Melinda
As told to the Observer
(An Observer tale based on posts in the Experience Project
As told to the Observer
(An Observer tale based on posts in the Experience Project
One thing I have have quietly reveled in is my wife Melinda's gradual weight gain before we got married. When we first met we were in college and she was quite physically active, counterbalancing (and hence disguising) what I noticed from the start was her love of food. I suspected that she might in time begin to gain a few pounds, but nothing noticeable occurred while we were still in school. We were friends but not exclusive.
I felt that she looked great in low-waisted jeans, and I persuaded her to try a pair. They really enhanced her hour-glass figure, though it was hard to find tee-shirts long enough to guarantee no glimpses of her enjoyable slightly soft midriff. But even if her tummy showed, there wasn’t much to see – a nicely toned ‘inny’ set in a soft but discrete surround.
It was only after she left college that discernable changes began. It was hard to notice if her jeans were getting any tighter as they usually wore out first. But then I noticed that a couple of her tee-shirts that used to cover her waistline began to ride a little.
I noticed that where her shirts used to drift in free space they had now began to map the outline of her tummy – which seemed just a little softer than I remembered it. When she stretched, her soft new tummy presented itself – shapely but no longer so trim. She carried on wearing her tee-shirts on our occasional weekend outings regardless, and I found those glimpses quite irresistible.
It was strange that her waistline should have such an allure, as her generous bust might from many a guy’s perspective have been considered her greatest asset. I’m sure she gained just a little up there too, and she was lucky enough not to soften up around her rib cage, so the effect of gaining weight was to enhance her hour glass figure
Then we separated as she had a chance to work overseas for a year. She was 5,000 miles away, and the air fares were not cheap, but we stayed in regular contact. Her life there was different. The streets were not so safe and so she drove most places. It was also cheap to eat out, and that’s what her colleagues did. When I finally got chance to travel over and see her, it was hard to tell the changes because she had bought herself new clothes over there – but her face looked rounder than I remembered it.
I picked her up to give her a proper welcome hug, then putting her down again said, “You’re looking well – doesn’t seem like the new lifestyle has had an impact.”
“If only,” she replied. “I think I weighed only 70kg last time I checked.”
I wasn’t used to thinking in kilos (she tended to use random units of measure, depending purely on which gave the rounder number), but worked out that 70kg was over 11 stone or 154 pounds, which was maybe half a stone heavier than when we had met, and maybe a few pounds heavier than when she went away. So we were both right – in that her new lifestyle hadn’t had such a dramatic impact so far, but she had gained a little.
I was glad to see that she was still happy enough with her figure to wear figure-hugging trousers and tops. She was by no means overweight, and apart from a slight softness around the waistline, and the fact that her trousers had all become quite tight around her rear, she still looked relatively slim. Above her waistline, her abs were firm, and above them her breasts were a fair distraction away from anything below.
In the hot weather I got plenty of chance to take in her figure, and the time together passed quickly. With sadness we parted company, and it was another 2 months before I would be able to see her again.
By the time the next visit came around I was obviously very excited. There were no cameras on phones in those days, and no Instagram… and it was a lot more effort to send a photo by email – so I had really not seen any shots of her in that time. We met, as usual, in the impersonal space of the airport arrivals lounge. It was all a bit rushed, and I did not get time to appreciate any changes until we were back at her place. At least she had not changed her wardrobe since last time, so there was some basis for comparison.
Again, considering her new world of commuting by car, eating out and a culture of large portions, I was probably expecting her to have gained more – which is why I initially overlooked her small gain. But after a while it was noticeable that those cream trousers were just a little tighter, and her waistline was just a tiny bit softer – revealed by a lovely clingy stripy top that she had developed a kinship with. Her face looked just a tiny bit rounder too.
All these changes took a bit of time to appreciate. She might have been 158lb by this stage, but at 5’8” she still looked fit. I guess that her commitment to rowing had probably saved her from a more noticeable gain… and as ever, her generous cleavage (which had probably seen its own slight augmentation) helped distract the eye from other places...
We had a wild time, travelling to many places, and talking lots. It was a special time. Looking back now it seems like another world. Funnily looking back I had no consciousness of my own body – and whether the world of eating out and big meals was having an impact on me.
I returned home, and we met up one last time during her year away. Again we used the time intensively. I mislaid the photos from that last visit, so cannot recall how different she looked then – if at all. But most people would say that she probably looked pretty fit when she returned home. Most of what would be our pre-nupital weight gain was yet to come
When we moved in together in October, I estimate she weighed around 165 lbs. I like to cook for other people, so I made her all sorts of things from soups to pastas to cookies, cakes, scones, you name it; she pretty much ate whatever I gave her (she says her excuse was she couldn't be impolite *wink wink nudge nudge*). It was gradual at first, but after about a couple months i started to notice she was looking "thicker" from the side, and she began to comment that her pants were getting tight, then tighter.
Then came the holidays. We were getting ready to go to her family, and she comes into the bedroom with her shirt pulled up above her now obviously protrusive belly and her pants open and says: "Hey, so...I need new pants, mine won't button at all". We didn't own a scale so we had to wait until we got to her parents for her to weigh herself. but she weighed 176! 10 pounds in three months. Fortunately her mom is a ghappi;y married larger woman over 200 so her daughter’s gain it wasn’t an issue.
