So for a variety of reasons (which I won't bore you with here), my worklife has been thrown into chaos. It's good chaos but chaos nevertheless. Due to factors beyond my control, my workplace will be doubling in size. The timing is crazy in light of the fact that the world appears to be on the cusp of a financial heart attack known as a "recession" but sometimes when the Universe throws you a bone, you've got to take it no matter how big the bone is compared to the size of your mouth.
At any rate I don't deal well with change, especially when it involves a great deal of tedious work with spreadsheets, throwing around large sums of money don't technically exist have yet, and having my personal finances being so intimately affected by global economic trends (Canadian/US dollar exchange rate...bah!).
Next week is going to be an orgy of cleaning up fossilized cat pee (the place we're moving to had a tomcat on site - don't ask...the back story on that will just make you sad. Suffice to say the cat is living in a real home now and as far as I've heard, much happier), painting, painting, oh, did I say "painting" yet? And then moving large, heavy yet very breakable objects. Yaaay.
If I sound like I'm complaining...well, I'm not. Not really. This change has been something the company has desperately needed for years. The timing sucks but the overall net effect will be for the good.
What this means for my gaining, however...
Well, let me tell you that working 10 and 12 hour days is *not* conducive to gaining, especially since I don't have ready access to great rafts of food and work with people to whom I am most definitely *not* out to about this.
Yesterday I grazed heavily on cookies and donuts and only managed a real meal after I got home at 10 pm. I feel somewhat wretched because of this - I've got to plan better I guess.
So the focus for the next week or two is simply to maintain what I've managed to gain so far so that I don't drop my weight like a rock because I've forgotten to eat.
On the plus side, with all the manual labour coming up next week I hope to gain a bit more muscle mass. There will also be time to get used to my growing bulk. Every time I bend over, there's this resistance across my abdomen because my belly is getting big enough to let itself be known. Every time I move a certain way I can feel my belly straining against my shirt like it never did before. Everytime my belly brushes against something that it would have cleared even a month ago, I am reminded of how much bigger I'm getting.
I figure even if I take a week or so off from actively gaining, I should still make my goal of 200 lbs before Christmas - especially seeing as Christmas is pretty much *the* time to overindulge and pack a few on.
Anyway, wish me luck, gentle reader, so that I may survive and prosper over the next few weeks...
I will blog as I can but probably won't be able to with the same frequency I have been. My apologies but life really has become a cycle of working like a crazy guy, sleeping, and eating whatever I can lay my hands on. I can't wait until January when, hopefully, things will settle down enough for me to concentrate on continued growth.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
26 November 2008
It's been interesting times...
Yesterday I went out for lunch with another local gainer/encourager. It was the first time I've ever (knowingly) met another gainer. He was a very pleasant person (startlingly normal!) and I found it somewhat surreal to be speaking of things like this to someone I've never met before...and to be doing it in an insanely crowded food court at a shopping mall. I'm not sure what the ladies at the next table overheard (and I guess I don't really care). At any rate, it was a good meeting and gives me hope that perhaps we could set up a local regular gathering of like minds. After discovering a fellow soul so close to my own home/work, I'm starting to believe there are a lot more of us out there than I first realized.
The other interesting (nay, bizarre) thing that happened today involved my parter. We've been together for nine years now. I'll call him "Floyd" because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be comfortable with me using his real name here. I'm not actually "out" to Floyd about gaining. When we first got together - our very first date in fact - I made it clear that I found heavy guys extremely attractive. It's relevent because he's actually quite big himself (300+ lbs). Now to be clear, he's *not* a gainer - he's just big. I suspect he's always been mystified that I could find him attractive because he believes his being fat makes him somehow *less* attractive.
One time, quite a few years ago I suggested how neat it would be if I gained a few pounds myself (I was about 165 lbs at the time). He said he didn't think that would be a good idea because it's not healthy to be fat. So...I never really did anything about it except for small gains here and there.
Now that I've decided to go for it and am getting visibly fatter and fatter...he hasn't said anything either good or bad. But then this morning (and here's the point of this story), he reached over and rubbed my belly as if to say "I see this and I want you to know I see it". But not in a bad way - and trust me, he's blunt enough that if he's thinking it, he'll pretty much say it. So now I'm thinking that maybe he's actually just a little bit turned on by this too...
At any rate, eventually I'm going to get fat enough that it's going to be impossible to ignore (heck, as far as I'm concerned, it already is). I figure that 's when "the conversation" is going to happen. Wish me luck...
