The Blogosphere Expands: Introducing the fantastic men of GainTirade

I am very happy to introduce an exciting new gainer podcast/comic/blog/recipe library/general multimedia awesomeness created by my two dear friends, Matt and Pete. It's called GainTirade and it's awesome.

Matt and Pete are a very cute, committed, whip smart and hilarious encourager/gainer couple and they have put a ton of effort in to start up a very fun, interesting, engaging podcast. It deals with the various ins and outs of having a relationship that has gaining as a central aspect, and generally existing within the gainer/encourager community.

It's funny, it's really well done, the podcast is updated every Sunday, and if you have a tumblr, you should most assuredly follow them there so you don't miss any of the adorable comics Matt makes. Give it a listen and a look over, if you're reading my blog, I am sure you'll enjoy it. And check out and follow their twitter too!

The Blogosphere Expands: Professor Fatology's Blog

I've been meaning to post a link to this one for a while, but, the holidays kind of got me a little sidetracked. If you haven't read it already, check out Professor Fatology (known to some as EagleDancer -check out one of his recipes he contributed to this blog here). He writes a very interesting blog touching on various aspects of gaining and encouraging, coming at it from the point of view of a very well informed and well read Psychologist. It might be a little dense for some, and it's not really spank bank material, but it is very thoughtfully written, and offers a lot of smart insights on the topic. Check it out!

And we're back!

After a brief summer hiatus, The Encourager is back! I was totally overwhelmed by how many of you guys took the time to email, fratnote, IM, BeefyMessenger, etc... to ask about the blog and ask when it was coming back. Not a day went by while The Encourager was on hiatus that I didn't hear from 5 or 10 faithful readers, which amazed me. You guys are, in the words of Tina Turner, "simply the best."

For those of you who were worried about why I vanished, it was just that there was a bit of national level media attention that was falling on the various gainer/encourager blogs, and I didn't wanna have that kind of attention on my writing. I figured I'd pull things in and decide what next to do. I've decided to have a bit of a closer reign on things here -you won't find me on google, and you won't find archives or cached pages anywhere if the html I added works right. But hopefully I'll be around without any reporters lurking around lol

So yeah, I'm back, and look forward to some fun posts in the coming weeks. You guys are the best readers ever.

-Get A. Snack

350,000 Hits! Jesus that's a lot of horny people

I just got an email from my hit tracker service that I got my 350,000th hit for the blog! That means there have been 50,000 hits to this blog since the tail end of March -i.e. 50,000 hits in about 3 and a half months. This blows my mind. Thanks everyone!

-Get A. Snack

P.S. The above image of a hot bellied guy off the interwebs is totally unrelated to this post, I just thought you guys would like it!

Recipes for Summer Gaining: EagleDancer's Bread Pudding

Another recipe in the summer gaining series, this time brought to you by Eagledancer, a long time encourager and passionate cook. I haven't tried this one yet, but, judging from the amount of weight Eagle has packed onto his partner, I imagine it's as tasty as it is fattening. In his own words:

"Since we now live in Arizona, I don’t really do “Summer” recipes. Here in the “Valley of the Sun” (which is what the better business bureau calls the “Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area) we only have two seasons…Spring and Hell. The SigO tells me it’s worth having 2 months of Hell in exchange for 10 months of Spring. It’s common for us to get triple digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures by May, and it hit 115 or above a number of times last year.

All the locals are in awe about what a mild Summer we’re currently having, given the fact it hadn’t hit 100 until the first week of June.

Here’s a recipe that has the three essential ingredients for the best “jiggle” factor when it come to a happy belly—fat, sugar, and carbs. It helped add inches to the SigO, who has a weakness for bread (not to mention, for fat and sugar…). Since he’s gone from size 30 jeans to size 38s, and those are getting tight, he’s insisted I cook “low fat/low calorie dinners” and then he makes peanut-butter and honey sandwiches 90 minutes later for his 4^th or 5^th meal of the day, which he tends to scarf down in the kitchen before rushing back to the TV.

