And to all a good night

Merry Christmas guys!

So, I know this blog is usually about the joy of excess, and I mean, obviously, Christmas feasting is a gainer or encourager's societally indulged wet dream. I personally have a whole tin of Christmas cookies a dear friend sent to me to stuff the BF but, in this time of happiness and excess, I just wanted to mention to remember to, if you can (and don't feel bad if you can't, it happens to the best of us), try and donate to someone less fortunate than you. I did a lot of donating this season with Heifer.org, an organization that donates animals to families in developing nations to help them eat and be financially self sufficient and successful.

You can see their whole catalogue of ways to donate here.

I am so blessed to be able to give to others, and I hope you all are too. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and it leads into a prosperous, exciting, healthful and healing 2011. Thanks for reading.

Have the merriest of Christmases.

Pie Shakes

Founds this great recipe on a blog I read, and though I have yet to try it, thought it was a worthy addition to any gainer or encourager's recipe aresenal.

Post Thanksgiving Pie Shakes

Do you guys have any favorite super caloric Holiday recipes? Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Lots To Be Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving guys! In the spirit of thankfully reflecting, I'd just love to say that I am super thankful for everyone who reads my blog, and the really thoughtful comments I've been getting lately. You're all awesome. And remember, Thanksgiving is the one day a year where it's practically a law that you should go and get stuffed (at least in the US) so don't skimp on the stuffing! To show just how thankful I am, here's a sweet, little Thanksgiving fantasy that hopefully will inspire you all to eat huge today (and tomorrow, and the next day, and the -you get the idea).

 Lots To Be Thankful For

     James was excited. For the first time in the three years they'd been together, he and Rory were having Thanksgiving on their own. Although he was a little bummed that Rory's work obligations had made it wildly impractical for them to fly back to their families' in the North-East, he was totally thrilled at the idea that they got to spend a quiet, romantic Thanksgiving together. 


     James had lots to be thankful for; the past year had been one of the most successful of his and Rory's life. Both were doing spectacularly well professionally, they had moved into a beautiful new house in LA, and life was generally awesome. Their relationship was stronger than ever, and Sean had never been happier. Or bigger for that matter.


     Over the span of their three years together, Rory had lovingly packed more than a hundred pounds onto James, and they had both enjoyed ever second of it. 


     Rory had been working for days to make the the perfect Thanksgiving feast for Sean. 


"It's my fault we can't go back East honey," Rory said with a smile, "The least I can do is cook dinner for you!"


   All week the refrigerator and the pantry had been filling up with ingredients for the big day. Rory had kept the exact menu a secret, but James was sure that it was going to be as calorie packed a Thanksgiving feast as possible. James loved when Rory cooked for him, cause Rory was the king of sneaking extra calories into recipes, and it always got James going when after he finished eating something, Rory would casually inform him that there had been a few thousand more calories in the dish that anyone would think.


   When James woke up on Thanksgiving morning, the house was already full of the smell of wonderful smelling food. Just as James was about to heave his 290 some odd pound frame out of bed, Rory appeared in the door of the bedroom carrying a tray laden with all of Jame's favorite breakfast foods.


"Breakfast in bed for the most adorable boyfriend in the world."


"Aw, you didn't have to honey..."


"Of course I did" Rory smirked, "I need something to keep you busy while I cook. You hang out here, watch TV or read or whatever you want to do to relax, and dinner will be ready in a few hours."


The day crawled on, and James ate and relaxed. When Rory told him dinner would be ready in an hour, he hopped into the shower. The warm water felt good rushing over his broad shoulders and down his thick back. He soaped up his belly and took a second to revel in just how big he had become. As is felt the size of his gut, he thought about how anyone looking at him would have a hard time believing that a few short years ago, he had been a densely muscled, lean college middleweight wrestler. He caught himself in the mirror as he stepped out of the shower and chuckled to himself that he looked much more like he had been a linebacker, not someone who would starve himself to make weight.


James squeezed himself into a french cuffed button down and a snug pair of size 42 dress pants and spritzed himself with cologne. The shirt was was too tight, with football shaped gaps forming between the strained buttons and revealing little slits of belly, but James knew Rory would love it, and since it was just the two of them for dinner, he figured he'd play up just how snug his dress clothes had become. 


As he entered the dining room, James immediadly realized that Rory had outdone himself. There in the candlelight was a table positively creaking with the weight of all the food Rory had lovingly prepared. The turkey was rubbed with herbs and butter and had been roasted with strips of bacon on top of it. There was a small mountain of mashed potatoes. Every kind of side dish you could possibly imagine. and then, almost comic in comparison, were the two placesettings for Rory and himself.


"Wow honey, I can't believe you cooked all this! How I am ever going to eat it all?"


Rory came up behind James wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, and drummed his fingers on James' almost 300 pound belly.


"I imagine you're going to eat it all one plate at a time."


