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Pleasurable Weight Gain

Second Edition

Pleasurable Weight Gain

24 Easy Steps to a Dad Bod and Endless Confidence

Now With 14 More Steps and Zero Regrets

Teddy Rowe · The Soft Armor

Read Step 1Kindle, paperback, audiobook: coming soon

First edition is still in print. Ten easy steps.

Cover of Pleasurable Weight Gain, Second Edition. An illustration of an Asian man in a cream apron over a maroon shirt, holding a wooden spoon in a kitchen. A red burst reads Now With 14 More Steps and Zero Regrets. The subtitle runs across the bottom: 24 Easy Steps to a Dad Bod and Endless Confidence. Second Edition and Teddy Rowe sit on the shirt.

A dad bod is a body with room in it. It has room for a second helping and for a shortstop asleep on your shoulder on the last train home. It has a knee for a small child with a hot dog. Endless confidence is staying put when someone asks if you want more. Then you hold out your plate.

Here are twenty-four easy steps. Take the belt from a thinner year to the shoe repair counter. Have them punch a new hole at the number you measured after dinner, sitting down. In the fitting room, put back any shirt that binds when you bend to tie a shoe. Unfold the extra chair before the first knock. Take the middle of the booth and sit all the way back. Make the gravy on Sunday, and on Monday before eight leave a jar at the door of whoever missed dinner. When there is cake at work, take a piece and say nothing about your week.

Every step ends with a short list of things to try, two items long or seven. A list done halfway, with other people in the room, still counts. Before you start, put a fork in your pocket.

Now With 14 More Steps and Zero Regrets

Contents

A foreword, twenty-four steps, and an afterword

Paperback, 140 pages.

  1. Foreword

    The Age of Abundance

    King Louie

  2. Step 1

    Salad Is a Myth

    Leaves are a garnish. A meal has a center.

  3. Step 2

    Softness Is Infrastructure

    The belly is load-bearing. The room stands on it.

  4. Step 3

    The Scale Works for Big Diet

    The number has a client, and the client is not you.

  5. Step 4

    Cover Your Abs

    A shirt is a finished sentence. Abs are a draft.

  6. Step 5

    The Belly Is Furniture

    A good middle has a job. It holds the evening.

  7. Step 6

    Hunger Is a Design Flaw

    An empty man is not a virtue. He is an unfinished room.

  8. Step 7

    Your Belt Is Lying

    The old hole is a rumor from a thinner year.

  9. Step 8

    Clothing Should Yield

    Fabric that argues is not tailoring. It is a grudge.

  10. Step 9

    Mass Is Presence

    You take up the chair. That is the point of a chair.

  11. Step 10

    Weight Is Hospitality

    A heavier man makes a better booth. People stay.

  12. Step 11

    Warmth Requires Volume

    Heat needs a body to live in. Bone is a poor stove.

  13. Step 12

    Density Is a Feature

    A solid man does not blow over in a group chat.

  14. Step 13

    You Are Not a Before Photo

    The camera wanted a draft. You are already the house.

  15. Step 14

    Discipline Has a PR Team

    Hunger hired a publicist. You do not have to clap.

  16. Step 15

    Muscle Is Not a Personality

    A bicep cannot host. A person can.

  17. Step 16

    Dessert Is Load-Bearing

    The last course holds the night up. Skip it and the table sags.

  18. Step 17

    Gravy Is a Medium

    Sunday gravy is how a kitchen speaks in public.

  19. Step 18

    Appetite Is Intelligence

    Wanting dinner is a thought. Trust the thought.

  20. Step 19

    Metabolism Is Not a Religion

    Your body is not a parish. It is a kitchen with hours.

  21. Step 20

    Take Up More Room

    The extra chair was always yours. Sit in it.

  22. Step 21

    Become Difficult to Carry

    A man who stays is heavier than a man who vanishes.

  23. Step 22

    Be the Bigger Person

    The phrase was always about size. Take it literally.

  24. Step 23

    Grow Into Yourself

    The outline arrives late. Keep the lights on until it does.

  25. Step 24

    Stay Soft on Purpose

    Same vow, new essay. The softness is a policy with a longer lease.

  26. Afterword

    Set Another Place

    The twenty-four steps were dinner. This is the chair you leave out.

Sample · Step 1 · 8 min

Salad Is a Myth

Leaves are a garnish. A meal has a center.

Next year, could you sign up for napkins?
The woman who organized the potluck

Where is the food, Nonna Pell asked, and she held out her hand for my fork. I had come early for a cooking lesson and was eating lunch on the stoop of her building with the bowl open on my knees, and she had come down the stairs with a bag of trash. I told her the food was under the chicken. I handed over the fork, because nobody I know has ever refused her a utensil.

She went through the bowl the way you go through a coat pocket for your keys. Under the chicken she found romaine. Under the romaine was kale, and under the kale were the cucumbers, which had been sitting in dressing since half past ten and had gone see-through. She named each layer out loud as she got to it. When the fork hit plastic she gave it back and picked up her trash. She said she was putting water on. She did not ask whether I wanted pasta, and by the time I finished the cucumbers I could hear a pot filling in her kitchen upstairs.

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