This is my modification of an old fashioned treat, bread pudding. I should also mention as an American Indian, we have a variation of this on our reservation. We call it “Tsoopa” in our language. It’s made with Pueblo Indian bread which is baked in our outdoor “beehive” shaped ovens. This bread is a regular part of our traditional diet, but since it has no preservatives, if you don’t eat it quickly, it tends to go stale in the dry humidity, and quite “hard.” As a result, a recipe for “stale” bread for us is very practical. The main difference to me is that the Tsoopa is made with cheese, so it’s not considered a dessert. As a result, I had to learn about non-Indian Bread Pudding from a non-Native sister-in-law from the American South. I like to add Kalua, because I think it makes sweet things taste better, the way bacon makes almost anything taste better.

In my version, I use 2 cups of heavy cream, which provides a base of over 1,600 calories and over 170 grams of fat to throw in with over 400 calories from the ¼ cup of butter, not counting the additional calorie help from the bread, sugar and eggs. To be honest, while I’m including for completion’s sake an additional recipe for a topping, I almost never make it because most of the bread pudding is eaten by the SigO immediately after I’ve taken it from the oven and it’s too warm to pour the sauce over.

At one point, the SigO and I were in a Seattle bakery outlet store buying loaves of bread at an incredible savings, and he mentioned to the cashier, “This bread has put 20 pounds on me!” Of course, that was about 60 pounds ago…"

Eagledancer Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, depending on taste preference)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract1 tablespoon Kalua coffee liquor
3 cups bread, torn into small pieces. (French bread works well…however, I’ll often buy a nice loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread to use, in which case I’d eliminate the extra cinnamon. Don’t stress on the type of bread—after all, one of purposes of Bread Pudding is to use up stale bread. On the other hand, I buy the cinnamon-raisin bread to use for the pudding, and I’m not going to wait for it to go stale…)
1/2 cup raisins (if I’m using the cinnamon-raisin bread, I’ll cut the amount of additional raisins in half…)

Directions:

1. In medium saucepan, over medium heat, heat the cream just until film forms over top. Combine butter and cream, stirring until butter is melted. Cool to lukewarm.

2. Combine sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and Kalua. Beat with whisk (or an electric mixer) until smooth. Slowly add cream mixture.

3. Place bread in a lightly greased 1 1/2 quart casserole.

4. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Pour batter on top of bread.

5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes or until set. I do the old-fashioned thing of poking it after 45 minutes with a wooden toothpick to see if it comes out “clean.” If the pudding is sticking to the toothpick it needs to bake a little more. Serve warm.

If you make the sauce to put on top of your bread pudding, adjust the sugar in the bread pudding recipe, change it to 1/3 cups sugar (the sauce has the other 1/3 cup in it).

Bread Pudding Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. flour
dash of salt

Directions:

Mix everything together and bring to a boil for 3 - 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Set aside for 5 minutes, then pour on warm bread pudding. The reason I don’t use heavy cream in this one is because you need to boil it, and milk is less likely to scorch.

Recipes for Summer Gaining: Grimmwolf's Southwest Pasta Salad

The next recipe in our series comes from Grimmwolf, the encourager formerly known as the gainer JockBalloon. Grimm knows a thing or two about gaining- he packed on around 100lbs of fat to his frame after quitting wrestling after high school. See pic:


Recently he's chosen to embrace his inner encourager, to drop a bit of the belly and concentrate on getting really muscled. But don't forget, from personal experience, he knows just how to get a guy fat.

So, try this spicy pasta salad -it's tangy, easy to make, and ripe with calories. And while you're eating, be sure to check out GrimmWolf's Tales, a new gainer fiction blog written by the chef himself. Here's the recipe, in his own words:

Grimmwolf’s Southwest Pasta Salad:

2 boxes of your favorite pasta (I like to mix it up between two different types. Organic tastes better. NO ELBOWS.)
3 Bell Peppers: One Yellow, One Orange, One Red (you can swap in a green or any other bell peppers)
1 One Yellow Onion
2 ears of Sweet Corn.
3 Chicken Breast
1 Avocado (Yes we've seen these before)
Mayo, Hot Sauce, Lime, Little bit of Chipotle.

