A little backstory of the experiment for this unusual progress pic post, pardon that I’m just copying and pasting my replies to another POST (with a much more detailed video here) for ease:
I basically rotated through a different type of controlled diet every two months, each illiciting a different amount or speed of weight gain. There was never a specific amount of weight they were trying to have me gain, just seeing how each diet affected me and specifically my abdominal girth. That is the one factor they were intentionally trying to increase. (I was picked specifically for this study after a two month trial period because my stomach girth increased the most of any other participants in that trial. I am genetically predisposed to gain weight mostly in my belly and they wanted to take advantage of that). I went in for measurements and health tests every two weeks for the duration of the study. They’d deliver all of my food for each week at the beginning of the week to my home. One diet focused on dairy, another on carbs, another on meats, another on fish, etc. But I always had a certain amount of calories to meet every day with a controlled amount of physical activity I needed to log. The calories started in the same place for each of the diet rotations to see if the food consumed alone affected the weight gain, and was adjusted from there. The worst culprits, unsurprisingly, were dairy, red meats, carbs, anything alcoholic – especially liquid (?) dairy like milks, soft cheeses, sour cream, and carbs from Sweets or processed foods for sure.
I’ve been in a tough spot with money and it was worth it for me. Didn’t have to pay for any food or groceries for almost 1.5 years, and got $700 a week for my participation. I stuck with the study mostly for the money and because they said I would have free access to the university gym and all classes to help in losing it once the study was done too.
Re physical activity, not much at all. A few walks outside of my normal routine every week and that’s it to try to keep those variables as constant as possible.
It finished in May. This was a pilot study, a specific case study of just me (one participant) to learn from and expand ideas for a bigger trial in the future. My original post in r/ketoscience was approved by the mod (nutritional scientist) after DMing about specifics and proof of the study to verify this was actually real. I’ve been trying to get into my old routine and lose the weight but it’s been hard now that I’m this big and am used to eating a lot more every day. I’m down about 10 pounds. I need to start incorporating more physical exercise.
I’ve had random people on the street, homeless people, cashiers, etc mae comments to me about how I look now in person completely unprompted. It’s wild. A guy on the street a few weeks ago literally went “damn dude, when are the twins due??”
I realized I never posted an actual side profile anywhere in the video of me currently which actually shows the end result. Just took THIS walking back to my car tonight. I’m around 270 pounds. I’m somewhere over 60” around.