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Gaining and Losing Weight

By ~ pan ~

Hello everyone,

I'm here to talk about your character's weight in the game and help those who might be struggling with it. I've had some of these issues and I hope to help others who are going through the same situation.

First of all, I apologize for my English, as I don't have much experience with the language and most of this topic was written using Google Translate.

The game has 3 weight options for your character:

Underweight (<65kg): 80kg carrying capacity / +15% melee attack speed / -10% melee damage / +25 max stamina
Moderate (65kg - 85kg): 90kg / +10% chest damage reduction / +20% stamina recovery
Overweight (>85kg): 100kg / -10% melee attack speed / +15% melee damage / -20% roll speed / +15 weapon stability (reduced weapon recoil)

When creating your character, you can edit them to fit into one of these three options, but the game doesn't inform you that these characteristics can change based on your gameplay.

For example, if you consume fatty foods, your character will gain weight. If you eat healthier foods, they will maintain their weight. Other factors include: if you eat when your hunger bar is nearly full, you'll gain weight faster. The best time to eat is when the hunger bar is in the middle, in the orange section. Additionally, if you perform high-endurance activities (running, fighting, activities that consume stamina) without proper nutrition, your character will lose weight.

It's unfortunate that the game doesn't provide this information, like Project Zomboid does by indicating the calories in each food. However, just by eating, you won't face many problems.

Something that really bothered me was the cat (Extradimensional Cat), a Deviant (the companions that help you) that can be placed in an Isolated Securement Unit at your base. Its only description is that it helps you have a better night's sleep, making you wake up more energized the next day. But this is a lie. When you sleep with it in the base, a buff called "Cat Snooze" appears with the description "Restores Health. Sleeping is important for muscle growth and recovery." However, be careful, this "growth" doesn't refer to height or muscle growth, but to weight gain. While lying with the cat, your character gains 1 kg periodically, gaining weight infinitely. This is the easiest way to gain weight in the game.

There's no mention of this anywhere in the game, not in the cat's description, not in the buff, not in the F6 menu. I only found out about this from comments by other players wondering how to lose weight and discussing the issue.

Now that I've explained how to gain weight easily, here's a step-by-step guide to losing weight:

Eat spoiled food (eat one at a time and pay attention). This food restores 5 food and 5 water but causes you to lose 200 sanity and has a chance to give you a debuff called "Gastric Discomfort". When this debuff reaches medium severity, it causes your character to lose weight regularly.
To lose weight quickly, focus on your sanity while eating the rotten meats. Don't let your sanity drop to 0; lie in bed to recover it before eating another rotten food. It's not necessary for the debuff to reach "severe" level; just keep it at medium. If it reaches severe, the only cure is to take antibiotics (consumable), which can be crafted with 2x antibiotics at the Supplies Workbench.

Note: I read in some posts that you can get stronger by doing push-ups, and this also helps your character lose weight, but I haven't tested this hypothesis.

Resume for those who don't want to read everything:

To GAIN weight, lie in bed with the Extradimensional Cat active at your base.
To LOSE weight, eat Spoiled Food until you receive the "Gastric Discomfort" debuff at medium severity, which makes you lose 1kg periodically.

Edit 1: If you are trying to gain weight by sleeping with the cat, before going to bed, eat something high in calories, some canned food, the one I used to carry out the tests was the Steak Combo, which uses 2x some meat + 1x Salt, in Steve.