All right then...here's what's new in my world:
I've been on my enhanced "diet" for a few days now. Got good at getting to 3500 for the first few days. Yesterday I finally broke 4000 (4155, to be exact). It's a bit of a learning curve. I still have a tendency to overdo it and make myself ill - yesterday afternoon was a little rough because I slammed back 1500 calories and then tried to sleep.
The key, I think, is to break up the calories into smaller, more frequent meals. I'm trying to go for about 800 calories five times a day (or on average at least). It seems to be working. After eating so much yesterday and all night, I'm kind of surprised to discover that I'm already hungry again (don't worry, a big breakfast is in the works as I type this). I'm also keeping high calorie food handy to increase how often/how much I'm eating.
I hope that once I get used to the 4000 calorie a day routine that I will be able to slowly increase how much I eat without getting sick. Even small additions are going to make a huge difference: if I can get to 5000 calories a day (a measly extra 200 calories per meal), it will mean the difference between being 225 pounds and 255 pounds by March 1st. Adding another 200 calories per meal on top of that (6000 total per day) would mean I'd be 30 pounds even heavier by the same date!
Call it training for gaining. All I know is that I'd like to get to a point where a large caloric intake will become normal for me. I was doing research about professional swimmers and how they routinely eat up to 8000 calories a day (and don't actually gain weight because they exercise some crazy amount). I think if their bodies can absorb and use 8000 calories a day, I could certainly train up to that. I'm not sure I'd want to though because there's probably a substantial difference between eating and burning off that many calories vs eating and storing that many calories as fat. I think I'd seriously freak out everyone I know if by March 1st I was a whopping 345 pounds. I imagine the stretch marks would be positively brutal as well.
But...back to earth...
The only downside I'm currently seeing is that I'm consistently weighing in at 187-188 this week. I guess I slid a little further than I thought when I was sick. On the plus side, all the extra food I've eaten this week is doing its work. I'm starting to fill out again. I'd take pictures but there's really nothing new to see yet. I know.
I'm feeling as frustrated as you must be feeling with my lack of progress.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
10 November 2012
And I'm back. It's been an weird few weeks. I managed to catch the abominable flu that's been going around. I went three days in a row without eating and hardly being able to drink even water (a very bad situation for someone who is trying gain weight!) and then just as I was recovering from that, managed to get food poisoning that took a full week to clear up.
Now I'm tired...exhausted really...and can't remember a time when I wasn't.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that even though I haven't been eating as much as I should, I haven't been exerting myself that much either. At one point a couple weeks ago I weighed in at 182 but I've since rebounded. I suspect a lot of that loss was simple dehydration from being sick.
Currently I'm back to around 190. I probably should weigh myself to be certain but I'm just so tired of seeing the same damned 189 staring back at me from the scale. Now that I'm feeling better, I just want to blindly eat a whole bunch of stuff so that there's at least some progress to see when I do step on that scale. I know. Not very scientific. And probably counterproductive.
Some encouragement: tonight I went out to a social event and, for the first time in probably a year, wore a dress shirt that needed to be tucked in. I could tell from the looks people who normally see me in a loose, untucked T-shirt were giving me that they were noticing how much more belly I've got now. Even *I* was impressed by how well that shirt was showing off my roundness!
Anyway, since I've fallen waaay off the gaining wagon lately, I'm going to do some spreadsheet work and try to get my daily calories back up to around 4000....and then religiously stick to that intake long enough that it becomes my new normal. Somehow I need to convince my metabolic "autopilot" to go along for the ride. I hope simple repetition and routine and time will be enough to set me on a path of perpetual weight gain. I know a gain of two pounds a week isn't nearly as exciting as big short-term gains where the changes are immediate and noticeable but in the long run even a small gain... every single week for months or years...is going to add up.
Interesting too, to see how the poll is progressing. For the first 50 votes or so, it was almost a perfect Bell curve with a gain to 260 being the most popular choice. Now, after over 80 votes, it seems a slim majority of people who took the poll think I should just keep going past 300 pounds. Again, I admit I'm extraordinarly intrigued by the idea of gaining up to...and then past.. the 300 pound mark. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to be a hundred and ten pounds heavier than I am now. I know physically I would be a LOT bigger. And I suspect that, based on how positive I'm feeling about the mass I've already gained, that I would be right at home in my much bigger body.
Now I'm tired...exhausted really...and can't remember a time when I wasn't.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that even though I haven't been eating as much as I should, I haven't been exerting myself that much either. At one point a couple weeks ago I weighed in at 182 but I've since rebounded. I suspect a lot of that loss was simple dehydration from being sick.
Currently I'm back to around 190. I probably should weigh myself to be certain but I'm just so tired of seeing the same damned 189 staring back at me from the scale. Now that I'm feeling better, I just want to blindly eat a whole bunch of stuff so that there's at least some progress to see when I do step on that scale. I know. Not very scientific. And probably counterproductive.
Some encouragement: tonight I went out to a social event and, for the first time in probably a year, wore a dress shirt that needed to be tucked in. I could tell from the looks people who normally see me in a loose, untucked T-shirt were giving me that they were noticing how much more belly I've got now. Even *I* was impressed by how well that shirt was showing off my roundness!
Anyway, since I've fallen waaay off the gaining wagon lately, I'm going to do some spreadsheet work and try to get my daily calories back up to around 4000....and then religiously stick to that intake long enough that it becomes my new normal. Somehow I need to convince my metabolic "autopilot" to go along for the ride. I hope simple repetition and routine and time will be enough to set me on a path of perpetual weight gain. I know a gain of two pounds a week isn't nearly as exciting as big short-term gains where the changes are immediate and noticeable but in the long run even a small gain... every single week for months or years...is going to add up.
Interesting too, to see how the poll is progressing. For the first 50 votes or so, it was almost a perfect Bell curve with a gain to 260 being the most popular choice. Now, after over 80 votes, it seems a slim majority of people who took the poll think I should just keep going past 300 pounds. Again, I admit I'm extraordinarly intrigued by the idea of gaining up to...and then past.. the 300 pound mark. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to be a hundred and ten pounds heavier than I am now. I know physically I would be a LOT bigger. And I suspect that, based on how positive I'm feeling about the mass I've already gained, that I would be right at home in my much bigger body.
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