Before you start, note that a lot of this needs a grill. Either inside or outside, no using a George Foreman. All else fails u can use a pan but I wouldn’t recommend it.

First slice and de-seed all the pepper. It’s easiest if you do it in quarters or halves first. You wanna fire roast the peppers slightly, enough to char the skin and meat but not enough to dry out the veggies. This is going to apply for all the others veggies after the pepper. After the peppers are ready, dice them to thin bit. Go across the side to give you short bits and then put them into the bowl.

Make sure you have cooked the sweet corn before hand; this should be done before you start the pasta salad. But the corn on the heat and as it begins to get marks from the grill get turn it. Once the corn is nicely charred, slice the corn from its cob and put it in the bowl with the peppers.
Repeat the process with the onion that you have with the other veggies. Remove the skin, slice and lightly char. Then dice and drop it in the bowl.

Cook up the chicken, again nice char marks are a must! Then slices it up and again into the bowl.
Avocado. Can be done either slightly charred or just regular. Cut into small wedges and then when it is read (they will take the shortest time).

I’m not telling you guys how to cook your pasta. Cuz it all depends on taste. Anyway once all the items are ready you can toss them in with the pasta. Now on to the Southwest Mayo, to make it a pasta salad.

I can’t give you appropriate measurements because it again depends on your preference with how much sauce/mayo you like with your salads.

Either use homemade mayo, or take your regular store bought mayo (not lite) and mix it in with the hot sauce, chipotle, lime zest and juice. When it is all mix, the southwest mayo should appear a light pink. Obviously the redder it is, the more heat is going to be in it.
Its good cold and hot, as a meal or a side.

Recipes for Summer Gaining: BearTrainer's Homemade Strawberry Shortcakes

Continuing with my Summer Gaining recipe series, here is a recipe straight from one of my encourager idols, the ever eloquent BearTrainer. Check out his yummy, light, homemade calorie filled dessert sure to satisfy even the hungriest of gainers.

BearTrainer’s Homemade Strawberry Shortcakes

There are three parts to strawberry shortcake—the sweetened biscuits, the strawberries and the whipped cream. Impress your friends and make it all from scratch--it's the kind of recipe that even people who don't cook can make. Really simple!

Sweet Biscuits

Preheat over to 475 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together:

2 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
5 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Then, into one cup of buttermilk, stir one stick of melted butter, which will look like it’s “curdling” in the cold milk. Then stir this milk/butter mixture into flour until dough just comes together

Grease 1/2 cup measure and form biscuits with it, dropping them on to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes, till puffed and just browning. Let them cool completely (2 hours), then gently slice them cross-wise into 3 layers. (Note: reduce the sugar in these to 2 tbsp and reduce the size to ¼ cup to use this recipe for dinner biscuits or sandwich rolls. They are addictive!)

Strawberries:

Stem, hull and cut 3lbs. of strawberries into slices or chunks—your choice. Then sprinkle on top ¼ cup light honey (orange blossom or tupelo), ¼ cup of balsamic vinegar, ¼ cup of fresh mint rough-chopped, toss and let the strawberries macerate for 4 hours minimum in the refrigerator. (If you are feeling patriotic and want a red-white-blue effect, throw in two cups of fresh blueberries.)

Whipped Cream:

Chill your metal mixing bowl in the fridge for an hour or so. Then pour in one pint of heavy whipping cream, begin to beat slowly, pouring in ¼ cup of sugar, one tbsp almond flavoring, one tbsp vanilla. Increase speed and whip until cream makes firm solid peaks. (Don’t overwhip or you’ll get butter!)

