Chapter 2 - eating like a fat girl

We went to the store and I bought her fresh produce, lean proteins and whole grains. I also sent her some recipes to make tasty meals without a lot of calories.

I got a thrill eating each meal off of the list she sent me. All fast food and convenience store stuff. Cheap, calorie rich. After a few weeks, my waist had gotten a little softer but, more noticeably to me, my energy level had changed. Eating large portions of crappy food made me sluggish, I used to go to the gym later in the day. Now, I was going to morning workouts and missing more of those than I used to.

After a few weeks of grocery trips, she finally let me help her carry the food I bought for her up to her apartment. The hallway was gross, it smells faintly like mildew. We passed a fat man in his late 30's who said hi to Steph.

"Ew, that's Pete. He's constantly trying to get in my pants. I may be fat but I have standards," she said.

Her apartment was a tiny efficiency with one window pointed out towards a parking lot. |

"Nice place," I said.

"It's a dump."

I looked in her closet, filled with huge, cheap clothes mostly from Wal-Mart. What would it feel like to wear these huge tents? Steph walked over to a scale in her tiny bathroom.

"251 pounds," she said, "I'm down 5 pounds."

I walked past Steph and got a wiff of her hair, it smelled like McDonalds. Guess you spend that much time around fryers, you can't wash away the smell. I hopped on the scale.

"131 pounds," I said. I was up 6 pounds.

"Ha, you may be having fun eating like me but there's no way you are going to close this weight gap," said Steph as she grabbed her huge belly and shook it.

I walked over to her computer, probably the nicest thing in the apartment. A game was playing.

"Oh, that's Minecraft, you should give it a shot," said Steph.

The graphics were bad but Steph told me they were supposed to be. I remember reading about this game, it is supposed to be like Legos. After a bit, I started to figure it out. Steph interrupted me after playing for about 90 minutes.

I bought my own copy of Minecraft when I went home. I started to stay up late playing the game, building as I sat with a Little Caesar's $6 crappy pizza next to me. Soon, I was sleeping in and missing almost all my morning work outs.

After a few more weeks, my pants were getting tight. I figured Steph was ready for some new clothes too. We went to Target, cheap for me, expensive for her. She got some new outfits, between the workouts and the healthy eating, she was looking a lot better. Her face was brighter, she seemed to have more energy. It also helped to get her out of her unflattering work uniform.

I tried on some shirts in my old style but they looked terrible. I was getting a potbelly, no more bare midriff shirts for me. Time for clothes that were a little less revealing.

"I'm loving these workouts, I just wish I could take it to the next level and get a gym membership," said Steph as she tried on sweatshirts.

"Take my gym ID. Our faces look enough alike that they will never notice, they'll just think I've gotten fat and I'm trying to get back in shape. The chain has a branch in this town, right?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. But what will you do?"

"Oh, I've got an extra ID. They don't keep track of it too closely, I doubt they will notice two people in different towns using the same membership," I said.

That was a lie, that was my only gym ID. My parents' credit card paid for both of us to get new wardrobes. After we got to her place, we weighed ourselves again. She was officially below 250 pounds, 245 to be exact. I was up to 138. She started to pack up her old clothes to give away, I told her to keep them for now. Weight loss is often temporary. I kept my old clothes too, this was probably a temporary gain after all.