here is a link to ray-norr - an absolute legend in bbw art! if you've never seen his work, definitely check it out:

deviantart.com/ray-norr

having been fit and athletic for many years, and having had some long-term relationships during that time, and now being very fat and in the best relationship of my life, i can confidently say... your weight doesn't really matter.

being fat or thin will limit your potential partner pool (my current partner and i met on wooplus - she does not find thin guys attractive, for example), but there are lots of people who find all body types attractive. finding a partner is just tough, and i would say that weight is one of the most superficial factors, and if it is the factor that kills your chance at a relationship with someone - they were probably best avoided in the first place!

thanks for sharing your experience and these tips, i really appreciate it.

while my situation is not as serious as what you experienced, i am facing some health challenges that require i lose some weight.

after being thin, healthy and fit until my late 30s, i gave up the gym and let myself get pudgy for a girlfriend... then i fell down the slippery slope of "more is better" and had a whole lot of fun, but also tripled in size. i didn't have any health impacts for a number of years, which i attributed to my previous healthy lifestyle... but unfortunately that didn't last as long as i had hoped!

i am going to try to make some lifestyle adjustments like you mentioned, and hope that i can maintain my well-being while still enjoying as much of this lifestyle as i can, relatively safely.

gluten is in lots of stuff, but it isn't a requirement for gaining.

as they look at gluten-free recipes and substitutions, they will find there are lots of options. as a plus, a lot of the time gluten substitutes are higher in calories, too - which means it can actually help you gain!

and every good pizza place has a gluten free option these days. they're usually not better, but they're often pretty good.

keep your eye on the "events" forum for meet-ups that are happening in your area, if you want to casually meet people as opposed to try and date them.

i've been to several over the years, and they are have mostly been grate. the best ones have just been at local pubs and are pretty informal. the last one my partner and i attended together, and it was very low-key, a nice night.

there are a hundred threads on this topic, so maybe do a search of those. but here are my points of advice after having gained 300 lbs:

1. increase your calorie intake. it doesn't really matter what - just eat more. eat larger servings, eat more frequently.

2. eat what things you like, and which inspire you to eat more, and keep eating. this was the biggest factor for me. eating more, better food - more diverse foods. this awakened the foodie inside me, which was the single greatest driver for making me really fat.

3. the top two will naturally result in this, but the third tip is: increase your stomach capacity. by pushing yourself past the point at which you normally feel full, you are literally stretching your stomach. it's capacity is increasing. it takes time, but you will know it's happening when you can eat more in one sitting, and you feel hungrier more quickly.

good luck, and remember to enjoy it!

i know these bodybuilding products have been a staple in gainer fiction, and are certainly play into the fantasy aspect of all of this, and gaining quickly... put have they ever really worked for anyone?

are they just to increase calorie intake? what kind of calories? the ones i have seen are very high in protein, i am not sure they're all that healthy for bodybuilders, let alone the rest of us. that could be a problem for you kidneys, etc. over time.

most of my gain happened just by eating regular old food. once my stomach capacity was stretched to a certain size, my natural hunger drive would make me consume 6-8,000 calories a day! (i think i am back down to 3,000ish or so now.) i am not sure this is any healthier, but it wasn't all heavily processed proteins, or limited to fast food (although that was a portion, for sure!).

i would be interested to find out others experience with weight gain powders. would boost be a healthier alternative?

this is a huge part of what makes it so embarrassing being there... not fitting on/in equipment, trouble getting up and down from benches, and getting dumbbells up off the floor!

i have added another 100 lbs since i last was at the gym, i can't imagine trying to do that stuff now! last year a friend, as a kind of joke, got me onto the floor to try a sit-up and push-up, and those were both wild failures, lol

i was an avid gym jock for 20 years, and then i took a break "for a few months..." at the time i was with a ssbbw gf, and her enthusiasm for food and life rubbed off on me. went from 150 to over 200 pretty quick.

so i panicked a bit out how fast i had porked up, and how out of shape i was becoming. so i made a couple of attempts to return, several months apart.

the first thing i remember is how embarrassed i felt coming out of the change room for the first time in my too-tight gym sorts and a jiggling gut that my t-shirt could not camouflage. then the next thing was what you found - my cardio had gone to crap. a couple of minutes on the treadmill destroyed me, and the sensation of running with my gut, butt and love handles bouncing was just too much.

then i went to the weights, and after having been away for some months, having to reduce the size of the dumbbells i used to lift, and take plates off the bars just felt so humiliating. it was like i was a beginner again almost. at the end of my workout i sat on some mats to do crunches, and of course that was a disaster, too!

i was so discouraged from that attempt at working out (and so sore for days after!) that it was months before i would go back again. it was pretty much the same: months went by, i had packed on another 25 or 30 lbs, and i panicked. but the result was the same, only worse. i know what you mean when you say the machines are not made for big people - they are even worse for big bellied people!

i felt like a huge whale, everyone else in the place seemed to be a lean bodybuilder. one person even tried to encourage me and gave me tips, and i was just thinking, "i used to be like you!"

so after that humiliating experience, i quickly reconciled myself to enjoying my lifestyle rather than punishing myself at the gym.

i find it particularly funny when i am with average-sized co-workers or casual acquaintances who do this, while i am sitting right there in front of them lol!