chapter 1

I had just moved in with my long-term friend Lisa. We were both going to the same university and had been friends for two years. She had a room opening up in her house and asked me to move in. Lisa was a heavy girl, weighing in at around 220 lbs. and being 5,3 ft. tall. She never seemed to care about her weight and seemed happy and confident the way she was. Her parents however weren't okay with it. They told her she had to lose weight to go hiking with them and even promised to reward her with gifts if she lost a certain amount of kilos. They told her it was in her own interest and it would benefit her knee injury. Lisa was relatively active, she played soccer. Her food choices were not as healthy; she often got takeout or ate a whole bag of cookies or crisps whenever she felt like it. Drinking beer when going out was also one of her favorite pastimes.
Because of the nagging her parents did for her to lose weight she tried to eat healthier, go to the gym and went to a nutritionist. The visits to the nutritionist stopped rather quickly as she did not get along well with the woman and thought she didn't need her. I saw her eating a bit healthier and to be a supportive friend I suggested going to the gym with her. At the gym it was mostly me trying to get her to be on the equipment for more than 2 minutes.

This went on for a month or so. I saw her lose interest and motivation for the gym and her diet. This was my opportunity. I told myself to be very careful, I did not want Lisa to notice her weight gain, or me making her gain weight. I started by her telling me one night over drinks that she weighed 231 lbs. I was quite shocked over this as I estimated her to be around 200 lbs. She told me she lost 11 lbs., going down to 220 lbs., and would get a giftcard from her parents as a reward. She then told me that after platooning on 220 for a while, she was now up to 227 lbs. She had gained almost everything back. I told her that weighing yourself is the worst thing you can do when losing weight. It demotivates you as you can retain weight for so many reasons. I told her feeling good in her own skin is the most important thing. And having your jeans fit a bit looser is always nice as well. She agreed with me and determined not to weigh herself for quite some time.

I kept going to the gym with her to keep up appearances, and my own health, but our reps became fewer and with lower weights and our cardio was reduced to just the warming up and cooling down. Most of our time in the gym was spent between exercises talking to each other.
Her diet was not going so well. I told her that if she hated cooking she should just get some healthy takeout. She loved this and of course didn't know that beneath the veggies there were so many calories. I also told her that if she were to gain some muscle, her metabolism would get faster and the number of calories she would burn on a daily bases would be higher. She did her own research and decided that getting some protein shakes was the way to go. So now before every workout she would drink around 400 ml of protein shake. And her workouts would barely break a sweat so the calories from the shake would not go into building muscle, but fat. I didn't even have to do anything, this was all her.
After a month or so of this being the standard I noticed her pants were getting a bit snug, just like they had been before she ever started her weight loss journey. It wasn't very noticeable, as she had been a bit big already, but I could see. I didn't go to the gym as often now, and therefore her gymtime went down as well, to once a week for an hour or so. Her soccer team had enough players and Lisa would often get benched during games. This was of course due to her knee injury, and not her lack of stamina. They had practice only once a week for an hour and here Lisa did not play that much either. She mostly talked with the other girls.

Lisa's boyfriend didn't mind his girlfriend's weight, I think. He never commented about it and was happy to take her out for dinner or eat crap and watch a movie with her. I told her every so often that a dress that was snug would look very good on her, or how I think I could really tell that she lost weight. When we went to the gym one evening she was in the changing rooms and said: " don't I look so skinny in this outfit? Like my legging hits me right in the waist and this top as well." I told her that she was right and looked amazing in her sports legging and cropped sweater. In my mind I thought that it however looked far from skinny. As far as could possibly be, except for her being in sports clothes in a gym.

I saw her bringing more and more snacks into the house. It started with some healthy snacks. But her eating all the time made her apatite grow. I started bringing some unhealthy snacks like cookies and crisps into the house so when we would watch a movie together she would eat those. I made sure the house was always fully stacked on unhealthy food so when she did decide to eat a salad which left her hungry after an hour, she would look through the pantries and her only choices would be the unhealthy stuff. After a while I think she became unaware of how much unhealthy food she was eating. When getting her groceries she would mostly get healthy stuff for breakfast and lunch, and some snacks. For dinner she usually got takeout. But her healthy breakfasts and lunches did not weigh up to her snacks, her 'healthy' takeout (takeout is almost never healthy, and the portions are big), and my snacks. After around to weeks I saw that her jeans were not fitting very well anymore. Her belly was pushing against the button and it seemed uncomfortable. I knew I had to do something because I didn't want her feeling like she had gained weight, and step on the scale. I told her about a huge sale at H&M, and that she should order some stuff. She ordered a few pairs of jeans in her regular size; 14/16. I looked at her order and ordered the exact same thing, but in size 18/20. I waited till the jeans arrived and intercepted her package. I carefully switched the sizing labels from her jeans with the ones I ordered, and put the bigger ones, with the labels indicating the smaller size, back in her package and gave it to her. I then returned the other jeans to the store; they never even checked the labels. The jeans fit her great, a bit loose even, and Lisa wondered if she did lose weight. I told her I had thought so for a while now, and that living without a scale or counting calories does work. The jeans were the proof. She happily agreed with me.
This solved my problem of the clothes getting tighter for now. Her shirts were getting tighter as well, but it wasn't as much of a problem, yet.