I read a lot of discouraging information on weight-related problems for a guy who wants to be fat.  It helps me keep the right state of mind—mindful and aware of potential risks without being overly paranoid at every little thing.

I can’t make everyone gain in a ‘healthy’ way, but I can do my best to influence them to take a road similar to mine.  Thankfully, those who choose to gain while being sedentary and forgoing nutrition feel the effects rather quickly. 

The fantasy aspect of it allures people, but the reality hits pretty hard.  You feel slow, unhealthy and gross, and the allure is soon lost under that nasty feeling.  No one wants to see people who are bigger than them who are also more in-shape.

I’ve seen a few gainers lose weight, but then start to put it back on with in a healthier manner, raving about how much different it feels.  Sure, you have to make sacrifices when you’re a bigger person, but you shouldn’t suffer to the point that you miss being smaller.  It may be harder and take longer to include exercise and healthy foods in your journey, but you’ll be able to live life fuller and keep the weight around longer.  As hard as it is to do sometimes (it still is now, for me!), keep your eye on the long-term.

I’ve complained plenty about how I have to upgrade my wardrobe an annoying amount, but I am indeed noticing a change in the way my clothes fit.

For the first time, the sleeves of my dress shirts are getting shorter, signaling a need for a new size—but usually it’s just my buttons being strained that I notice.  My pants haven’t changed much, but my feet have gotten a lot bigger due to my walk-heavy commute.  Finding new work shoes has become a real pain!

Colored a few of my old doodles, trying to get better at it.

I added a way to view this blog without the what-I’m-now-realizing-may-be-kind-of-annoying-ly huge amount of questions I answer.

I’ve been pondering converting my alternate Tumblr (gitbigger.tumblr.com) into a questions-only blog, and posting my drawings and morphs here instead.  If you really like this idea, let me know.

I cannot say definitively, but that would be the logical progression.  The trouble is, I’ve never actually had trouble putting on weight quickly.  When I first started, I consistently put on about 10 pounds a month—a feat that is actually rather hard to repeat these days.

The caveat is that these spurts happen in between long plateaus of stubborn weight.  I suppose you could say that now that I’m older, the plateaus are much shorter compared to before.  For example, my most recent plateau lasted from December to March, but my first real plateau at 240 lasted nearly a year!

Everyone tells me, though, that once you start to get really big, you start to put on weight without trying.  I have my doubts, but I’m hoping that is true!

It’s indeed difficult to answer unless I know your motivation, but I’ve seen this story a few times, and I can at least share my observations.  If they don’t apply, let me know with more information and I’ll try to help.

The most common situation is unsure if they would like being bigger, so they give gaining a try.  Sometimes if you surround yourself with guys talking about being fat and how much they like it, you develop this strong desire to know just what the fuss is about.  The problem, though, is that it’s hard to know what a large amount of weight feels like from just a small gain.  There’s a conflict of ‘well, maybe if I was bigger, then I’d know, but what if I don’t like it and suddenly I have all this weight to lose…’, but in my opinion, if you were really meant to have a bigger body, you would know before you even tried.

The second situation is when guys gain for all the wrong reasons.  I’ve mentioned this before, but there is a mistaken perception that the amount of attention you get is proportional to how big you are, and too often do I see guys (usually very young guys) decide to put on weight because they think it will get them attention or a potential relationship.  If you never really had the desire to be bigger, the attention you get strongly conflicts with your displeasure of being bigger.

And finally, there’s some people who are sexually allured by the idea of being fat, but as they grow they can’t handle the everyday life.  If you find yourself only liking your body when you’re aroused, then you may be the kind of person who should leave gaining fantasies as fantasies.

The bottom line is that, I think, if you’re really meant to gain, you will never hate your bigger body.  The entire point of gaining is to develop a body that you love.  If you have more difficulty liking your body as you grow, then clearly it is not the right decision.

Followup edit: My first response to a response!
Thank you for getting back to me (I’m the 180 to 200 anonymous) I think the 3rd reason you listed probably describes me the best. I DO find it attractive when aroused but once that subsides the feeling sorta goes away. Well, at least it does for about a couple hours then it hits me again. But I do tend to do alot of fantasy stuff (stories, pics, etc) that you’re probably right in saying that I should probably stick with fantasies instead (and chubby chasing ;) ) Thank you for your response :)

Gaining is very expensive, in my experience.  It can be done cheaply, but at the expense of the nutrition-rich food that you will need to stay healthy.

When I think about it, my food budget has increased proportionately to my weight, but that may also be due to my increase in income.  Either way, as your calorie intake needs to increase as your weight increases, this is the logical progression. 

Currently, my food budget (and keep in mind this for a 310lb gainer and his 240lb partner who is trying to lose weight and therefore buying a lot of expensive healthy food) is roughly $500 a month for groceries and supplements, $300 for eating out at work, and $100 for going out on weekends to nicer restaurants or bars.

Bear in mind that there’s also the cost of buying bigger clothes and such on top of that, so it’s indeed an expensive lifestyle!

Absolutely.  If I had to lose weight to recover from an illness, there’d be no question.

The plus side always being that I would never regret having gained in the first place.  I’ve actually talked with a few guys who have had to do just that (some of my idols when I was younger, unfortunately), and every one of them never has any regrets.  Living a life with a body that you hate, knowing you could change it, is not a life worth living, in my opinion.