Just before serving, assemble the shortcakes by drenching the bottom layer with juice from strawberries, generous spoonfuls of strawberries, generous spoonfuls of whipped cream, same with middle layer, then drenching inside of top of biscuit with strawberry juice, lay on top with a sprig of mint. Enjoy the richness, freshness and sweetness of a classic American dessert!

The Blogosphere Expands: Gym & Buffet

Hello faithful readers,

Just wanted to do a quick post to inform you all about Gym & Buffet, a new blog about lifting, eating, gaining, and general hotness. It's written by an adorable gainer/encourager couple, consisting of the currently growing G (whose transformation is pictured below),


and the formerly gaining, currently encouraging G, whose sadly now downsized belly is pictured here:




It's very smartly written, full of workout tips, insights into gaining, and is def. worth adding to your list of gainer/encourager blogs. And I mean, the pictures don't lie; these boys know a thing or three about growing a grade a ex-jock belly. Check it out and enjoy.

Belly Bar

These images were originally intended as an April Fools prank, but, I decided that it would be too mean to get peoples' hopes up, so I held off for a few days. But here is the fruit of an hour's worth of daydreaming and some helpful suggestions from DangerCocktail:



I mean seriously, if this was real, wouldn't you wanna go?


And finally, the mock up of the drink menu. I think it turned out to be surprisingly drinkable for gainer oriented cocktails (and I think I should seriously consider opening a bar...).


Wouldn't that have been a cruel prank? lol Hope you guys enjoy the ridiculousness.

Milestones

Today I received a cute email from my stat tracker service that The Encourager had just received it's 300,000th hit. Wow. This also happens to be my 100th post. I figured I should celebrate this amazing numerical synchronicity with a quick post.

I cannot begin to thank you guys for reading this blog. The kind emails, the friendly IMs, the comments on posts, it's been so rewarding to hear that people actually care about what I write. I started this blog with the intention of giving back to the gainer/encourager community, and I really feel like I actually have to some degree. It's an amazing feeling. I'll try not to go on, but, I really, deeply thankful for all of you guys, and the ways that writing this blog has made me grow as a person. I feel like I am a much better guy for having this outlet.

I really hope that anyone who needs it can take the stuff I write in this blog and use it as one more reason to be who they want to be. You guys are awesome. And you're not alone. Not alone x 300,000, just from this blog.

Eat big!

-The Encourager

Hard Fat: The Gainer Documentary

Hard Fat on Vimeo.

Although it's not perfect, this is as far as I am aware the only documentary ever produced that openly focuses on gay gainers and encourager. It's got great eye candy, some thoughtful discussion, and is a much watch for any gainer and/or encourager type.

Who knows how long it'll be up there, so, take a few minutes and watch it today.

Some interesting developments...

Dear Loyal Readers,

I'd like to let you know about two fun things related to my blog that I'm starting up with.

In addition to my updates here, I'm gonna be adding almost daily photo/video updates to The Encourager's Tumblr Extension. It's basically an online spankbank, but, it's much easier to quickly add videos and pictures to than here, so, it's fairly likely that I'll be updating it at worst a few times a week. More thought heavy/text heavy posts will still be posted here, along with pictures and vids that I find truly exceptional.

Check out The Encourager's Tumblr Extension

Another fun development is my teaming with the ever wonderful and devastatingly charming DangerCocktail to do a joint blogging effort, thus far called Encouraging Cocktails.

It should be super fun, as he's a fantastic writer and is always good for an excellent conversation. Hopefully we should get the first collaboration up in the next week or two, posted to both our blogs. If you've got an idea for a topic (think gainer/encourager related things that would be fun to have a conversation about) let me know at GetASnack@gmail.com. Encouraging Cocktails will be double posted here and on DangerCocktail's blog.