Yesterday I went out for lunch with another local gainer/encourager. It was the first time I've ever (knowingly) met another gainer. He was a very pleasant person (startlingly normal!) and I found it somewhat surreal to be speaking of things like this to someone I've never met before...and to be doing it in an insanely crowded food court at a shopping mall. I'm not sure what the ladies at the next table overheard (and I guess I don't really care). At any rate, it was a good meeting and gives me hope that perhaps we could set up a local regular gathering of like minds. After discovering a fellow soul so close to my own home/work, I'm starting to believe there are a lot more of us out there than I first realized.
The other interesting (nay, bizarre) thing that happened today involved my parter. We've been together for nine years now. I'll call him "Floyd" because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be comfortable with me using his real name here. I'm not actually "out" to Floyd about gaining. When we first got together - our very first date in fact - I made it clear that I found heavy guys extremely attractive. It's relevent because he's actually quite big himself (300+ lbs). Now to be clear, he's *not* a gainer - he's just big. I suspect he's always been mystified that I could find him attractive because he believes his being fat makes him somehow *less* attractive.
One time, quite a few years ago I suggested how neat it would be if I gained a few pounds myself (I was about 165 lbs at the time). He said he didn't think that would be a good idea because it's not healthy to be fat. So...I never really did anything about it except for small gains here and there.
Now that I've decided to go for it and am getting visibly fatter and fatter...he hasn't said anything either good or bad. But then this morning (and here's the point of this story), he reached over and rubbed my belly as if to say "I see this and I want you to know I see it". But not in a bad way - and trust me, he's blunt enough that if he's thinking it, he'll pretty much say it. So now I'm thinking that maybe he's actually just a little bit turned on by this too...
At any rate, eventually I'm going to get fat enough that it's going to be impossible to ignore (heck, as far as I'm concerned, it already is). I figure that 's when "the conversation" is going to happen. Wish me luck...
Monday, November 24, 2008
So what I'm doing must be working - I clocked in at 192 lbs this evening. I realize the picture on the bottom is quite similar to my side view at 190 lbs but I do think it shows I've filled out just that little bit more...
The picture on the top is a front view taken tonight. It's un-freaking-believable that I'm getting so tubby so fast!
I look at that picture and I'm starting to see the fat guy I was meant to be instead of a guy who's always just been dreaming about being fat.
And it's funny how the fatter I become, the even fatter I want to get. I never in my life thought I'd be this obese but at the same time it feels natural, like I was always supposed to look this way. I *like* the way my belly feels so heavy, the way it feels when I move, how thick I'm getting all over. I can see myself getting a lot rounder than this and still being a-okay.
My body seems to agree because even though I ate so incredibly much yesterday, by 5 pm tonight I was *starving*. I just ate a pile of food before I started blogging and to be truthful, could actually go back for another helping. I think I will because only way to build on what I've accomplished so far is to keep eating as much as I can.
I wonder when I'll get my first shocked comment of "oh my God look how fat you've become!"?
I can't wait...
24 November
So I just want to be clear...yesterday I ate more than just the rice and the cream I mentioned. I also had some vegetables, a salad, some chicken, orange juice and a large number of almonds (unsalted) throughout the day.
Just so you don't think I'm going to get scurvy...
And, oddly enough, I appear to have lost weight this morning. I'm chalking it up to dehydration (when I eat a lot it seems to raise my internal combustion and I get really hot). Of course I also have a really crappy scale that seems to measure everything in multiples of four pounds. So if it says 187, it could really mean 191 or I could mean 184. Argh. I thought I was buying a true digital scale but apparently it's just a regular scale that's been modified with a digital readout. Big difference and one mistake I won't make again when shopping for scales.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted as to how everything pans out...
Just so you don't think I'm going to get scurvy...
And, oddly enough, I appear to have lost weight this morning. I'm chalking it up to dehydration (when I eat a lot it seems to raise my internal combustion and I get really hot). Of course I also have a really crappy scale that seems to measure everything in multiples of four pounds. So if it says 187, it could really mean 191 or I could mean 184. Argh. I thought I was buying a true digital scale but apparently it's just a regular scale that's been modified with a digital readout. Big difference and one mistake I won't make again when shopping for scales.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted as to how everything pans out...
Sunday, November 23, 2008
23 November
It's just shy of midnight Sunday night. I have achieved my goal (trust me, this gaining stuff isn't for the faint of heart)...
I've managed to consume 6384 calories in a single day. This is probably not much of an achievement for some world class eaters but for me...erg...that's a lot of food. According to my calculations, this should result in a 1.01 pound gain - probably mostly to my belly. I believe it because, holy cow, am I ever feeling solidly full. I really should drink some water to help all this along.