Better to have gained and lost than to have never gained at all, I suppose!

My first reaction, when someone asks me what a gainer is, is usually to say that it’s another subset of the gay community—like bears or twinks or whatever.  It’s something has a decently-sized community that has a clear distinction from other ones.  But, because gay communities are defined by appearance and physical tastes, that in itself kind of implies that is is sexually motivated—but I wouldn’t consider it exclusively sexual.

A lot of us do it to feel comfortable in our own skin, but, like every motivation that a gainer might have, that could be traced back to a sexual motivation if you dig deep enough.  That being said, calling it an ‘orientation’ may be taking it a bit too far in the other direction—implying that it may be genetic or ingrained in you somehow, and that’s tough to argue.

Bodybuilding and gaining are pretty similar, in my opinion—the general motivation is to work your butt off to craft your body into what you consider to be physically (if not sexually) appealing.  Both activities can either be just hobbies that leave a lasting effect on your physique, or they can become your life… but either way, you can really get off to it, too.  What would you call bodybuilding?

I don’t really have an answer, and I’ve just been pontificating out of my ass so far, but my takeaway is twofold I suppose.  One, everyone’s definition is probably going to be subjective—some people just indulge every so often, and some people make it their life.  Two, it may just come down to semantics—the definition of ‘fetish’ is so vague these days, I think there’s plenty of arguments for and against gaining being a fetish.

I think the most nebulously appropriate term I could call it would be a ‘lifestyle’—at least for me.  Sorry for rambling, but I appreciate the thoughtful question!  It really got me thinking.

Anonymous questions is just mostly what I get, it seems!  I know people take some issue with that, but it can’t really be helped.

Nothing too difficult yet, honestly.  I still fit into airplane seats (just), though I take up a bit more than one seat on the subway. 

Pants are a bit of a problem, because to get a size that fits means getting a lot of loose fabric in the front, or risking tearing the back (which has happened a couple times in public).  Underpants continue to be a lingering issue, too, now that UnderArmour discontinued their old style of boxerbriefs that went up to 5XL in size and have yet to replace them.  Hopefully soon!

Maybe not most people, but definitely most admirers/encouragers/etc.  I’m noticing that I’m starting to creep up to the point where some people think I’m getting a little too big.

If I was gaining for an audience, I’d probably have stopped a while ago.  It feels like the median weight for people who identify as gainers on Grommr is probably around 240 pounds.  And it’s a good weight—you can have a sizeable gut with probably minimal impact on your cardiovascular health, and still fit in (relatively) with the general population.

But I’ve always had a bigger-is-better mentality when it comes to this process, so I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.  I don’t feel big enough, so the quest shall continue.  I do hope that people stick around for the journey as I grow, but I shall grow either way.

I’d say it’s just part of the exaggerated masculinity I like to give to guys of exaggerated size like that.

That being said, it takes a certain… look to pull it off well in actuality.  I do have the ability to have it due to some strange genetics, but I usually keep it quite trimmed down… usually.

A follow-up to this post: http://gitbigger.com/post/19792526718

I was asked about shoe sizes and whether I thought gaining would cause someone to grow bigger feet and need a bigger shoe.  I assumed that was a bit crazy, and that at best someone’s feet would get wider because of the increased pressure of them.

Turn out I shouldn’t assume.  In the past 20 pounds, my feet have had a rough time of it, and in the process have apparently grown quite a bit.  At first, it was what I thought—they were just getting a bit thick, nothing that needed a new size.  Slowly, though, it became harder to slip my foot into them, and gradually I had to start pulling out the laces as much as I could, and the pressure started to get kind of unbearable…

Long story short, I got new shoes today.  Size 12, after being size 11 since high school.  So to officially revise my response:  yes, gaining can indeed cause your feet to grow and need bigger shoes—it may take gaining 170 pounds, but it can happen!

I’ve always had mixed feelings about this.  My boyfriend could (and has) gain weight with little trouble, but he simply will not ever want to.  No matter how much I say I like it, his self esteem takes a severe nose-dive when he puts on weight, so I would never ask him to do it.

That being said, even if he did want to, I don’t know if I’d be for it.  I don’t see many two-gainer relationships out there, and I have a few theories as to why.  Primarily, though, it’s because gaining is such an innately selfish act that—using myself as an example—it’s hard for me to also actively support someone else getting bigger, because my own progress is so important to me.  Sure, I cheer a lot of people on from the sidelines, but I couldn’t take on a full encourager role and directly help someone get bigger without thinking that that energy could be going to my own goals.

I’m sure that some two-gainer relationships do work and exist.  Perhaps the point is that since gainers share the same goal, they can’t always turn to their partner for support and encouragement if he’s a gainer too.  Though, for couples where gaining and making significant progress isn’t a big part of their relationship, I’m sure it’s not a big deal. 

The gainer + encourager/admirer relationship works so well because each party has a goal which supports the other’s:  the gainer wants to get bigger, and the encourager wants a bigger partner.  Everyone gets what they want without any sacrifice.  I get to gain knowing that I can focus only on myself getting bigger and I don’t need to feel guilty for not encouraging my partner to do the same—and knowing that he’ll be happier with a bigger partner spurs me on even more.  That dynamic works for us and I don’t want it to change.