275,000 hits

So, in other news, I got a little email from my site tracker service today that informed me that this blog, since it's inception, had just over 275,000 hits. This kinda blew my mind, but I thought was best summed up by a little calculation performed by my friend Victor. He wrote:

"Congrats on 275,000 hits! Let's put it in context though. The average male erection is 6" long. Let's assume that every visitor to your site gets at least one boner per visit (I do). 275,000 x 6 = 1,650,000 inches of throbbing cock. We know that there are 5280 feet in a mile, or 63,360 inches. So, 1,650,000 / 63,360 = 26.04166667. Dude... Your blog has caused ~26 miles of erections. :D That's pretty cool when you do the math."

That is pretty cool when you do the math and I am super greatful to Victor for doing it for me. Makes my horny mind think, if the blog is responsible for around 26 miles of boners, how many lbs has it helped inspire? Thanks to everyone for reading. All of you are what makes keeping up this blog fun.

Gainers & Encouragers & Sex: Part I; A Response

This video, as it is from XTube, is obviously NSFW. But it's pretty friggen hot.

So, some of you may have read a thread over on BellyBuilders, and then a subsequent post on SFBayDude’s blog about gainers and encouragers and anal sex.

The thread had an accompanying poll asking how people viewed anal sex in terms of their own sexuality. Some of the people on the thread, including SFBayDude (the originator of the discussion, and someone I would consider a friend) drew the conclusion that the majority of gainers and encouragers didn’t feel like anal sex was important to them.

This really riled me, and similarly riled a couple of my pals that I was discussing it with.

Although I have the utmost respect for SFBayDude, and everyone who tried to add constructively to the thread on BellyBuilders, I feel that the conclusions drawn from the the poll and SFBayDude’s subsequent blogpost are both flawed and misleading.

The issue with all of the discussion starts on a flawed premise -the idea that the poll in the message board was either representative of the Gainer/Encourager community or correctly interpreted by the people responding. I don’t believe either of those assertions to be true.

First, the obvious limitations of a poll on the BellyBuilders message board are many and varied (even though they’re pretty unavoidable). The poll only had a relatively small sample size (as of the time of me writing this, 264 people has responded). As of my writing this, over 40,000 thousand accounts have been registered on BeefyFrat. This small sample is compounded by the bias that having it on the BellyBuilders message board exclusively creates. Without trying to put down BellyBuilders, I know plenty of people that simply avoid the BellyBuilders message board completely because they feel like it’s dominated by a handful of unpleasant people (a point highlighted by the unrelated and obnoxious rants that derailed the thoughtful discussion on the thread). Therefore, there might simply be a link between the subtype of gainers/encouragers who frequent BellyBuilders and the results, and not gainers and encouragers on the whole. The fact that you had to be signed up for an account with BellyBuilders to respond to the poll further intensifies this factor.

My biggest issue is with the wording of the poll. Although it’s obvious that SFBayDude put intelligent thought into designing his poll, there are some pretty big issues with the wording.

First, it left a big swath of confusing middle ground data that people then lumped into the anti anal sex category. The middle ground option is as follows:

“I'M INDIFFERENT: Sometimes I like it, sometimes not”

Now, even for people I know who really enjoy anal sex, basically anyone can resonate with the phrase “Sometimes I like it, sometimes not.” I personally really enjoy anal sex under the right circumstances, but have zero desire to engage in it unless it’s within the realm of my own limits. Although I see anal sex as an important part of an intimate relationship, and central part of a fulfilling sex life, under many circumstances, I would really not want to do it.

The second most anal sex positive option of the poll is:

“I LOVE IT: It's usually what gets me off”

The second most anal sex negative option of the poll is:

“I DISLIKE IT: I might do it for the right guy, but it's not my thing at all”

I feel these options confuse the variable of enjoying anal sex under the right circumstances with the idea of only liking anal sex if you want to have it all the time and never do anything else. They’re two very different things. Just cause you only would do it with “the right guy” doesn’t mean that it’s not your thing at all. It might likely mean that you think that anal sex is a personal, intimate practice that you want to share with someone you care about.

