Muke's growing journey

Life, life.  I wrestle with trying to gain weight as I continue to despise food.

It may be too tedious to prepare, so I end up skipping the meal.  Yes, I’m often too lazy to get fat.

No sweet tooth, and not too keen on junk food either. If I do buy either, they often end up sitting around because I’m rarely in the mood for them.

Or my appetite will give out in the middle of a meal.  I’ve talked about this before: it’s not that I’ll get full—I can’t really remember the last time I was full—there’s just a point where my body shuts off all desire to eat, like flipping a switch.  I can feel the exact moment it happens much of the time; it’s weird, and a nuisance.

Never got into snacking.  Besides the snack foods not appealing to me, I haven’t really been able to get into the habit of eating while doing other things.

I’m trying to get over these things so I can really start putting weight on.  I probably can’t change my tastes; what I need to work on is my willpower.  Trouble is, I’m not so sure how to do that.

I didn’t eat well last week. Like I mentioned in my last post, I did poorly in my meal planning, and didn’t end up with anywhere near enough food to gain off of.

It’s hard for me without help, but even with the setbacks I’m not quitting. I know I say that a lot, but writing here is a reminder I’m not giving up. It’s also hard being a gainer who doesn’t like to eat, as I’m sure I’ve gone over before. If I were in it for the gluttony, I’d be big as a house right now because I don’t have any self-esteem issues keeping me from gaining, I don’t succumb to negative peer pressure about my weight—not that I ever receive any—and I probably have more than enough experience in watching costs per calorie to eat big on a low budget.

Anyway, this week I did get an encourager to give me a realistic menu (which makes the first time after asking for I don’t know how many years)… Haven’t got it exactly, but maybe close enough… we’ll see how it goes.

Still haven’t got a job yet, but I did get finally get my severance pay deposited so I shouldn’t be hurting for food for a while.

Ah well. Till next time,
I love you all.

Another week, another down.

I’ve been trying to put on weight for several years now.  While I have had some success—actually, I’m up a bit over eighty pounds since I first started—progress is just so intermittent.

Sometimes people call it a plateau when you’re taking in a lot of calories but the body just doesn’t respond with the extra pounds.  I have encountered that—the amount of food I needed to gain off of grew quite a lot in the first quarter of the year.

But what’s been hitting me this week, though, and the past few weeks, really, is more along the lines of just not being able to take in the calories.  Actually, that’s probably not true—I’m sure I’d be able; I just don’t find myself wanting to bother eating, or making food.

There could be all kinds of causes to this, but I figure the biggest factor is the changes in my routine brought on by losing my job.  I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is for me to gain on weekends; now, every day is a weekend.  (And meals aren’t the only thing disrupted by the change, but the rest of my routine isn’t really relevant here.)

I also tend to blame a lot of this lethargy on the weather; it’s been pretty rainy lately and, while I enjoy the rain, I’ve noticed I do tend to be less dedicated when it’s about to rain.

I can blame a lot of things, really, but the only real reason, of course, is weakness of will.  Circumstances are just circumstances, and out of my direct control: in the end it’s all down to me asking myself, consciously or not, Do I want to eat more? and the answer coming back No, not really.

Still, I won’t give up.

So when it came to  planning meals for the week yesterday, and all the food I actually wanted to eat came out to under 2000 calories a day, well… when I went to the Wal-Mart I just splurged a bit on whatever caught my eye.  With what result, well… we’ll see next week.  Still could do with help, though.

Wrote out this blog post on paper instead of composing it on the computer, where I think I never have been too good at writing seriously.  I think it came out a little better, maybe?  Certainly managed to make it a decent length, anyway.  Will try to do this more often.

So this week I managed to hold on to 205 till the week’s-end weigh-in. Hooray, sure, but I’m still a few pounds behind schedule. I keep skipping meals. Mostly because dinner usually ends up late, when I’m too tired to put anything together.

On the downside, the layoffs we were expecting came through this week, so now that I’m out of work I’ll have to be even more frugal with my food purchases than usual.

Meal plan for week of 5/31–6/6, result +4 lbs:
Weekday (~4000 calories)

• Breakfast: Vege-sausage, breakfast shake.
• Lunch: Pasta fagioli. Mashed potatoes. Apples.
• Snack: Triscuits with cheese. Ice cream.
• Dinner: Aglio e olio. Ricotta herb gnocchi. Salad.

In practice I didn’t really get around to the potatoes as much as I was supposed to—ran out of space to pack it in, when I was carrying leftovers too—and I didn’t touch the ice cream at all.

I need to work on my writing skills. I know these posts can be kind of bland; what’s worse is how much time goes into making them anyway.