When we went to buy new pants she went from a loose size 8 to an uncomfortably tight size 10. Her underwear was even getting too tight. Six weeks later; the weekend before valentine’s day I came home to find her asleep on the couch in her underwear and cami, " new" size 10 jeans on the floor next to her with the button popped off and not one, not two, but three empty thin mint cookie boxes laying next to her.
She had bought a scale after the new year holiay in an attempt to be good, and after some protestation and grumbling she consented to step on it, the rest of the third box of thin mints in hand.
I cannot even begin to tell you how sexy I thought she looked: butt stretching her again too small underwear, boobs barely contained by the Cami riding up over her belly button. Her stomach stuck out far enough that I almost thought I might have to read her the number on the scale. The needle bounced back and forth and came to rest on 182. I couldn't believe it, and apparently neither could she, because she got off and on twice before resigning herself to the truth. That officially made her overweight.
She sat down, the half-eaten thin mint box in hand.
“How can I control my weight when I go off on binges eating things like this, “ she complained. “Last week I couldn’t resist having a huge second helping of ice cream.”
“I hope it counts that I happen to like your fuller figure,” I replied. “Sure there is something to be said for moderation but you’re tall enough to handle some extra weight quite attractively.”
“You really think so? Because as a dieter I’m a failure,” she complained.
“You’re lovely – and I proposed to you fully knowing you were not a twig, didn’t I? Your mom is learner and it probably runs in the family,” I reasoned.
She smiled and slowly shared the rest of the mint box with me.
The next day I bought her new size 12 jeans and they were snug. Two thirds of the clothes she had moved in with no longer fit, and most of the rest were almost scandalously form fitting. I suggested that we donate them to a charity. She said she wanted to lose weight, but it was a halfhearted declaration. The more common question as she came home from work about an our later than me was almost always “What's for dinner?"
After winter, which meant a period of thick clothing and general non awareness of changes in each other’s bodies. Spring came. We settled down together, and fell into our routines, and work regimes did not allow for so much sport. There was chance to see those Levis with some nice tight-fitting tee-shirts, and it was evident that the extra calories that had not been burnt off in winter’s inactivity had made themselves at home.
The neat little crescent of softness that had encircled her navel had been overwhelmed by the influx of extra fat, and spread outwards to form a soft cushion about half the width of her abdomen. Whereas before I could only prod a little of this soft layer of fat, now it was possible to squeeze at least an inch of it.
Her navel, still anchored to some more solid foundation, had sunk slightly beneath this new padding – but was still shapely, and remained a little vertical in orientation.
There was also a slightly increased accumulation around her hips- not yet what I would describe as love-handles, except that her jeans had become a little tighter, and so squeezed what extra padding there was up above her waistline.
She was a little conscious of this gain, but not overly so – partly because I was very positive about her figure, and partly because I made sure she had nice clothes that still fit well. Of course her cleavage had continued to expand in proportion to her waistline – maybe a couple of cup-sizes above what she had been. This was helped by the fact that very little weight had accumulated around her ribs, which meant that her gain above and below the waist only enhanced her figure.
We tried to focus on our jobs and wedding plans. By this time she knew she had a wedding dress to fit into in eighteen months. She swore she was going to be careful and fit into no more than a size 14. We moved to a new place in the middle of June, about 30 minutes further from her work, which means that with the longer commute she hasn't been consistent with exercise for a few months.
Despite her declared resolve I saw nothing that could be called a real curbing of her appetite. She always appreciated whatever I prepared and I was enjoying her gain. She was definitely looking a bit thicker. At the end of June we went to the beach. A two piece suit she bought the previous summer was really tight; the bottoms were digging into her sides and her belly stuck out over her waistband dramatically. Additionally her top was threatening to flash the world if she breathed too deep.
She was blushing a bit in embarrassment as she came out in it and said, "I may have gained a few more pounds than I thought; I am really going to have to diet when we get home." (Mind you, this did nothing to stop her from eating boardwalk food pretty much nonstop the whole day. Something about a 'last hurrah'.)
When we got home, her motivation to diet or exercise went into the same trash bin as the too-small bathing suit. Work got harder, wedding planning got more stressful, and her clothes got tighter, until the epiphany came.
.
She came home from work, and as she was putting her things down, her shirt rode up and I noticed that her pants were unbuttoned. She noticed me looking and reddened, saying, that they had been uncomfortable that morning, and she had undone them under her desk around 11, but she couldn't rebutton them after lunch.
She didn’t know how much she weighed, she had been afraid to check for nearly six months, but last she checked the end of July it was 186. After some cajoling I got her to step on the scale.
She went slowly, one foot at a time, like it would somehow lower the number. The needle moved past 190 and then 1the dreaded 200... After bouncing back and forth for a moment came to rest on 202 lbs. On her 5’ 8” body it really didn’t look bad but she was visibly concerned.
“Are you going to be happy marrying a blimp?” she inquired. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to eat less.”
I smiled, took her in my arms and suggested that we simply hide the scale.
When got married she had a size 20 wedding dress and I know she was close to 220. Its now two years later and she seems to have topped out at just over 250, which for me (and apparently her, because there’s not been any more diet talk) is just fine.
