chapter 12

Dropping 20 pounds was something which never happened to her before, and I was thinking this achievement would tempt her to take it more easy with her diet, inevitably leading to stopping or maybe even reversing her weight loss journey, but her determination was stronger than that.
She really needed that determination. With her own words: "Eating has become like breathing for me. Do you consciously thing about every breath you make, all the time? Try holding back your breath for a short while, then you'll understand how difficult it is for me to make sure I don't eat anything else between my meals."

She even started a serious workout routine, but it soon turn out to be a failure. It only made her exhausted, sweaty, dizzy and extremely hungry only after a few minutes, so she abandoned the planned routines, and, to compensate, she made her diet even more harsh, sometimes skipping meals altogether. I tried to persuade her to take it more slowly, pointing out that by starving herself she will just wreck her metabolism, and gain back even more weight, but I couldn't convince her. She argued that it would be a problem only if she started overeating again, so if she keeps up with her diet plan, it wouldn't be a problem. She also claimed that she couldn't allow herself to be sloppy, we both knew how it always turned out. She was confident in her willpower, but not that confident as to risk trying a larger meal, or tasting rich, fattening food again.

By the time she started to visible become smaller, we already got used to her new lifestyle. She was happy, in a way, most of the time, but this was more in the form of being happy for not failing, rather than an ecstatic happiness of fulfilling her dreams. Despite this, she managed to get her weight all the way down to 350 pounds.

Interestingly, her body got somewhat softer, her skin no longer being stretched as was the case when her body continuously expanded. For someone who has never met her before, she still looked huge, with her thighs big enough to overflow chairs, and when she was sitting, her belly filled out a good portion of her lap, while her side and back was covered by rolls of fat. Still, the 70 pounds she lost did make a difference. Her fitness, if we measured it in how far she could walk or climb, only improved a little, she felt weak from having herself constantly starved and having no energy to do any workouts, but she did get more mobility in a way: she could fit into places she had trouble with before, she could tie her shoes with much less struggling, and her clothing choices became more varied.

I sincerely congratulated her, I knew how hard she had to fight to achieve this. I was unwilling to switch the topic too fast to the question what her plans would be now, after her goal was reached, but she sensed it, and had an answer ready, which, I guess, she has been pondering for quite some time: "I don't feel I want to get any thinner anytime soon. My skin is already much too loose, look," she lifted her shirt, and pinched her skin on her belly, "and strange as it sounds, I just started getting slightly uncomfortable in this body whenever I tried imagining how it would be to lose even more weight... so, I guess I'll try to normalize my eating habits a little, and get a feeling how it works out."

We closed the day with a dinner, quite special in how ordinary it was. Instead of measuring out her bland and tiny portions, she allowed herself some bread, fried chicken, and even some snack afterwards, types of food she didn't taste for a long time.

"It seems you found the balance between overeating and starving yourself, congratulations", I smiled.

"Don't congratulate me this soon, you know that I whenever I deliberately tried maintaining my weight, I always failed. But I guess it's not that bad, I'm wouldn't mind gaining 10 pounds or so back, I hate how loose my skin feels. But any more than that, and back to the previous diet, I guess."


However, this lifestyle didn't last forever. One afternoon I got home, and found her in the kitchen, moaning, with a box of donuts half empty, her cheeks messy with chocolate cream, holding a pair of half eaten donuts in her hands. Her mouth was so full she couldn't say a word, so she kept on chewing for a while, then started, almost crying, to tell me something, but her ability to utter some sounds reminded her that her mouth was no longer completely full, so she shoveled more donuts into it with both hands. It took quite some time until she could tell me what happened: she had a medical check-up, and she learned she won't be able to get pregnant again, ever. Not even if she dropped even more weight.

Having another child was not the only purpose of her weight loss efforts, but it was certainly an important factor. Having lost this motivation, and being distressed about it and comforting herself with food, led to her dropping all control regarding her eating, stuffing herself with food at every opportunity. Even after her mood stabilized, her eating habits stayed unrestrained. She found her joy in food again, just like in the old days. She was still conscious about how far and how fat this has gotten her last time, and she stated she will impose limits on herself before she gets close to being as big as then again. "It's like I have enough reserves, maybe I overdid my weight loss, so I shouldn't be worried about gaining a little bit back".

Because she has already been much fatter some time before, there were now no constraints, no fears, not even the slightest hint of uncertainty. She knew she could indulge in anything fattening as she still was relatively far from her earlier maximum weight. Her body reacted unsurprisingly, her drained fat cells now slurping up any excess calories with new vigor, and she started to fill out rapidly. Her skin, which started to get saggy a while ago, had to strain herself again to keep up with her expanding masses of fat. What surprised us, however, was that now it was not the eating itself which brought the greatest joy to her, but the gaining itself. This was new, as such a feeling didn't persist before, except for some weekend fantasies. Now it was here, and it was real. She danced around the issue a bit, but then started to talk openly about how she feels thin now, as strange as it sounds for someone who weights more than two times as much as average people. "I don't understand myself. What is happening to me? If I want to be sincere with myself, I have to admit, that somehow the thought that I'm growing is exciting me, in ways I never felt before". Sometimes we tried to rationalize it, was she just so happy back before her diet, or just her diet made the previous times more enjoyable in comparison... or maybe these desires were always deep inside her, having been subconsciously repressed all the time? "Or maybe my belly just had enough of having been neglected, and has taken over control".

Besides her appetite, her confidence also skyrocketed, both due to the joy of being able to eat whatever she desired, and that she could live out her desires without risk, being still below her largest weight and having proven herself that she would be able to lose weight if really needed. And then, it all clicked into place: "this safety net" enabled her to be more carefree. Before, even when she accepted the fact she was rapidly gaining weight as a price to be able to eat whatever she wanted, she was a little bit scared about what will happen in the future, how far this would go, and would she regret it. Now, she both knew she was much fatter before (so it was no longer an unknown danger), and she also knew she could get rid of weight if she really wanted. This quickly developed into a plan: she keeps stuffing herself while she is still under 400 pounds, and if she reaches that weight again, she will drop 50 pounds or so, and start again. This way, she can still enjoy the advantages of both worlds: the increased mobility when she is thinner, the comfort and erotic pleasures when she is fatter, and the mindless feeding in-between.