Oddly enough, I was able to do it for less than $15 because none of it was fast food or even pre-packaged/processed foods.
The bulk of what I ate was rice (Calrose glutinous rice) because I know the carbs are good for gaining and also a 1 litre container of whipping cream. The cream was the biggest expense ($5) but also really calorie dense (3000 calories alone) as well as really, really high in fat. Goes down really easy though...I just finished a half a litre and I feel like I could drink a whole bunch more.
By noon I had eaten the first part of the rice and the first half of the cream and I already had my entire daily recommended caloric intake - after that it was all icing on the cake, so to speak.
I know I'm just not physically capable of doing this every single day (can you imagine gaining 365 pounds in a year?), however, now that I've got things rolling and I'm on a gaining arc, I think if I maintain a comfortable 1200 calories extra per day this week, I should easily see another couple of pounds before the end of the month (on top of what I just did today...yaay!)
Well, it's off to bed so that all those calories can work their magic...
I've managed to consume 6384 calories in a single day. This is probably not much of an achievement for some world class eaters but for me...erg...that's a lot of food. According to my calculations, this should result in a 1.01 pound gain - probably mostly to my belly. I believe it because, holy cow, am I ever feeling solidly full. I really should drink some water to help all this along.
Oddly enough, I was able to do it for less than $15 because none of it was fast food or even pre-packaged/processed foods.
The bulk of what I ate was rice (Calrose glutinous rice) because I know the carbs are good for gaining and also a 1 litre container of whipping cream. The cream was the biggest expense ($5) but also really calorie dense (3000 calories alone) as well as really, really high in fat. Goes down really easy though...I just finished a half a litre and I feel like I could drink a whole bunch more.
By noon I had eaten the first part of the rice and the first half of the cream and I already had my entire daily recommended caloric intake - after that it was all icing on the cake, so to speak.
I know I'm just not physically capable of doing this every single day (can you imagine gaining 365 pounds in a year?), however, now that I've got things rolling and I'm on a gaining arc, I think if I maintain a comfortable 1200 calories extra per day this week, I should easily see another couple of pounds before the end of the month (on top of what I just did today...yaay!)
Well, it's off to bed so that all those calories can work their magic...
23 November
So it' s Sunday morning. I actually have an entire day off and I think I'm going to spend it improving myself.
The goal today is to consume at least 3500 cals over what I need for basic maintenance (theoretically this should put one more pound of bulk onto me). I don't want to go much past that because I know from experience that overwhelming the system can be...um...messy.
So I'm measuring everything I eat, starting from midnight last night to midnight tonight. It's a little anal retentive and I know I won't be able to know exactly the values of everything but I hope I will at least get a general idea of things.
I won't bore you with the details (food diaries, much like workout diaries can be tedious to read) but suffice to say I've got a quart of heavy cream on board and a variety of other calorie-dense delights...
My thinking is that after a good binge today, that belly of mine will really start to round out. So far it's thickening up nicely but still soft. I think I'm still all stretched out from the last time I was pushing 190 (187 lbs, last year).
There is a blissful state that is hard to describe...but I'll try. Anyone who has gained on purpose will know this sensation: I can actually feel the point at which I have gained weight to my previous heaviest weight. After that, my belly starts to get denser and denser until the skin feels tight. If I keep overeating (especially a lot and over a short period of time - a really fast gain), my belly goes from the sort of flat paunch that you see in my most recent photo here to quite round. If I keep going even further with the gain, I swear I can actually feel the skin stretching, especially around my navel but also on my love handles. It's a weird kind of itch that foretells stretch marks.
Even as I sit here typing this I can sense that I'm really close to this tipping point. The skin around my navel is still just barely flat and I know I'll be really entering new territory when I can run my hand down my belly and that subtle flatness is replaced by a gentle outward curve.
I think one more day of good eating will do it...and I'll be sure to post the results...
The goal today is to consume at least 3500 cals over what I need for basic maintenance (theoretically this should put one more pound of bulk onto me). I don't want to go much past that because I know from experience that overwhelming the system can be...um...messy.
So I'm measuring everything I eat, starting from midnight last night to midnight tonight. It's a little anal retentive and I know I won't be able to know exactly the values of everything but I hope I will at least get a general idea of things.
I won't bore you with the details (food diaries, much like workout diaries can be tedious to read) but suffice to say I've got a quart of heavy cream on board and a variety of other calorie-dense delights...
My thinking is that after a good binge today, that belly of mine will really start to round out. So far it's thickening up nicely but still soft. I think I'm still all stretched out from the last time I was pushing 190 (187 lbs, last year).
