. but it takes time, and you know, you actually have to meet people on their terms and give them a little rope, too.

if you want to come back in a couple years, i don't think you'll have any better luck - it's not the site, it's not the community that is going to change.

look to your own approach - what are you trying to get out of it. if you want to be an anonymous person who post impersonal pictures of food, you're not going to connect with anyone that way, now or in the future.

totally feel the same way - what a call back to what feels like past lives (sticking with the highlander reference ...

kelligrl is the first really memorable bbw "celeb" that has been etched in my brain. i wonder where she is now?

i do remember brooke, too - mostly i think because she was canadian. when you look back, these people were only active for a couple of years! and they are still remembered with affection.

dimensions website was my main hangout back then. i do remember seeing ff back early on, i think, but it was later that i started lurking here.

so many beautiful models have helped bring this interest forward - if you think back to those days, there were maybe dozens of us, and now it has grown so much. i think sites like ff have really done a lot help provide these havens for something that is still not widely accepted in the mainstream.

my experience was very similar - i have posted about it elsewhere in the forums, so i'll just summarize my experience: i was a fit, athletic feeder from my 20s and thru all of my 30s. it was when i started dating a ssbbw who was not interested in gaining that i kind of fell into it.

like @captain cake i found just being around her and her decadent eating & drinking habits had an effect on me. when we moved in together i was spending so much time with her that my gym time grew more and more infrequent. then it became a decision to "take some time off" from the gym, stop stressing about it, and just enjoy life.

the slippery slope was that some "time off" made it too hard to get back into going to the gym, and her influence on my appetites was too strong to resist! so even though we split up more than a year ago, i've continued to gain weight!

now my much slimmer girlfriend gets a kick out of feeding me sometimes. which isn't helping me lose any weight, lol!

i use fatsecret.com to track my calories consumed and burned (it's free, and the pick list of foods and restaurants is extensive which makes it fast for me):

fatsecret.com

and if you want to see what the impact will be over time, this body weight calculator can help turn calories (like those from fatsecret) into pounds over time:

fatcalc.com/bwp

it is good enough it can make a projection based on how active you are vs what you are eating on a regular basis.

*edit: fatcalc.com no longer allows for calculations that go well beyond the "acceptable" bmi range. i just tried to update mine, and it wouldn't give me the calc to 400 lbs. i guess too many of us fatties were using it for "unhealthy" purposes

omg, i practically spit out my coffee when i read that - perfect!!!

just when i am curious, or something tells me that there might have been a change (like had to go to the next hole in my belt), etc.

i have been in relationships in the past where we scheduled weigh-ins, but i am not that motivated now.