A huge side effect of all this beer drinking and binge eating seems to be an increase in my appetite. I tend to be hungry a bit more often, but when I am it's quite noticeable. Like audible gurgling noticeable. I don't really see it as a problem--I'm almost proud of how often it occurs--because it forces me to eat more often. The only trouble is when I am in, say O'Hare airport where all the food costs me an arm and a leg, I have to just deal with the pangs as best I can.
It is quite powerful, these hunger pangs. As an example, it used to be before tests and such, I am usually a nervous, anxious mess. I can't even stand the thought of eating, when I'm like that. But before the test that I took on Sunday (and believe me, I was nervous), the hunger seemed to overpower it. I had to make several food stops before and after it! I was quite impressed with myself.
The only trouble is, if I have to ignore the hunger for too long, it almost seems to go away. If I had a graph of my hunger over time, it would spike immediately and slowly taper off. This, I assume, is a product of my childhood where I would frequently ignore meals out of laziness. I need to learn to act on my hunger immediately, not only to take advantage of a large appetite, but also to decrease the amount of time until this gut starts rumbling again.
Hunger
Diary of a Gainer
I'm quite disappointed in myself. Back when I first started this blog, I promised myself that I would stick to it and not let it collect dust like every other Blogger blog out there. It was quite easy to maintain that promise while I was still gaining weight like crazy and attracting so much attention. Granted, this blog has already outlasted the majority of blogs on the web, but as the pounds stopped piling on, there was less and less to talk about.
It is entirely my fault, this dust-collecting. I tried too hard to make it interesting to you, the readers, to read. It's hard to not become infatuated with the attention I've been given over the years. But unfortunately, that meant if I couldn't think of anything worth writing about, I didn't write anything at all. So, in an attempt to reignite my desire to chronicle this experience of mine, I've given the old blog a new coat of paint and I've decided to change up the tone a bit.
So, from now on this is more of a journal than a blog. The main reason I keep this place alive is that I want to be able to look back on my experiences. I want to be able to remember what it was like to be that skinny, pale 140-pound teenager yearning for a body he could be proud of. While I would hope it were interesting enough for folks to check on a regular basis, I'm going to stop worrying about that and focus more on keeping my motivation alive.
It has been tough lately, though. I have a huge test tomorrow up in Chicago that has taken up almost every ounce of my attention over the past few months, and I'm not even sure if I can pass this year! On top of that, my boyfriend was generous enough to share his (swine?) flu with me here in our shoebox apartment, so I'm not even going to be at 100% mental strength for it. Despite this, I've been in oddly good spirits. I feel as if my belly has grown in the past few weeks, even if the scale says no change in weight. Every morning, I'm greeted by a shapely form that I cannot resist hefting and wobbling in the shower. It's sparked quite a bit of creativity in me, as well--I've been doodling occasionally and have some very creative story ideas floating around my head just begging to be written down.
It is amazing what being happy in your body does for your esteem. The only thing that bums me out is that I haven't been to the gym since graduating college in May. I've been doing occasional push-ups and curls with milk jugs, but somehow it's just not quite the same. Hopefully by the time it gets warmer around here again, I'll have a job and enough income to start going to a real gym again.
Then again, I've said something along those lines almost every month. Who knows what'll happen this time.
Beer Belly
About two months ago, my boyfriend and I were out at Sonic getting a late-night snack. On the way back, we passed a nearby night club that was absolutely packed with people. As we creeped along in front of it, careful not to run over the stumbling clubbers making their way in and out, I spotted next to the door the largest man I'd ever seen. He was definitely the bouncer of the place, perched on a stool with a gut that went out to his knees.
Of course, I was blown away at the sight, but more surprisingly my boyfriend seemed to be as well. He made a comment about how many beers I'd have to drink to get a gut that size and challenged me to start drinking a few every night.
Now, these events are rare for my boyfriend. He loves big men, but rarely does he see someone in person that strikes his fancy. So I promised him and myself I would start doing just that. Because we're still low on funds, I settled for cheap stuff like Budweiser but I've grown used to the taste (as many Americans have, I assume) and took to drinking a little more each night.
I had never drank beer before in such quantities, as I wasn't such a partier in college, but I had visions of soon being able to chug a pitcher of the stuff in one go, a la that movie Beer Fest. So over the past weeks, that's what I've been going for. It has gotten a lot easier to chug as I go along--right now I can do about a half a can before the 'beer shivers' set in (or whatever they're called).
There've been a lot of articles on whether or not drinking beer really leads to abdominal obesity. In 2003, this BBC article reports on the Czech (my ancestors!) study of beer drinkers and found no link between the amount of beer they drank and their waist size. A year later though, they reported that there was a link found between waist size and binge drinking. So basically, drinking beer doesn't necessarily cause a beer belly, but drinking large amounts in one sitting can.