I commend SFBayDude for his attempt to not only examine the frequency, but also the feelings of gay men engaging in anal sex. I am very thankful for all of his efforts to better understand the sex lives of gainers and encouragers, but I don’t think saying things such as “almost 2/3 of all gainers are at best apathetic about, if not outright turned off by, anal sex” is helpful. While it was a nice first step into investigating the sex lives of gainers and encouragers, I don’t think we have enough data at all to make such sweeping generalizations. They’ll just serve to further divide an already relatively small group.

One could liken the attempt to prescribe a set of “normal” sexual wants onto gainers & encouragers as analogous to the hypocritical attempts of the gay community to define that “twinks” were what it was “normal” for a gay may to be attracted to... And we all know how well that worked out. lol

I know I sound like an enormous nerd typing all of this, and I know that I’m prolly taking all of this way too seriously but, it’s something I feel passionate about and this is my blog so ha! haha

Where SFBayDude and I do agree on is that you should have whatever kind of sex you want. No one can tell you what’s right for you, and no one should. It’s your life, it’s your body, and if you’re reading this blog, you’re already too in touch with your deepest, most inborn desires to not be having the kind of exactly the kind of sex you want to have.

Thanks for bearing with me and my rant. Gainers, Encouragers and Sex are all topics very close to my heart, and I obviously have strong feelings about this topic.

Coming Soon; Gainers & Encouragers & Sex Part II:The Fun Stuff - Tips & Tricks

The Gainer & Encourager Twitter List

So, as you guys most likely already know, I'm on, and love, twitter.

You can follow me here

Twitter just recently added the Twitter Lists function in a beta testing capacity, and I decided I was going to make as comprehensive as possible Gainers & Encouragers of twitter list. It's cool, cause you can follow the list instead of needing to follow all of the Gainer & Encourager types one by one, and I'm gonna do my best to keep it current as new guys pop onto twitter. So far there are about 75 gainers and encouragers on it (including some of the cutest guys on BeefyFrat, I might add).

If you want to be added, just shoot me a message on twitter (@GetASnack), or email me at GetASnack@gmail.com, and I'll be more than happy to include you.

Twitter is a really neat resource for gainer and encourager types, as it sort of provides a kind of slow, but real time avenue to channel your encourager-y impulses, or get some quick encouragement to finish those last few cookies. But most of all it's fun.

To recap:

Follow me here (@getasnack) (Cause I made the list, I can't be on it)

and

Follow the Gainers & Encouragers of twitter list



Happy tweeting and eating. haha

Gaining Perspective, A New Blog

I wanted to write a quick post and let you guys know about a new blog on the scene, Gaining Perspective. It's smart, it's hip, it's not your typical spank-bank material gaining blog. Thoughtfully written by SFBayDude02, one of the most successful (he's put on something like 155lbs since he started college) and intelligent gainer/encourager types I have ever met, I am eagerly awaiting more posts. Check it out, and as always, get a snack ;)

Tools of the Trade: Essentials for the Modern Gainer

Something that has always amazed me is that a lot of gainers don’t have scales. I was hunting around online for a good one as a gift for the boyfriend, and I got to thinking. What are the essentials for a gainer? I talked with a few of my buddies about it and this is the list we compiled.

Scale


Numbers can be a great motivator. Although in the end, it’s all about finding the body you want, who are we kidding. We’re guys, guys like measuring things. Watching the numbers go up on the scale can be an incredible turn on.

Make sure you have a scale, but don’t weigh yourself every day. As I said in the post before, the small ups and downs on the scale will generally just discourage, but, weigh once a week and watch the numbers go up up up. Make sure the scale has a high enough upper weight (most go only to 300, but home scales going up to 400 do exist).

Also, think about investing in a talking scale, if you plan on getting really huge. My friend Oneoddguy (from BellyBuilders) was talking to me about this and said:

“They need to make a scale that dings when it’s done, cause I can’t see past my belly.”

Hot. Impractical. But hot.

Here’s a not super expensive, sleek looking scale that goes up to 400lbs.

