Schizophrenic’s Guide: How I Got Fat…

I, Daniel Trump, gained weight very, very slowly for a long, long time. I gained 120 pounds over twenty years. I maxed out at 309 pounds a couple of years ago. Since then I have stopped some of my worst eating habits and instituted some healthier habits.

I thought I would go over the process which led to me gaining the weight.

This is how I got to 309 pounds:

I was at 180 pounds at age 24. I ate halfway well, ate three square meals a day, and I ran regularly and lifted weights as well.

Still, there were cracks in the armor. I ate fast food and pizza regularly. I ate out a lot of the time. I worked out so it didn’t matter, and my youthful metabolism made up for my bad habits.

That was when I became mentally ill — suffered a total mental breakdown — and didn’t bother to work out any longer and started to take scary medications which slowed my metabolism to a crawl. I stopped running and lifting weights, a disastrous decision. I would work out 1–2 days a week for a very long time, trying to get back into working out and failing.

I started to eat anything I wanted — whenever I wanted it. I went to sleep at bizarre hours and stayed awake as long as I could with energy drinks and 5-hour energy shots. This wasn’t healthy at all. I drank only soda and energy drinks and virtually no water. I took the antipsychotics and the combination of the medications with the lack of workout slowed my body down.

I ate poorly. I would often drive out to dinner for most of my meals. I would go to the donut shop every morning at four in the morning to eat three chocolate frosted cake donuts with a large zero sugar soda. This was about as fattening a meal as I could possibly eat.

I would go to restaurants for most of my meals. I would eat the huge portions that restaurants give people. I ate fast food several times a week. Restaurants served me huge meals of enchiladas, steaks, burgers, fries, and anything I wanted to eat — I had no filter or food health management. I just ate whatever I wanted to eat whenever I wanted to eat it.

When Covid hit I learned about Uber Eats and started to eat restaurant meals at home. I had a mental breakdown — apparently I have a lot of those- and returned home to my parents. I began to eat four meals instead of three — I would have a fourth meal after family dinner around eight or nine in the evening. Four meals meant a ridiculous number of calories.

I ate anything. I didn’t censor my hunger. I regularly ate two chocolate chip cookies and a diet soda from Burger King as a snack. I ate Domino’s bread creations with garlic and butter sauce. I ate wings and fries — so many wings and fries. I ate dozens of MexiMelts from Taco Bell. Hell, I ate just about everything from Taco Bell’s menu.

Movies.

I went to the movies two or three days a week for twenty years and ate popcorn or candy regularly. That’s thousands of calories, so many thousands of calories.

I suddenly found myself weighing 309 pounds. What happened then?

That’s a story for another time.

Thanks, and take care, friends.