Do I Want To Get Fat Or Do I Want To Get Fit?

Dear Professor,

 I've been reading your blog for a while now and I decided to finally ask you a question that has been on my mind for months. I'm currently 18 years old and I'm at a point where I can't decided if I want to be fat or if I want to get fit. Some days, when I feel like getting fat, I don't care about much other than trying to gain. All I want to do is eat until I gain that big belly I've wanted for a while. And I will act upon it by consuming mass amounts of calories. But most of the time, I want to lose my weight because I feel like there is no one out there who would be interested in me. I feel as if I were to gain wriggle, the type of people I like would vanish. Yes, I know it might be an irrational fear and that there is a big community of gainers, feeders, etc. but I like a specific set of one people when I want to be fit and another load of people when I feel gluttonous. Do you have any help on which path I should take?

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This is what we call in the health professional world “a self-limiting condition.” In other words, it’s something you’ll “grow out of” (and yes, that was a pun) over a period of time.

Here’s part of being 18 years old: the fat/fit split is a powerful metaphor for doing the child/adult transition thing. It can be a painful process and there’s usually no one to hold your hand as you walk down the path.  The support you’re most likely to find are peers, who are either chubby themselves (and suffer the society-shaped sense of shame about it) or the fit and athletic peers who mock the chubby ones, not realizing within another 5 years or so, they’ll be buying larger pants on a regular basis.

There was an instructive book done some time ago by Gail Sheehy, called Passages, where she looked at the reflections of many men based on their age groups.  Basically she found when you are in your late teens to twenties, you feel every door is open to you---life is full of possibilities, and your obligation is to find the right path for you.  Men in their 30s have usually been on the chosen path for awhile, and their obligation for their age group is to become the best “fill in the blank” sort of person/worker they can be, based on that choice.  For example, if you chose the path of becoming a rich banker, you strive to become the very best and richest banker you can be, and you make that your priority over friends, family, and personal needs.  Men in their 40s start to question, “Did I make the right choice?” This is when they begin to question if all the sacrifice—of friends, family, and personal needs was worth the cost of success.  This is particularly a problem if they really haven’t been all that successful.  This is where the term “mid-life crisis” comes from  According to Sheehy, the 50s are when men realize that many of the metaphoric doors they closed decades ago are often still ones that can be opened, so the 50s can be a time of re-examination and perhaps taking back what was given up many years ago.  If things go well, the 60s can be a time of great satisfaction and integration.

The point of this? You’re at the “what should I do?” stage of your development.  This is perfectly normal. In my personal experience in the gaining community, This push/pull—fit/fat is something a lot of people in their teens and twenties go through.  Part of it is how much people of this age value peer approval and a sense of “fitting in.” I suspect if you were surrounded physically by a lot of gainers, rather than knowing a lot of them via the internet, you wouldn’t be writing me, but you’d be busy on your second milkshake. There is also for some people your age the question, “Would I have a  better chance at a good job if I were athletic looking, rather than fat?”

When a lot of “wannabe” gainers hit their 30s, they enter a “perfect storm.”  Developmentally, a lot of 30somethings have achieved enough self-confidence and self-assuredness the full approval of people around them doesn’t always shape their lives.  Men in their 30s are also normally much better off financially than guys in their teens and 20s, which means they can afford more food and replacing clothing.  If they’re doing well in their jobs, their weight is so not an issue (unless they are a professional model, dancer, or in positions with weight limits, like a flight attendant). Indeed, if they are in administrative positions, the young people they supervise will see a role model of someone with, well, actual rolls. Just so, I encounter a lot of guys in their 30s who tell me, “I finally felt safe enough to let go and become the fat guy I always wanted to be, but was too scared to embrace.”

I also see a lot of men in their 40s (i.e., questioning if the choice they made for themselves in their 20s to be “fit” was the right choice, or if it was too big of a sacrifice), and in their 50s (i.e., realizing they can make other decisions than the ones they made in their 20s) suddenly stop dieting and blow up to become the size they’ve fantasized about being for decades.

 Go to www.fit2fat2fit.com – this is the website for a personal trainer who had never been out of shape, and decided to better understand his overweight clients, deliberately decided to gain around 50 pounds over six months, then reverse to process. To his shock, he was much better at gaining than he had anticipated and gained closer to 80. This week completed his year’s journey.  His photos, videos, and blog posts documenting this journey will give you proof that whatever decision you make—doesn’t mean you have to live with it the rest of your life. If you start with a six pack and gain 80 pounds, you can still end up with a six pack.

And at 18, it’s also natural to ask, if you haven’t been in a terrific first love (or first sexual) relationship—“Would I be in one if my waist size was 28?  If my waist size was 48?”  You will always have an audience—but it may be a different audience if you’re a size 28 than it is I you’re a size 48.  You will have a specific audience of admirers because you’re 18, who will usually not be the same audience of admirers when you’re 38.  But everyone has an audience of admirers.

And this is something not mentioned as much on gaining sites.  There are some people for whom the fantasy of gaining is incredibly erotic, but when they go ahead and try it, they discover that path isn’t really for them. Gaining weight can be hard work for some. One of our statesmen “Fatnesse” http://fatnesse.blogspot.com   talks about how for some people, they might enjoy the gain, but don’t like the way it makes their face looks with a double chin and chubby cheeks. Others have dreamed of a ball belly, and discover their genetics gives them a “double belly” with a low hanger. For others, it may be like an athletic competition—you have proven you can do it, and don’t need to continue to prove it.  But you know what lottery ads say—“If you don’t play, you can’t win.” When it comes to gaining, if you don’t try, you won’t know if it’s what you ultimately want.

If you decide (and I emphasize, this is your body, your choice) for the present, you aren’t going to chub out—the chances are, you’re going to experiment with it later on down the road.  Of all the gainers I’ve known—I have met and spoken with many who waited, and told me, “I’m sorry I wasted so many years of dieting and gym, when being this size is so satisfying to me—I only wish I had gone ahead and done it when I first wanted to.”  I haven’t met that many who said, “Oh, thank god I waited for years to do what has brought me so much joy and erotic fulfillment. Thank god I sacrificed and suffered to have the lean body I never really wanted.”

Good luck—let me know what happens.