There is a blissful state that is hard to describe...but I'll try. Anyone who has gained on purpose will know this sensation: I can actually feel the point at which I have gained weight to my previous heaviest weight. After that, my belly starts to get denser and denser until the skin feels tight. If I keep overeating (especially a lot and over a short period of time - a really fast gain), my belly goes from the sort of flat paunch that you see in my most recent photo here to quite round. If I keep going even further with the gain, I swear I can actually feel the skin stretching, especially around my navel but also on my love handles. It's a weird kind of itch that foretells stretch marks.
Even as I sit here typing this I can sense that I'm really close to this tipping point. The skin around my navel is still just barely flat and I know I'll be really entering new territory when I can run my hand down my belly and that subtle flatness is replaced by a gentle outward curve.
I think one more day of good eating will do it...and I'll be sure to post the results...
Saturday, November 22, 2008
And this is me last night at a grand total of 190 lbs...
Seems to me that I've got some serious belly potential going on here.
Seeing this picture...it's kind of hard to believe I'm actually *this* fat already. And it's getting harder and harder to hide that I'm expanding so fast.
Which is kind of weird because I don't really feel like I've been eating a whole lot extra lately. But I guess what I've been doing so far is sufficient - I've been averaging about 6 pounds gain a month (1.5 lbs a week). At this rate I could be a solid 250 lbs by this time next year
Wow...I can't even imagine being that fat...but I know it's going to be fascinating to find out.
Friday, November 21, 2008
21 November 2008
So last night I managed to find some old pictures of myself on the hard drive: one taken when I was a mere 165 lbs and one at 182 lbs. I think I will take some pix tomorrow for comparison's sake. Should be interesting.
Also planned for this weekend: eating, eating and eating some more. I want to be 200 lbs by Christmas (hey, what better time of the year to put on a few pounds?)
Also planned for this weekend: eating, eating and eating some more. I want to be 200 lbs by Christmas (hey, what better time of the year to put on a few pounds?)
Thursday, November 20, 2008
20 November 2008
So I started a blog here almost exactly two years ago titled "Diary of a Gainer". I posted for a bit, got busy, and then dropped off the face of the planet. Which is sad because in the short time I was posting I actually managed to acquire a fan.
Amazingly, the blog is still out there. Frustratingly, I can no longer access it because I have forgotten the password in the intervening time. The tiny scrap of paper I actually wrote the password down on is, also, long gone.
You would think it would be easy enough to retrieve said lost password through Blogspot but alas I lack the skills, intelligence and perserverence to do so. I think I spelled something wrong there.
That being said, welcome to Dairy of a Gainer 2.
Progress so far: I managed at one point in the last couple of years to get my weight up to about 187lbs. Then I got a really intense job and dropped to about 170 lbs. Gained some back, lost some again. Was about 172 back in July of this year. Started gaining in earnest since then.
Weighed myself tonight for the first time in awhile and was mightily pleased to discover that I am now a whopping 190 lbs!
I knew I was getting up there because I've already had to buy new pants to accomodate my growing belly. Even back at 165 lbs I was referred to as "chubby" (I'm not very tall). I think I'm now starting to tread into "fat" territory.
I know, I know. That doesn't sound like much compared to some people but for me it's a personal best. I've been trying since, like, forever to break the 200 lb mark. It's hard to believe I'm a mere 10 pounds away from that now. With even moderate gains, I could manage it by Christmas.
I'm suddenly feeling so much more motivated.
Amazingly, the blog is still out there. Frustratingly, I can no longer access it because I have forgotten the password in the intervening time. The tiny scrap of paper I actually wrote the password down on is, also, long gone.
You would think it would be easy enough to retrieve said lost password through Blogspot but alas I lack the skills, intelligence and perserverence to do so. I think I spelled something wrong there.
That being said, welcome to Dairy of a Gainer 2.
Progress so far: I managed at one point in the last couple of years to get my weight up to about 187lbs. Then I got a really intense job and dropped to about 170 lbs. Gained some back, lost some again. Was about 172 back in July of this year. Started gaining in earnest since then.
Weighed myself tonight for the first time in awhile and was mightily pleased to discover that I am now a whopping 190 lbs!
I knew I was getting up there because I've already had to buy new pants to accomodate my growing belly. Even back at 165 lbs I was referred to as "chubby" (I'm not very tall). I think I'm now starting to tread into "fat" territory.
I know, I know. That doesn't sound like much compared to some people but for me it's a personal best. I've been trying since, like, forever to break the 200 lb mark. It's hard to believe I'm a mere 10 pounds away from that now. With even moderate gains, I could manage it by Christmas.
I'm suddenly feeling so much more motivated.
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