Celestia's Weight Gain Experiment

In her planning, Princess Celestia considered the best methods of gaining weight. Thanks to some preliminary reading, she knew of fictional stories where the protagonist consumes supernatural amounts of food, bloats up, and then magically grows so fat they are immobile in a single day, if not a few minutes. Such immediate inflation did not seem logical to her. If she went too fast and ate too much too early, she might become sick and delay more substantive progress. Rapid growth wasn’t really the point of this exercise anyways. Twilight mentioned that Rainbow Dash had opted for a continued stream of treats, supplements, and liquor. But she was essentially unemployed at the time, and Celestia still needed to function throughout the day. So, all things considered, there was no need to go crazy. Celestia assured herself: all she had to do was adjust her daily diet, increase her caloric intake, and the rest would come naturally. The resources were there, and she had an entire staff at her disposal.

She decided to start small. Every morning, Celestia would wake up, raise the sun, and set to work mixing a thick, gooey pancake batter with as much butter and sugar as she could manage without overwhelming the taste or the fluffiness. Once a stack had been pan-fried to golden perfection, she would plate with generous helpings of syrup, whipped cream, and sugar-glazed or caramelized fruit. Arranging these calorie-packed pieces into little smiley faces was not necessary (and neither was the act of making breakfast for herself at all), but it made Celestia happy, so it was worthwhile.

For Lunch, Celestia had previously resigned herself to tangy Caesar salads or a convenient snack – perhaps a pear. That was all gone. In their place were steaming quiches, buttery grilled cheese sandwiches with creamy tomato soup, and double hayburgers with heaping piles of fries. Each item of her choosing was dutifully prepared by the royal chefs, under careful instructions to include heavy cream where 2% would suffice, butter and lard where oil could otherwise be substituted, and white bread where whole wheat would be adequate.

For dinner, carbs were the order of the day: pizzas, pastas, overflowing sub sandwiches. Failing that, rich vegetable stews with potatoes and carrots swimming in oily broth. And if she felt particularly adventurous, double helpings of mashed potatoes drowning in gravy. Again, she made sure to instruct that only the richest, densest, most calorie-filled ingredients were to be utilized. Sure, some chefs found this request a bit odd, but it was the Princess’ directive, and so it must be done.

Finally, dessert. Celestia remembered an unflattering photo of herself in a gossip column. At the time, she had believed that she could sneak away from the prying eyes of Canterlot elite and the press. But the comical image of her chomping down on a slice of cake had perpetuated an unkillable rumor that Princess Celestia was an insatiable dessert addict. It was true, of course. She wrestled with the temptation of sweets frequently, and given the current size of her behind, she was mostly losing. But the ponies of Equestria didn’t need to know that! She had stressed and fumed about it then, but now was different. She could finally put the frustration behind her. Now her affinity for sweets would be…undeniable. Unmistakable. Celestia would see to that. Towering vanilla cake with frosting, cupcakes smothered in flavored creams, flaky pies bursting with syrupy filling, ice cream of every flavor one could imagine, baklava practically oozing with caramelized bakers’ butter, cookies still steaming from the oven, doughnuts glazed in obscene confections of cream and chocolate and sugary sprinkles, scones dusted with powdered sugar, and (of course) lollipops for snacking – Celestia could order a single item, one or two treats that caught her fancy, or all of them at once. All she had to do, after a day spent feasting, was decide how far she could push herself and her stomach capacity before a well-deserved sleep.