I´m 17 and i am a gainer. I live at home with my family. 7 moths ago, i weighted 220 lbs and my mother said me that i was overweight and she puts me on a diet. I´m from spain where the ``normal person´´ have to be slim. Now, I weight 198 lbs and i cant eat for gain weight because i dont have many money. What can I do?
Thanks for see my answer.
Fattyspanish
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Well, Fattyspanish,
We have a saying over here in the States--"Bummer, Dude." Roughly translated, this means, "You are not in a good spot." You are in the situation a lot of teenage gay youth (and I have no idea if you're gay--you didn't say, and it doesn't matter--I'm using gay as an example) are in. You know what you want for yourself, but your family is not supportive of your fulfillment. And again, this isn't unique to gay kids. Long and long ago, I was forced to take a year of ballet classes when I was in graduate school. In ballet, it is very common for a male dancer to "lift" a female dancer--a classic ballet movement. The Chair of the Dance Department (who also sometimes worked with me as a co-therapist at our clinic, which is how she forced me into ballet classes after discovering I was a traditional American Indian dancer) at one point, told all the male students to pair up with each other. "In order to fully understand how to lift a female partner, you need to discover what it feels like yourself." I was paired with a Chinese-American student, who was an excellent dancer. I, on the other hand, was a dancer, but hardly excellent. To lift, one dancer leaps up with the other dancer's hands on his/her waist/hips. At the precise moment of the leap up, the "lifter" pushes up. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had. It felt like I was flying. Your own body is used to a lifetime of your limitations--if you jump, you only jump so high. But when you jump to your normal limit, and someone is simultaneously pushing you up--it's like a turbo-charge. Your brain can't make sense of doing what you've done before, but this time, getting an entirely different--and incredibly powerful result..We took turns doing this with each other. When we were changing back into our street clothes I talked to him about how much talent he had as a dancer. He told me dance was one of the most important things in his life--but his family felt it was useless and frivolous--he was expected to be a successful pharmacist. This short time of his life--was the only time he could fulfill his desires as a dancer. Then he had to walk--not dance--forward into his responsibilities established by his family.
In the United States, we're seeing gay and lesbian (and transgendered) kids coming out at an earlier and earlier age--some of the more recent research shows the average is around 15 years of age. Unfortunately, this is directly connected at the number of young people who are thrown out of their families when they "come out" and the young people literally end up on the street. In studies done in Los Angeles and Seattle, a significant number of homeless youth are homeless for this reason.
Wanting to deliberately gain weight and to become a "true fatty" can be in this same category. If you don't have the financial independence to provide for yourself (and many 17 year olds do not) the cold, hard, harsh fact is--you need the shelter, protection, and food your family provides you.
It's my understanding a number of European cultures historically reflect this relationship--many young adults often live at home until they marry--and then they are allowed to have their own household--as I recall, Ireland is one of the countries where the delay in moving out into one's own place, as opposed to living at home--is the most extreme. The challenge is when the parents continue to "make the rules" as long as you're living at home, whether you are 15 or 25.
Until you can achieve a level of financial independence, you're pretty much limited in your options of what helps you survive in your family. You're also (sorry) facing a very cold, harsh economic reality where Spain is suffering major economic problems, which additionally limits your options.
I would suggest you do your best to find part time work in the food services industry. Even in a bad economy, people need to eat. But do take the attitude you're not doing this to find your career (although, you actually might). Your chances of being hired part-time at low pay (and trust me, most teenagers get low pay) are much better than say, an experienced 35 year old who is looking for full time work at a higher salary. One of the "perks" of working at a restaurant or fast food place is the establishment usually allows you free food while you're working, or lets you take home food that's "left over" when the place is ready to close. Getting a job of this sort both gives you some extra money (that you can spend on fattening food--or larger clothes) as well as free food. You get to justify it with your family by explaining this is going to make your more "responsible" in learning to take care of yourself, and to provide you "spending money" for personal needs, where you don't have to keep asking your family to buy you what you want. These are normally "selling points" that immediately win over parents.
You're getting close to college age, and if college is an option for you, it can be a tremendous opportunity for you to separate from your family and gain weight while away. If the family freaks when you come back home at your old 200plus pounds, well, you're just home for the holidays and you'll be back at the college dining hall in a few weeks.
I've also given the suggestion to young people--go to the library and check out books on bodybuilding. You don't have to read them. Go into really boring detail about how complicated it is to build muscle--that in addition to exercise, you need a diet high in protein. Parents who are worried about their children being fat love to hear the word "diet." Explain in boring detail how to build muscle tissue you need to have a lot more protein (which means--you need to eat a lot) in your diet. Talk about the idea of "bulking" where you have to get larger as part of the "cycle" and then you go into regular cycles of "cutting" where you lose body fat, but also muscle tissue in order to "get cut" and look more like a bodybuilder. Then you go into another cycle of "bulking." The trick, of course, is to always stay in the bulking cycle. If you have access to a gym, you can actually do this "for real," where you can add muscle as well as fat, a combination many people find attractive.
Depending on whether or not you or your family does your laundry--if you do indeed get a part time job, you can use some of the money to buy larger size clothes that look exactly like the ones you already have. Then you pull up your shirt and put your fingers between your belly and your pants and go, "See how much weight I've lost? My clothes no longer fit." (Ok, this isn't exactly honest, but I want you to know the range of your options, given the fact you're not in the best place in your life for gaining.)
But the sad fact is--becoming the size you want to be may be delayed while you're living at home and financially depending on your family. I don't know how available it is in Spain, but here's another suggestion I've given to young guys still living at home--peanut butter, bread, and honey don't require refrigeration. This means if you have privacy in your bedroom, you can keep these 3 relatively inexpensive items hidden away. You can make peanut butter and honey sandwiches for yourself before you go to bed. This combination--of sugar, protein, and carbs, really helps pack on the pounds.
But the bottom line---to be the true Spanishfatty you want to be--you eventually need to be in charge of your own living space to be in charge of your own life and waist size.
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