POV: You've Eaten Yourself Too Fat for Your Bucket List

A reader submitted a commission request telling me all about how they hope to fulfill their dream of completing a medieval castle tour before they get too fat, but at their most recent castle visit (after piling on 130 pounds) they can barely waddle up the stairs and feel their love handles brushing the walls in certain corridors. Their newfound gluttony and steadily climbing weight also hasn't gone unnoticed by their very concerned family...

It's not often that I’m simultaneously responding to a submission and ideating the plot to a new story at the same time, but some fatties just have that effect on me. Really? You ate yourself so swollen with excess lard that those puffy saddlebags and wobbling love handles were brushing both sides of the corridor?

Sure, it was a medieval castle, sure it was built during a time in which the average person was much, much thinner, but come on. Did you see anyone else's face redden as they realized that they’re just a few particularly gluttonous months away from struggling to force their blubber-coated body past the ever-tightening walls? Or was it just you?

Were you the greediest fatty there? I don't know why I'm asking when we both know you were. See, the idea you gave me is less of a story and more of a future prediction. If I were a betting woman, I'd put the house on it. You’re gonna get too fat for your little castle tour before you’ve even finished it. You‘re in suuuch a rush to visit all of the historical architecture that you can before it's inevitably too late, but that's a race against time that you just won’t win.

The more you travel, the more you exert yourself, the hungrier you’ll get. It's so cute that you think gaining another 130 pounds is gonna be the number that stopped you. You could barely make it up the castle stairs as it is. Imagine yourself just 50 pounds heavier. Just 30. You won't even get the opportunity to get yourself stuck; you’re not gonna make it all the way inside. And it's not as if you have any self-control you could rely on. Not like you could postpone your gain until your bucket list is complete and then go back to a life of piggish greed. You’re already completely insatiable. You couldn't stop yourself if you tried, and we both know that's not gonna happen.

You can't go a day without stuffing your face and overfilling your gut. You can't go a day without getting all worked up as you realize that those 3XL shirts are the only thing left in your closet that you can appropriately  cram all that jiggling flab into. Nothing can stop you at this point. I mean, if pleading and begging from your family isn't enough, then what possibly could be? I love that the whole family is getting in on the intervention now. This is a saga that I wanna keep up with.

Your dad sending you an email with just the word “health” as a subject line? That actually made me laugh aloud. Cause really, what more is there to say? He’s watching you erode your health just so you can suck down more than three servings of pasta in one sitting, smothered with enough butter and cheese to turn your gut into a tight beachball of excess calories and lard. And be honest, do you really save the other half for leftovers? How many times have you returned to your gluttonous little feast before the day was over, sneaking more bites of the 6+ portions until your fork was scraping the bottom of the tupperware and you were so stuffed you could barely move? If it hasn't happened yet, it's coming.

You know what you’re turning into. What you’ve already become. Everyone knows. Your mom reminding you that you aren't stupid, that you know exactly what you're doing to yourself.

That's gotta be the most confusing part for them, huh? That you’re obviously very aware that you're getting bigger. That you're an intelligent person, the kind who would be well aware of the permanence of what you're doing to yourself. They must be so confused, just deeply confounded by the way you refuse to stop bulging out of your clothes before their eyes. How is it happening so fast? How is their child doing nothing, absolutely nothing to stop themselves from growing into unrecognizability?

You're lucky this fetish is so little known, otherwise they would've suspected you long ago. They would've known that their comments were useless, that you like it when others notice how much of a blob you’re becoming.

How do you think they would react if they knew you were doing this on purpose? Well, that you started doing this on purpose. I’m not saying it's not intentional at this point, that you’re not still enjoying it, but you can't really say you're still doing it on purpose, can you? Because if you woke up tomorrow and every trace of attraction to your swollen, porky body was gone, you’d still be getting fatter. You’ve conditioned yourself. Trained yourself. Overfed yourself like a pet pig, and now you can't be satisfied with anything else.

You still like gaining, you still want to gain, but even if you didn't, you’re too far gone. You don't have a choice anymore. You’ll never be able to return to the way you were. You don't stand a chance. So your intentions really don't matter anymore, do they? The inception of this whole situation is a moot point. That's why they don’t ask you how all this started. It doesn't matter. They just wanna beg you to stop before you can’t. While you’re still young, right?

Age doesn't matter. Nothing does. Location, income. You could be the richest person in the world, have access to every resource to get and stay in perfect shape, and you still wouldn't. You’d still be stuffing your face, just with enough buttered lobster to leave you in a food coma instead of your typical greasy fare.

You’re getting to a point where your weight becomes a matter of public concern. Where people will feel emboldened, entitled even, to give you unsolicited advice wherever you go, in any context. Someone your size turns everyone into armchair physicians, and soon you won't be able to escape the belittling conversations from strangers about how their cousin's gastric bypass turned his life around, about how their sister tried ozempic and dropped 50 pounds.

They’ll criticize what you eat, the way your clothes fit, how tired you get walking those short distances that you’re already struggling with. The way your family is treating you now is gonna be the way the world treats you as you continue to pile on the pounds. And you’re gonna love it, aren't you? Love the constant reminder that you can't hide your growth, that every meal you eat in public shows up in private.

Isn't it funny how all those corny and overused diet slogans like that probably turn you on? “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips". "Don’t reward yourself with food, you’re not a pet". "You are what you eat".

That last one certainly applies, doesn't it? All you eat is excess fat, and that’s what you’re becoming. More excess fat than person.

You better go stock up on those 4XL shirts you mentioned. You know you’re gonna need them sooner than you think.