16 November 2012

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.