Gym shorts

Bryan (author of Trouble in the Mix) suggested gym shorts. They’re comfortable, elastically waisted, and perfect for a really big meal. And oh yeah, you can use them for the gym too. ;)

Bryan said:

“You can find stylish workout shorts, pair them with zipups (like this one) and do american sportswear look and accommodate an elastic waistband for lunch. But buy your size, don’t just get big ones, cause you want them to hug your ass. The elastic will give, but you still want a hot ass. You can do casual and comfortable that gives you room to get stuffed but still be sporting prep. Because if I'm in tight pants and I eat so much that they get painfully tight, I usually stop eating.”

And anything getting in the way of Bryan’s eating is not good. Not good at all.

Lotion



Another indispensable thing for a gainer (or an encourager actually) is lotion. Nothing increases the pleasure of a bellyrub than a little bit of lotion. Keeps the skin soft and strong, and if fortified with vitamin E, often helps prevent or fade stretch marks a little.

I like this stuff.


Bryan likes this.


For you guys worried about stretch marks already existing, ask your dermatologist about retin-a for fading them. Although a lot of over the counter stuff doesn’t do much, there are things you can do, just ask your doc.

Tape Measure


Any generic tape measure will do. As I mentioned with the scale, numbers can be a big motivator. Measure your belly -you’ll notice growth there even sometimes when you don’t see it on the scale.

LiveStrong Calorie Counter App for iPhone


This app is fantastic for a gainer. You put in your stats, tell it you want to gain 2lbs a week, and log everything you eat. It tracks your progress, accounts for exercise (cause a strong, healthy gainer is a happy gainer) and gives you a visual representation of how much you need to be packing in each day (at least haha).

Blender


Makes gainer shakes. Then you drink them. Nuff said. Try this cool, retro one.



Online Food Delivery Websites

What aspiring fatboy doesn’t want the internet to bring him food. There are a host of websites that make finding a local place that delivers easy. A few places even deliver groceries.

In Manhattan, I am a fan of SeamlessWeb.com, and a little less so of Delivery.com. Bad customer service experience on Delivery.com, but both are pretty solid. Menupages is a little less streamlined, but also useful. FreshDirect.com is unbeatable for groceries, and they have nutrition facts. You can pick the most caloric thing, and have a great selection of high quality and organic stuff delivered right to your door. Awesome.

Zagat.com is great if you’re planning on leaving the house, and they have guides for cities all over the world. If you're in college, or even near one check out CampusFood.com
According to Oneoddguy, a lot of pizza places have online delivery too. His favorite website is Domino’s. Here’s why:

“I love Dominos. It tells you what’s going on with your pizza, from who made it to who’s bringing it.”

I personally enjoy Poppa Johns cause they’ve added a whole wheat pizza crust. I mean, I know it’s still not good for you, but it’s cute they’re making the effort.

Camera

The one complaint I’ve heard consistently over the years from gainers is that they wished they had taken more pics of their progress. Nothing is hotter than seeing how far a gainer has come, and few things are more inspiring to a beginner who doesn’t even think they’ll be able to get fat. Get a decent digital cam, and take pictures whenever you feel like it. I have a Canon Elph, and I love it. So, take a pic. Make a vid. Even if you don't show anyone, you’ll be glad you did when you’re rubbing your hard earned belly, reminiscing about your skinny days.


See? That hotness would not have been possible without a camera. And a lot of beer contributing to that Freshman 40.

Premium Beefyfrat

Although some guys might find this a little controversial (and no, I’m not being paid a dime to say this), I really think every gainer needs a premium Beefyfrat membership. Seriously. It’s 5$ a month. That’s like, one frap at Starbucks, or two ATM fees a month. I’ve def. spent a lot more money on things that don’t directly lead to me getting off. The guys on there are incredibly inspiring. Feeling full? Look at a few pics of one of your idols on Beefy and try finishing that last slice of pizza. It’ll make it easier.