The two sat down, and James started in on his feast. Plateful after plateful slowly began to stretch his belly. Everything was heavenly, and with every course, Rory seemed to produce a new perfectly paired wine or excellently crafted cocktail that kept James' wondering if he felt tipsy because of the booze or of the massive amount of food he already consumed. Somewhere around the third plate Jame's undid his belt, and somewhere around the fifth plate, the button on his too tight slacks mercifully gave way. Rory was visibly excited by both events. Finally, after he had lost track of the number of plates of Thanksgiving bounty he had consumed, James declared himself full. Rory kissed him and informed him he had one final dessert, and then James could stop. James groaned with the thought of more food, but agreed to humor his boyfriend.


Rory vanished into the kitchen, and after a few minutes returned with a ramekin of creme brulee which he placed down in front of James.


"I know it's not very Thanksgiving, but I know it's your favorite."


James smiled at the thoughtful gesture and kissed Rory.


"I am very thankful for you honey. More than anything else in my life I am thankful for you."


James picked up his spook and started to chip through the burt sugar on the top of the dessert and then when when he did, a strange sound clinked out as his spoon hit something in the ramekin.


"Oh honey" James chuckled, "I think you dropped something into the brulee while you were making it."


James looked over at Rory and saw him down on one knee. He looked at his spoon and there it was, a band of gold gleaming out from the pudding. 


Rory looked up at James with his big, brown, puppy dog eyes and said "Will you do me the honor of being my husband?"

   James smiled and kissed Rory deeply on the lips. "Of course I will."

-fin-

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

400 Is The New 300

When I first stumbled upon GainerWeb in the late 90s, 300 pounds was the pinnacle of hugeness for gaining. 200 or 250 were considered pretty damn big to most people. Yeah, a few guys would talk about wanting to be immobile as a fantasy, but in reality, few people made it to 300, much less anything higher. Even getting to 200 seemed hard for a lot of guys trying to find a way to integrate their desire to be big with what pressures they felt from their every day life.

It seems that now that 300 is much more “doable” than it was 10 years ago, and a lot more gainers are eying 400 as an ambitious, but not entirely impossible goal for their gaining. There are more guys gaining younger, and it seems, many more guys actually hitting 300 than there ever have been before.

I think a lot of factors have contributed to this shift, and I’m gonna try to examine a few of them here.

First, I think that the simple fact that people are fatter than they were 10 years ago making every aspect of getting up to and over 300 easier.  The average American is fatter than ever, and I guess that kind of provides a universal camouflage for someone that is intentionally gaining. If everyone around you isn’t bone thin, being a bit bigger than the other more average chubbies doesn’t seem so dramatic.

Kind of going hand in hand with my first point, portion sizes are bigger than ever and as a result, it’s easier for a gainer to pack away more calories on a daily basis without drawing any particular attention to themselves. Public transit is becoming more accommodating of bigger people, the world, at least in countries like U.S. are accommodating the expanding size of its citizens. As I mentioned before, the New York Times even did an article saying that beer guts were in!

I think the burgeoning of the community around gaining has been instrumental in letting gainers go bigger. Basically, the idea is that it’s tough to get to 300 on your own, but with a supportive group of like-minded people that share your interest in being bigger, it doesn’t feel as solitary a path. You often hear about guys that don’t want to gain on their own, or are waiting for Mr. Right, but few people ever talk about how the encouragement that people get from their pals on the internet, in addition to whatever gainer/encourager buddies they may have platonically around IRL really makes it easier to overeat and gain in a day to day capacity.

Apart from the obvious websites to look for fellow gainer/encourager types (www.BeefyFrat.com being the gold standard of gainer/encourager social networking), gaining based communities have popped up all over the Internet. There are thousands of videos on YouTube that focus on gaining. There are tons of new blogs, gainers on Flickr, gainers on XTube, all sorts of fat happy tumblr accounts. It’s nothing short of amazing to see.

I also think that the general advances of the gay community, and the gay rights movement, are just as important to the normalizing of gaining and encouraging as anything.  Gays as a whole are more visible, coming out at a younger age, being afforded more rights, and all of these factors make it easier for someone to be himself. I think this sort of has a transitive effect when it comes to gaining and encouraging –if someone is going to feel comfortable enough to come out of the closet, it’s much more likely someone who has taken that step is going to feel like they should have exactly the kind of sex they want to have, with exactly the right type of guy, in a body that makes them feel good.

Building on that, I think that we've kind of hit on a post-Twink sort of gay world, that allows for a lot more varied body ideals. With the increased visibility of gays, suddenly there are a lot more ways a gay guy can choose to look, and that's awesome. And if the way you are supposed to look isn't as clear cut as many felt it was before, why not choose to look how you want to?

What do you guys think? How have your goals and your relationship with the gaining and encouraging world changed in the past decade? Is 400 a goal you eventually aspire to? Or is it too big? Do you think it's easier to be a gainer or encourager today vs. 10 years ago? I’m fascinated to hear what your thoughts are!

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!

The Blogosphere Expands: Beefyblimps

Just wanted to let you guys know about a cool new gainer-ish art blog called Beefyblimps. It's got some neat stuff, a fun style, and should def. get a few of you guys going. Enjoy!

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!