Entertainment

Fat chance

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When the clock hit midnight, marking the first minutes of 2009, most residents of the Western world made a collective resolution to get in shape and lose weight.

Personal trainer Paul “PJ” James was not one of them.

Instead, the 176-pound former runway model vowed to pack on a whopping 50 percent of his body weight — just so he could lose it again.

“I never had a weight problem, and that was part of the reason for putting on the weight,” says James, who wanted to be able to walk in his obese clients’ shoes.

“When you give your clients advice, the first thing you get is, ‘What do you know? How can you possibly relate to me?’ And they were right,” the Aussie explains.

Then 34, James embarked on a dizzying four-month journey of gluttony that made Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” experiment look like Weight Watchers.

He started his 20,000-calorie day with a breakfast of 3 liters of chocolate milk, about a dozen scrambled eggs and a lot of cured pig.

“It would be nothing for me to eat 2 pounds of bacon in the morning,” says James, who also filled a mini-fridge with candy, Oreos and other sweets and planted it next to his bed to sustain his marathon eating sessions at night.

Before he sat down for a lunch of a whole roasted chicken or a few pounds of pasta in cream sauce, he’d scarf down six doughnuts.

“Sometimes I felt like I wanted salad, but I wanted mayonnaise in it.”

He’d polish off a few milkshakes before a dinner of steak and 2 pounds of cheesy mashed potatoes, which he would wash down with a pint of ice cream. “Once, for dinner, I had 14,000 calories — four large pizzas and eight cans of Coke,” says James.

“Initially, you enjoy it because you look good and you’re eating tons. It took around three weeks until my abs disappeared and then the water retention sets in and fat starts to settle around your middle,” adds James, who documented his campaign of corpulence and body-redmption on YouTube and in his new book, “Take It Off, Keep It Off.”

His new frame began to dimple with cellulite, and chafed when his bloated limbs rubbed together.

He still trained clients, but content to socialize with a pizza box, he stopped going out with friends.

He also lost the will to shower.

After four months, James’ waist ballooned from a svelte 32 inches to 48 inches, making him a dead ringer for the pregnant man (if he hadn’t had his breasts removed).

He was borderline diabetic, and developed high blood pressure and skyrocketing LDL cholesterol levels.

His supervising doctor, who advised him to stop after two months, wanted to prescribe antidepressants.

After deliberately packing on the pudge, the once-lean fitness freak began to think he’d never drop the weight.

“I had a complete [mental] breakdown at 264 pounds,” says James, who hopped on a plane to Tokyo, locked himself in a hotel room, closed the drapes and had McDonald’s delivered.

Soon, he eschewed food completely, but still packed on 5 more pounds.

Determined to regain his former body, James returned to Australia.

And because he had been showing most of the experience on the Internet, the media tracked his journey — Men’s Health scheduled a photo shoot for four months into his weight-loss regimen.

It was a dubious dangling carrot.

“I agreed to do it not knowing that I could even get there. I had all of the attention of the media forcing me to lose weight. Even with all of that pressure, I still struggled physically and emotionally,” says James, who sprained his ankle the first time he tried to run.

But the trained chef went back to his normal 2,200 calories a day.

He also resumed his strict workout plan, which stresses efficiency over long hours.

“You see people busting their ass in the gym for two hours, and they’re not changing shape because they’re actually losing muscle by bypassing the fat burning stage,” he says.

James advises clients to do only 15 minutes of cardio on an empty stomach, followed by 45 minutes of weights.

The 37-year-old says it took him six months to get back to his former shape, and another six months for his skin to regain its formerly taut state.

But the health nut — who recently relocated from Australia to the Upper West Side — has no regrets about his first-person plunge into the abyss of the obese, and hopes to inspire overweight people to get fit.

“[My weight gain and loss] made clients more comfortable to approach me, and that’s so rewarding,” says the health guru, who hopes to educate the younger generation about the perils of obesity.

Even though he’s back to his fighting weight, he shows his passion isn’t just skin deep.

“Empathy is my favorite word. I even have it tattooed on the inside of my wrist,” he says flipping his arm over to reveal the ink.

kirsten.fleming@nypost.com