Weight gain advice please

mad_shopaholic

Hi I'm a 22 year old female and would like to put on bit of weight Im a size 4 to 6 and I basically eat whatever I want but I can never put on weight how can I do this slowly and not in all the wrong places?!

jugger0

Your gonna have to post what you eat in a day.

Consistency is key, you have to eat over maintenance everyday, my friend is 6"2 and 10 stone and very very skinny, he'll eat loads one day then nothing the next yet still complains he never gains weight, You cant miss your meals!

marathonic

Agreed, you'll have to post your diet and details of the current excercise you do.

By 'put on weight', do you mean that you'd like to gain muscle or that you're far too skinny and would like to put on a small amount of fat?

No matter what you eat or what excercise you do, you'll not be able to control 'where' you put on fat.

If it's muscle you're looking to put on, you can select your weight lifting excercises based on where you want the weight/muscle on - but you'd be better to do a full body routine slightly more conentrated on the areas where you'd like to gain rather than isolate the area you want to gain and only do those excercises.

mad_shopaholic

well for breakfast i usually just have a bowl of cereal
Lunch is a ham cheese and tayto sandwhich or bowl of soup and roll
Dinner is usually anything but a good size portion carbonara, chicken curry etc and a chocolate bar!
evening is usally tea and biscuits and something like toast supernoodles or yoghurt etc
Exercise is 0 at the mo unless you count running after a toddler all day:P

marathonic

Someone with more experience can come along and tell you whether what I say here is correct but, in looking at your diet, you should not only add calories (as you're looking to gain weight) but you should make healthier choices too.

mad_shopaholic wrote: »

well for breakfast i usually just have a bowl of cereal

Most cereals are full of sugar and unhealthy - even the Special K that everyone thinks it's a healthy choice. Better to replace this with porrige which is pretty calorie dense and will keep the hunger away a lot longer. Add honey to taste if you like. Also, it's good to add some type of seeds for your good fats and a have a couple of eggs too if you have time to up your protein intake.

If you don't like porrige, you could just have eggs - poached, boiled, fried in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), scrambled or in an omellete. Add all types of veg to the omellete - tomatoes, mushrooms, spinich (I use frozen), onions, peppers, etc.

I make an omellete at the weekend when there's more time and just have boiled eggs (protein), porrige (carbs) and a teaspoonful of peanut butter (good fats) during the week.

These are all good options for breakfast. Despite popular believe, orange juice isn't a healthy option as it's full of sugar. You'd be better skipping fruit juices (if you take them) and having an actual apple or orange later in the day for a snack.

Any type of unsalted nuts are good too for snacks. Watch portion sizing with these though as they are very calorie dense. My personal favourite is cashews.

mad_shopaholic wrote: »

Lunch is a ham cheese and tayto sandwhich or bowl of soup and roll

Your breakfast has minimal protein and, again, you're lunch is very low in protein and carb heavy. Do you like tuna?

My lunch at the moment involves either mixed salad (I buy the bags in the supermarket at the start of the week) with white wine vinegar or one of those microwaveable bags of steamed vegetables (if you have a microwave available at work). With this, I'd have leftover meat from the previous nights dinner - such as a pork steak or chicken breast. When I don't have meat from the previous night available, I use a tin of tuna or buy a pack of turkey pieces from the supermarket.

mad_shopaholic wrote: »

Dinner is usually anything but a good size portion carbonara, chicken curry etc and a chocolate bar!

Chocolate is a bad choice but I've always had that little addiction. What I find good to wean me off it whilst relieving the craving is to buy some 70%+ cocoa dark chocolate. This type actually has some health benefits and, in addition, you don't eat as much of it as it's pretty strong. I'd eat 20-25% of a 100g bar of this where before I'd eat a 60g+ bar of chocolate.

Regarding the dinner itself, try to increase the amount of vegetables you eat. I find that, when I buy fresh, a lot of stuff goes out of date and is thrown out (as there's only two of us in the house). Therefore, I buy most stuff frozen which a lot of people argue is more nutritious anyway. You can get frozen peas, brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, brussel sprouts, etc.

