this year i have started dating a wonderful trans woman. i have learned more about the trans experience from her than i could have imagined. she is an incredible, strong, brilliant person and i fell really lucky to have connected with her.

most of my social media has been fat focused (ff, feabie, etc.). emily contacted me thru a fat dating app. i am looking for any recommendations for resources for people like me, who want to support their trans partners and the trans community.

emily has pointed me toward tgforums.com and susans.org and some discord stuff (but i don't use discord atm)... really hoping there is there is something out there that is fa/bhm/bbw friendly?

thanks!

i found the same thing - when you live with someone, it is very hard not to get caught up in their lifestyle, especially around food prep. (i have also known couples where one is a vegetarian or vegan, and the other isn't - and so meal prep is much more complicated! but i don't think this is the norm.)

i am glad you are enjoying the fatsecret.com app - it really was eye-opening for me. looking back, i think i probably have always eaten more than my basic caloric requirement, but i was just way more active, and burning lots of calories. to cut my diet down to the 3,500 calories it says i require just seems like a punishment at this point! i don't want to give up the will to live, lol!

there was a post that touched on the point of "no return" a little while back, but it was locked when it started to drift way off topic... i wanted to post about my experience over the last few weeks.

long story short: i was fit/athletic/muscular for most of my life. i moved to a new city (ottawa), started dating diane, a ssbbw, and fell out of my gym habits and started to get fat (i posted about that here if you want more background: fantasyfeeder.com/forum/posts ).

so... after the pandemic began, and with family stuff and work stuff complicating life, i had to move cities again. my girlfriend and i eventually decided to amicably split up rather than kill our relationship slowly by distance.

like everyone else, i had put on a few pounds during the pandemic (ok, more than a few!) mostly due to my reduced physical activity (like, almost none, lol).

what surprised me was that, months after we split up, my weight was still increasing. i just assumed that, being away from diane, i would start to drop weight, without the influence of her enthusiasm for good food around.

looking back, diane completely changed my relationship with food. she wasn't into feedism at all, she was more of a foodie - and she absolutely loved food. where we would eat, or what places we would order food from, were the prime considerations when we were dating. what movie we saw was not as important as the restaurant we had dinner at before the show! this excitement and interest in food is what really rubbed off on me, and led me down my gaining path. before i learned to enjoy the feeling of being really full - stuffed to the brim - i learned to really appreciate flavours and textures of food more deeply from her. i was like her apprentice in eating!

now i can look back at the combination of this change in my relationship with food with having given up on the gym (due more to the embarrassment of my growing paunch than any other particular motivation), and the change in my lifestyle makes sense. my desires have changed, my daily motivations, and how i seek pleasure.

fast forward to 2021... we are still stuck in the covid pandemic. i am now 320 lbs, more than double my weight 3 years ago. i have started to date a self-professed "chubby chaser," emily. she was not aware of feedism until i introduced her to it, and she isn't sure it has much appeal for her. in her words: "i just like fat people."

from my perspective now, as a fat "foodie," it is really interesting dating someone who is a fat admirer, and being the fat object of her admiration.

i mentioned to emily that i was a little surprised that i was fatter now than when i had split from my ex. emily wasn't surprised, she asked me, "have you seen how much you eat??" so she suggested i track my calories with an app to see what was i really eating.

so i got an account at fatsecret.com/ which is normally used by people trying to lose weight... but you can put in a higher goal weight if you want to, as well. they have a really great database of foods which makes it easy to track what you are eating, and it does all the calorie math for you. it was kind of surprising to see how everything adds up, to be honest.

after using the app for a few weeks, most days i can see that i consume between 6,000-7,000 calories, which apparently is about double what would be required to maintain my weight given my level of activity. that kind of surprised me. my highest day was over 8,000 calories! when i made an effort to "rein in" my intake, i managed a few days between 5,000-5,500 calories.

this is why i think i have past the point of no return. to actually lose weight would require such an incredible change in my lifestyle at this point, i think i would be absolutely miserable. it's like my brain's pleasure-center has been rewired. i used to challenge myself on the treadmill to run further, or longer, or faster - but that no longer inspires me. in some ways, i think of how much time i spent running in place, not getting anywhere! but the thought of giving up pizza, mashed potatoes with gravy, lasagna, tiramisu, freshly baked donuts... oh, the feeling of being deprived that way just makes me sad.

i am not sure what will come next for me, but i feel very content where i am right now.

i would be interested to know if anyone else has felt similarly in their gain, or their change of lifestyle?

i know... that has been the surprising thing for me, too. i kind of expected to lose some weight, not gain more, and keep gaining more.

well, i have gotten a little heavier. when i have time i will have to start a fresh post...

when i was younger i was very active and very fit and spent a certain amount of effort trying to be what i thought was attractive to other people.

in the intervening decades i have learned that attraction is a very individual thing. being attractive to a lot of other people is great, if you want to be superficially rewarded by a lot of other people... who don't actually give a damn about you, specifically, as a person.

conversely, i have found myself attracted to a variety of individuals of all shapes, sizes, genders, etc.... and some other individuals have been attracted to me, too, for some reason! at various weights and physical conditions, i should add.

you mentioned that you "feel unattractive," which is really a tough thing. out own perception of our "attractiveness" is so out of whack with what everyone around us feels, it becomes a bit of a mind game. this is what the self-acceptance movement is all about - learning to accept your own body, visage, etc. and be comfortable and confident in that. because confidence is absolutely attractive in someone!

In the last two-three years i have gained a similar amount of weight, and have seen similar results to what you describe. some of it isn't just the weight, but less activity and exercise in my daily life.

walking and stairs are the biggest consideration for me. i try to plan out my movements so i don't have to get up from my desk any more frequently than necessary, and absolutely try to minimize how many times i have to climb stairs.

the other change that is big for me but not noticeable to others is body grooming - i can't "manscape" my body hair like i could when i was thin anymore. :/

i have the same issue... i used to be able to use the mirror to see, and one hand to stretch or flatten the skin i was shaving, but now my belly hangs too much, and my fupa is larger, and it all kind of folds over on each other (and some other important bits that i wouldn't want to nick with a razor, lol!), so i have given up. i would need at least one more pair of hands, lol.

i don't know if i feel more feminine after doubling my weight... but i definitely feel less masculine.

when i was fit i was a gym guy, i liked to work out - i am bisexual too, and did occasionally shave my body hair, etc... but being strong, fit, even when i was with other men, i felt very masculine.

i think i feel less masculine, or "manly," now that i am fatter, probably more due to how out of shape i am, how i am not nearly as strong as i was, etc.

interesting perspectives, tho!

i got home sort of late last night from a date with my new girlfriend (can i call her that already? we've been seeing a lot of each other for the last few weeks, so i think so)... and something happened i thought i would share.

it kind of highlights how my lifestyle/mindset has changed, and why i am still fat (and probably getting fatter, lol)...

we'd had dinner a couple hours earlier at her place... i was not hungry at all when i got home, but when i arrived i discovered a pizza box with 4 slices of pizza left in it...

well, even though i wasn't hungry, i couldn't let those slices go to waste, could i? so... i ate them.

the folks i live with who'd left the pizza weren't too happy when they discovered i'd finished their leftovers, but i don't think they were too surprised either.

there are very few left-overs here.