Yesterday, I went to a restaurant, drinking some beer with a friend whom I had not seen for several years. I found that he had changed very much. He was lean, now he was very fat...(self-made)
I feel strongly unhappy about these sentences. Yes, I met him in the past. But his change is a fact when I telling the story. I am confused about the usage of the tenses.
I would suggest these changes:
Yesterday I went to a restaurant, and drank some beer with a friend who I had not seen for several years. I found that he had changed very much. He was lean, and had become very fat...(self-made)
I hope this helps!
I think only two changes are necessary: "he had been lean, and now was fat", contrasting the pluperfect with the past tense to indicate that he was lean before he was fat.
The gerundive (drinking) is not tense-specific, so is fine as it is. If you wished you could also write "I found him much changed" to iron out the repetition of the pluperfect, but this would merely be a matter of taste.
