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.

that is a really great point - the pandemic had a big impact on my eating habits, too.

i'm not sure if it was stress, or just access - being at home, having continual access to food and snacking all day. compounded with getting almost no exercise, i gained a lot without trying to.

the funny thing is i didn't notice a change in my appetite, possibly because i was just eating all of the time, lol! but it definitely takes more food to fill me up to the point of feeling stuffed than it did a year ago.

my appetite grew gradually over time. at first i just had to de-program myself from the thought of "enough," just letting myself eat to capacity instead of thinking about portion size.

once i was eating to the point of feeling full on a regular basis, this is probably where my capacity increased. occasionally eating too much, geting really stuffed, no doubt stretching out my stomach.

i am at the point now where my appetite is a problem - i get hungry too easily, and it takes more just to make me feel full.

i am sure there are ways to achieve this faster, but my advice is to just eat until you are really full on a regular basis - i think you'll see that increase happen naturally.

if nothing formal is getting organized, amazingem and i are looking to have something small in toronto late this summer - maybe august or september?

nothing big, just a small gathering for drinks/eats for a couple hours at a restaurant or bar - depending on how open things are in toronto at that time. probably not looking for people to travel yet, thinking very low key!