I can certainly see the reasoning behind this. Drinking six or seven beers really stretches my stomach to new limits. I feel absolutely enormous when I do it (here's some lazy mirror shots--I don't know if you can tell a difference, but I certainly felt bigger than I looked), and on top of that it seems to increase my capacity to eat. It's an absolutely wonderful thing to experience and hopefully these results will only get better.
Vertical Stripes
If you haven't noticed by the clothes I typically wear in photos, I'm not much for formal attire. In fact, I'd much rather be unemployed than work somewhere I'd have to wear a tie at. This internship I have is at a rather high-end skyscraper downtown, so I was begrudgingly forced to buy some nicer clothes. And while I have to suffer through wearing a belt that digs into my belly when I sit and uncomfortable shoes, I got myself something I think all big guys look good in: vertical striped dress shirts.
They don't have to have stripes, but those certainly add to the appeal, in my opinion. I bought myself two extremely comfortable shirts and damn if I don't feel extra attractive when I wear them. Something about how they drape over a belly, with just the slightest bit of pressure on the buttons... it's a total weakness. And that's just the start of it.
I snapped a couple pictures of myself in one of them, as well as an old size M shirt I used to wear to church or something back in the day. They sure show off any progress I may have made in the past weeks, if any. They both seem sort of ill-fitting, as I was pretty bloated with beer that evening--I suppose that makes it a better example of what I was talking about, though.
Recovering
Boy, I missed writing on here. Thank you to everyone who asked how I was doing and sent their regards. I apologize profusely for sort of disappearing so suddenly (as bloggers tend to do), but so much happened that gaining was so far back in my head that I couldn't even bother thinking about it.
Shortly after that last post, my childhood cat Joey (who made a cameo in that last photo) stopped eating. He was fifteen years old and seemed to be on his way downhill. I had to take him to the vet, find out the grim news that there was nothing they could do and put him down. Watching him being put to sleep was by far the hardest thing I had to do in my life. He had been my best friend since I was seven years old.
I was extremely depressed for a while after that. No appetite, no motivation--nothing. Coupled with that, I was desperately searching for a job with no results. Things finally started getting better though, and these days I'm doing alright again. I managed to land myself an unpaid internship, and my parents offered to help me out until it leads to something with income.
I have thought about gaining again. I haven't been able to mention gaining on Twitter, as my sister and subsequently my mother found me on there, so I have to keep that mum over there. But, I do really want to continue, I just cannot at the moment. Since I've graduated, I no longer have gym access and because the job is unpaid I have no money for food. I'm sorry I haven't posted, but all I would talked about was what I wish I could do and complain, and I know no one is really interesting in hearing that.
Things are getting better though. I'm still hovering around what appears to be my new base weight of 240. I'll be back before too long.
Rebound
It's amazing what a simple trip to the doctor can fix. I got prescribed Prilosec for my heartburn, even if that wasn't the main reason I went, and it's done wonders already. I should have tried the stuff when I had the chance, but I misread the price and dosing and all that.
But that's all in the past now, I suppose. Now that my throat doesn't clog up when I eat, I'm able to eat much larger meals without any real trouble. Meals that I couldn't finish just a couple weeks ago are a snap to finish now. I also picked up some weight gain powder at the new Vitamin Shoppe that's opened up in town, so things are looking good. My weight is steadily recovering, and I hope to be back to 250 soon.
I had to put this new appetite to the test, though. I always thought that pizza was a good measuring point for my capacity. When I was little, I could only have a couple of slices, and in my early months of gaining I could force myself to finish one large on an empty stomach. Before now, I was back down to just a half of a large, but with that fixed, I wondered if I could go back to a full one. The results? Success! Not even on an empty stomach, even. It took me quite some time, but by the end of it I wasn't ready to explode. Just comfortably content, and proud. I'd call that progress.
Doctors
Those of you following my Twitter probably have noticed how much I've been complaining about doctors lately. Well, ignoring how hard it was to find someone to treat me in this bloody city, I have been having some digestive problems that I'd been, well, keeping secret.
For a while now I've had pretty mild heartburn at night occasionally and because of my irrational Iatrophobia I just ignored it until recently. (Yes, I know, do as I say, not as I do...) What happened was (according to what my PA thinks), the reflux and heartburn caused an excess development of mucus in my throat to heal any damage. What resulted was a constant feeling of a coated throat which was amplified when I ate anything. When I ate, I had to hack up the stuff pretty frequently which understandibly kind of killed my appetite.
Hopefully, the pretty lame medicine she perscribed (all OTC stuff, gee) will take care of it. So far it seems to have helped quite a bit. I'm very glad she didn't say anything was weight-related or mention anything about that. Even moreso, I was relieved to see my weight is recovering already. 243, according to their fancy scale.
Speaking of Twitter, though, I'm thinking of autoupdating it with my blog posts. Now that I'm getting back into the swing of things, maybe I'll start posting more than once a week. We shall see.