Pasta is very carb heavy and not very nutritious but, if you must have it, keep portions to a minimum and go for wholewheat.

mad_shopaholic wrote: »

evening is usally tea and biscuits and something like toast supernoodles or yoghurt etc

Tea (fine unless you add a lot/any sugar to it)
Biscuits (very poor and a habit that's difficult to wean yourself off. It's here that I have my dark chocolate - with my coffee)
Toast (Also poor. Possible replacements include peanut butter on oatcakes, fruit, frozen berries, etc)

mad_shopaholic wrote: »

Exercise is 0 at the mo unless you count running after a toddler all day:P

Depending on your goals and time available to you, adding excercise would be a good idea. You're trying to put on weight and can't so adding cardio would add to the difficulty. Don't get me wrong, cardio is good but you have to bear in mind that you'll have to eat even more to put on weight if you do cardio. I'd advise getting some weights if your budget allows for it and, otherwise, look into doing some bodyweight excercises (of which there are loads of examples on youtube and boards to look at).

To add weight, also consider adding in some snacks between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner. Fruit, nuts, peanut butter (I love this as it's a cheap source of good fats), etc. are all good choices.

Obviously, taking all the above advice at once would probably be overwhelming but making any changes that get you closer to the above than your current diet will be a good thing.


In a one line summary, the main problem with your diet is that it has excessive carbs and minimal protein. Try getting protein in at every meal.

Martina1991

Just jumping on this thread, I was wondering of mad_shopaholic has had any progress since this post?

I'm a 26 y.o. female, size 6-8 and eat whatever I like but never gain weight.

My diet now is similar to the OP:
Breakfast: Cereal, tea, banana
Lunch: Ham sandwich and soft drink or soup and some brown bread
Dinner: Usually pasta/ potatoes/ rashers/ sausages/ cheese
Snacks: Chocolate/ tea/ biscuits

I did try for 1 solid month to gain weight. I used an app and counted calories. I was using homemade smoothies to boost calorie intake in the evening to get to 2000 kcal a day and saw no improvement.

I'm not very active. I used to play football until a few years ago. I play tag rugby during the summer but nothing else outside that.

I'm going to try again; eating nuts/ more milk/ more eggs in my diet. Any other suggestions?

s7ryf3925pivug

About 1200 total extra calories in 1kg of muscle.
About 7000 total extra calories in 1kg of fat.
You won't gain much muscle if you're sedentary. You probably won't gain much unless you actively try to.

2000 calories is not high; it would be at most about 400 calories over maintenance, probably much less. So you could expect to gain at most 1kg over 18 days, probably much less.

Body weight fluctuates in line with hydration and recent food etc. If you drink a litre of water you increase your body weight by 1kg immediately. So 1kg changes in composition are not that obvious on a weighing scales.

To gain weight just eat more over a long enough period of time. Weight bearing exercise will encourage muscle growth, but also increase how many calories you need for maintenance.

Mellor

Lilliana Sticky Litterbug wrote: »

About 1200 total extra calories in 1kg of muscle.

It only that were true.

GiftofGab

Increase your calories so. I'm a 31 year old male and I lose aot of weight eating 2000 cal a day. Track your calories on myfitness pal.

Breakfast: Try porridge with honey. Protein Shake and a healthy yogurt (about 500 kcal)
Snacks: Milk, fruit and nuts.
Lunch / Dinner: Meat + Veg + Potatoes, Rice, Pasta.

s7ryf3925pivug

Mellor wrote: »

It only that were true.

Widely published information. Muscle is 75% water, about 20% protein. up to 10% fat. Fat is 100% fat. Fat contains 4X as many calories as protein. So there are a lot more calories in fat than muscle.

Wasn't going to encourage whatever this **** is by replying - you were quibbling with my previous post in this section too, and misquoting me. Gotta say I find it weird and feel harassed.

Mellor

Lilliana Sticky Litterbug wrote: »

Widely published information. Muscle is 75% water, about 20% protein. up to 10% fat.

Widely misunderstood and repeated online perhaps.
That's the calories in lean tissue as food. It takes more calories to synthesis 1kg of muscle as It's an energy intensive process. You need to surplus the 1200-1400 or so embodied energy PLUS the metabolic energy used.

Otherwise a 40 cal daily surplus would build 1kg lean mass per month - about the upper limit in trained individuals.

Fat storing is energy efficient. So 3500 cals is roughly a straight conversation to 1lb fat.

Fat is 100% fat.
Fat contains 4X as many calories as protein.

Fat is only 85% fat actually the rest is water (similar to butter). That's why it's 3500 and not 4,086 (454 x 9).

Fat doesn't contain 4x the cals either. It's just over 2x (9 v 4).

Wasn't going to encourage whatever this **** is by replying - you were quibbling with my previous post in this section too, and misquoting me. Gotta say I find it weird and feel harassed.

Harassed? LoL. Get over yourself.
I don't recall your username tbh. If I quoted you previously it's probably because you posted something else that was wrong.