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While most people struggle to lose weight, a few others are struggling to gain a few extra pounds. Your goal to gain healthy weight lies in eating the right foods at the right times. It is important to eat healthy and not just overload your body with empty calories that pose unwanted health risk. Here are a few tips on how to add a few pounds of flesh to your skinny body.
- Determine how much extra pounds you need to gain. This helps you set a goal and helps you develop a goal-oriented mindset.
- Eat more than three meals per day, as well as snacks. Don’t just eat only when your hungry. Eating on a regular basis can help you make sure you’re getting enough calories every day. Aim to have generously-portioned breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks in between.
- Focus on heavier foods. You can also gain weight by adjusting your feeding habit towards heavier food and not exclusively high-fat foods. Here are some options to consider:
- Drinks — Try protein shakes, juices or whole milk.
- Breads — Eat dense breads, such as whole wheat, oat bran and rye, are more nutritious than white bread. Help yourself with thick slices and spread generously with peanut butter, jam, honey, or cream cheese.
- Vegetables — Eat more of starchy vegetables e.g potatoes, peas, corn, carrots, beets. Avoid vegetables that are mostly water e.g broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, cucumbers.
- Fruit — Choose dense fruit bananas, pears, apples, pineapple, dried fruit over watery fruit (oranges, peaches, plums, berries, watermelon).
- Extra oils — Always take up the oil level up a notch when you are cooking. However, consider using the healthiest unrefined oils such as olive, coconut, canola and butter.
- Spreads — Spreading delicious calorie-rich toppings on toast, crackers, pitas, and any other carbohydrate source is an excellent way to increase caloric intake. Some good high-calorie spreads are olive oil, cream cheese, hummus, butter, nut butters, sour cream, cheese slices, and mayonnaise. For even more calories, mix these with shredded meats like chicken or fish.
- Supplements — Visit your local pharmacy to purchase supplements specifically formulated for weight gain.
- Go high on protein. Protein (both plant and animal) is essential for body building and lack of protein in your diet can lead to the loss of lean body mass, even if you’re consuming excess calorie. Here are some protein rich foods to consider:
- Boiled soybeans
- Soy or whey protein powder
- Peanuts or peanut butter
- Chicken
- Turkey breast
- Fish (Tuna, Salmon)
- Cheese
- Beans
- Eggs
5. Consider lifting some weights. Building muscle through weight training will not only convert your extra weight into lean body mass, but it will also stimulate your appetite. Attempt to lift heavy weights for maximum muscle gain. To achieve hypertrophy (or large muscles), you should be lifting weights that are as close as possible to the maximum you can handle. Try stretching your body beyond its limit
Always eat more protein especially after exercising. This could be in form of a protein-rich diet or a supplement e.g amino acid or whey powder to achieve optimum muscle and weight gain.
6. Consult a doctor. If you can’t gain weight in spite of following the above steps, schedule an appointment with your family physician. You may have a medical condition that prevents your body from absorbing fat or building muscle e.g Crohn’s disease or other diseases of the thyroid gland.
Goodluck!
