Getting Fat Rapidly

Question: which is worse, losing weight or gaining weight?

Having just experienced a week of rapid weight gain where I stuffed my mouth with food to balloon up 3kg in 8 days, I can definitely say that gaining weight is a miserable experience. I hated every minute of it.

Really, anything too sudden and abrupt is generally not a good idea. Any type of weight fluctuation should be done gradually to give the body time to adapt. But all things being equal, I’ve found force-feeding to be much worse than going on an extreme cutting diet.

The Sudden Tournament

On 12th November, I saw a facebook post about an open arm wrestling tournament in Nam Định. The date? 22/11.

That’s in 10 days. Not too bad, I can definitely do a 10-day prep.

But then I was placed in the pro class with no weight restrictions. This means I would have to wrestle with guys who weigh anywhere between 60kg and 90kg.

In strength sports such as arm wrestling, generally size = strength. Heavy guys have an advantage in muscle mass and size. It’s just physics, which is why all the absolute strongest powerlifters and strongmen in the world are mass monsters.

I was sitting at around 71kg then. It’s not a horrible weight, but it’s too light compared to many of the heavier wrestlers that I would face.

And so, I have one singular goal for the following week: get big. Let the force feeding commence.

A Seefood Diet

After making the decision to get massive, I headed straight to the supermarket. I bought everything that packs calories and is easy to digest.

I ended up buying these foods that meet both criteria:

• Various types of milk
• Breakfast cereal
• Protein powder
• Potato chips
• Various types of fruits

My goal was to eat 6 meals a day, in order to gain 3kg in a week. That sounds like a really audacious goal (and it is), but from the many stories of weight gain I’ve read on the Internet, it is entirely doable — as long as you are willing to tolerate the dread, bloat, the lethargy, and the… flatulence.

So… away I ate. Right before bed, I made a meal consisting of 500 mL of milk, one scoop of protein powder, 200 gr of cereal, and a tube of potato chips. That’s 2,000 calories.

It was horrible. My body is just not used to eating so much in one meal. It took me over an hour to finish that monstrosity. By the time I was done, my heart was beating wildly; my energy level diminished, and I couldn’t breathe. No I wasn’t suffocating, but I was winded climbing a flight of stairs. My stomach bloated like one of those beer guts, which was absolutely disgusting.

And that pretty much summed up that entire week. All I did was get up, eat, rest, and count down until the next meal. Eating when you are absolutely full is a soul-crushing experience. You sit there looking down at the plate; your body tells you it’s enough, but you know you still have to put that spoon into your mouth. And so you do it, bite by bite. It is dreadful to the core, but you have to do it.

That was only during the meal. The after-eating effects were just as horrible. It seriously felt like I had just run a damn marathon. I couldn’t do anything but lie down and breathe for half an hour, waiting for the enormous amount of food to digest. After the food is all done for, I felt fine again. But then… here came another meal, and the cycle repeated. I was just listless throughout the day — all my metabolic energy literally went to processing food.

I also gave up cardio entirely. Did not run even once during that week to conserve energy, which further exacerbates my lethargy problem.

The Tournament

After that hellish week, I ended up weighing in at 74.5kg. I’m sure most of that is water, and a smaller bit is fat.

On the day of the competition, I had a light meal. I felt great. I finished the competition with much better results than I expected — won 3 matches right-handed and won the bronze medal left-handed.

My left-handed result wasn’t too surprising since I have always been stronger on the left. However I was really pleased with my right-handed result! I honestly expected to be steamrolled on the right at first, so getting 3 wins over extremely strong competitors is a huge deal for me.

At least, my overeating efforts paid off somehow. If I had gone through all that trouble of becoming a pig only to come home empty-handed, I would have felt… extremely disappointed, to say the least.

Do Not Recommend!

If there is one word to sum up this whole… ordeal, that would be the one I’ve used several times in this post — miserable.

I know I’m being over dramatic here — so many people would kill to be able to eat so much food like I did, and there is so much suffering out there that calling my one week of weight gain an ordeal would just be ludicrous hyperbole.

But seriously, it’s all relative isn’t it? I am used to being physically active and energetic. I have always had a six pack. Now suddenly I have to be lethargic all day, have near zero stamina, and a abominable beer gut to go with it? That is pure misery to me.

I have been through periods where I fasted for an entire day. I would eat one meal, and go through the day with nothing in my stomach. I felt amazing. Fasting really does wonders for your alertness and energy level. I would choose fasting and dieting over overeating any day.

In general, I do not recommend force-feeding and rapid weight gain to anybody. It’s unhealthy and just plainly miserable, unless you have to do it for competition or performance. It’s something that only athletes do.

Interestingly, there is something called refeeding syndrome where people who have been starved for a long time die from a sudden ingestion of food. After American soldiers liberated the Holocaust camps, for example, they gave the severely malnourished prisoners food. Many of the prisoners ended up dying because their already weakened body suddenly had to expend all its energy digesting the food, leaving little energy for other essential functions. The soldiers quickly learned the lesson and had to give the prisoners food very slowly.

Anyway, I have another tournament next week where I will compete in the 76kg category. I will maintain this weight until then. I won’t be overeating, just maintaining. And then immediately after the tournament is over, I will cut the fuck down. Back to running, back to fasting. I so want to go back to 70kg — the ideal weight where I look the best and feel the best.