Just cannot gain weight?

Eoin247

I've been trying to get my weight out of the low 60s for a long time now and to no avail.

I'll give you my log for last week:

Approx 1.5 hours of walking each day.
2 weight training sessions in the week of 45 minutes each.
Average of 3600 calories a day.

On paper I should be gaining weight right? But still I remain at 62.5 kg, not even gaining even a tiny bit of weight.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Stench Blossoms

You'll just have to eat more.

colman1212

Firstly, you are trying to gain weight, why in the name of god are you walking 1.5 hours per day? This is what people do to drop weight.
Secondly, Are you really really eating 3600 calories a day? Put up your exact diet.

eurocoach

It sounds like you have a fast motabolism. For some 3500 calories is enough, i have worked with people who struggle to gain weight with 5000 calories a day. The key is to spead the meals across the day, 5-6 meals and eat plenty or carbs. When you are serious about gaining weight you have to consider eating like part of your training, unfortunately it can seem like fuel rather than food at times but it will get results if you push yourself up towards 5000 calories.

Shanotheslayer

eurocoach wrote: »

It sounds like you have a fast motabolism. For some 3500 calories is enough, i have worked with people who struggle to gain weight with 5000 calories a day. The key is to spead the meals across the day, 5-6 meals and eat plenty or carbs. When you are serious about gaining weight you have to consider eating like part of your training, unfortunately it can seem like fuel rather than food at times but it will get results if you push yourself up towards 5000 calories.

5000calories that's surely ridiculous. That's an awful lot in one day. Especially for a clean bulk.

oscar_mike

That's quite a gift you have there, i would love to be able to eat that much!!! Anyhow what sort of foods do you eat on a daily basis?

fleet

At 2500 calories I put on 1KG a week... I'll swap with you Eoin!

Mellor

colman1212 wrote: »

Firstly, you are trying to gain weight, why in the name of god are you walking 1.5 hours per day? This is what people do to drop weight.

If your daily routine involves being on your feet then 1.5 hours isn't a whole lot of walking.

Eoin247 wrote: »

I've been trying to get my weight out of the low 60s for a long time now and to no avail.

I'll give you my log for last week:

Approx 1.5 hours of walking each day.
2 weight training sessions in the week of 45 minutes each.
Average of 3600 calories a day.

You need to long your diet too.
Can you do more weights? Can you walk less to free up some time.

I'd guess that either you aren't eating 3600 calories, or the food you are eating aren't being fully absorbed (for example, if your diet contains lots of nuts)

Eoin247

colman1212 wrote: »

Firstly, you are trying to gain weight, why in the name of god are you walking 1.5 hours per day? This is what people do to drop weight.
Secondly, Are you really really eating 3600 calories a day? Put up your exact diet.

oscar_mike wrote: »

That's quite a gift you have there, i would love to be able to eat that much!!! Anyhow what sort of foods do you eat on a daily basis?

I live in the city centre so i pretty much walk to everything, so i can't reduce my 1.5 hours of walking really even if i wanted to. I use the myfitnesspal app to keep track of my daily intake.

I'll give you an example from the app of what i ate yesterday which amounted to a more than usual 4000 calories. To get an idea of a more usual day remove about 400 cal from the list. :

cal food

292 2 pots yogurt
606 1 litre whole milk
529 Lasagne
420 160g cheese
262 200g pasta
585 1 servingAnabolic Musclefuel powder
1,184 200g dry roasted peanuts
135 banana

My diet isn't a fixed one. What i do usualy is eat different things for the main meals everyday and make up the calories by snacking on things like fruit, nuts, milk and sometimes chocolate. I'd usualy have some green veg added to the list too.

Mellor wrote: »

If your daily routine involves being on your feet then 1.5 hours isn't a whole lot of walking.


You need to long your diet too.
Can you do more weights? Can you walk less to free up some time.

I'd guess that either you aren't eating 3600 calories, or the food you are eating aren't being fully absorbed (for example, if your diet contains lots of nuts)

That's interesting actualy because i do eat a lot of nuts usually. However i'd allways chew them down to a mush before swallowing, would i still not be absorbing them all in that case.

colman1212

Are you a vegetarian? Don't really see any meat in there? lasagne but that could be vegetarian...
Try and get some meat and eggs in to up your protein. Aside from that just eat more. Put coconut oil on your food to increase calories. Avocados also have lots of calls. Peanut butter. Rice..
The diet isn't really great if you broke down the macros but thats probably not of most importance right now if you just want to put on weight.

Mellor

Eoin247 wrote: »

That's interesting actualy because i do eat a lot of nuts usually. However i'd allways chew them down to a mush before swallowing, would i still not be absorbing them all in that case.

I think chewing as much as possible definitely helps, but it's still a lot to process. Nuts are a great energy dense food, but the down side is every gram that passes through, is energy lost.

As a test, try maintain 3600 calories per day for 2 weeks without more than 25g of nuts a day. I'd be interested in how you got on.

micko4

Weigh your food your probably counting too many calories for each food..logging a different brand or amount into fitness pal..also all that walking is burning off calories..
If you can't fit any more food in get yourself a weight gainer..600kcal in one with 50g of protein. One or two on top of what your eating and you'll pile it on

Eoin247

colman1212 wrote: »

Are you a vegetarian? Don't really see any meat in there? lasagne but that could be vegetarian...
Try and get some meat and eggs in to up your protein. Aside from that just eat more. Put coconut oil on your food to increase calories. Avocados also have lots of calls. Peanut butter. Rice..
The diet isn't really great if you broke down the macros but thats probably not of most importance right now if you just want to put on weight.

I'm not a vegetarian, I have two meals with meat most days. I've heard that peanut butter is good for weight gain, but i'd be worried about using a lot of it as it has a lot of sugar in it for the amount of calories it has.

With regards to the diet though, as i said:

''My diet isn't a fixed one. What i do usualy is eat different things for the main meals everyday and make up the calories by snacking on things like fruit, nuts, milk and sometimes chocolate. I'd usualy have some green veg added to the list too.''

Mellor wrote: »

I think chewing as much as possible definitely helps, but it's still a lot to process. Nuts are a great energy dense food, but the down side is every gram that passes through, is energy lost.

As a test, try maintain 3600 calories per day for 2 weeks without more than 25g of nuts a day. I'd be interested in how you got on.

I'll try to cut down on the nuts a bit and see how it works. However it's going to be hard to get healthy foods that are as calorie dense as nuts. Any ideas what i could replace them with?

micko4 wrote: »

Weigh your food your probably counting too many calories for each food..logging a different brand or amount into fitness pal..also all that walking is burning off calories..
If you can't fit any more food in get yourself a weight gainer..600kcal in one with 50g of protein. One or two on top of what your eating and you'll pile it on

I actualy usualy under-estimate how many calories i log into myfitnesspal if im unsure. I'm pretty sure that i'm taking in at least the amount that's logged.

Also as you can see from my sample day above i already am using a weight gainer. I might try to have more servings a day, but I can't imagine that taking in more than two servings (i.e more than 1000 kcal a days worth) in weight gainers can be that healthy.



Just to add, thanks to everybody so far for the replies

Eoin247

Eoin247 wrote: »

I've heard that peanut butter is good for weight gain, but i'd be worried about using a lot of it as it has a lot of sugar in it for the amount of calories it has.

Buy proper peanut butter. The Meridian brand that I use has 5.9g of sugar per 100g. I wouldn't consider that particularly high, to be honest.

Essien

I'm sure I've seen a good few brands of peanut butter with around 6/7% sugar, even the Tesco value one.

Blending some peanut butter into milk/whey is a handy way to get more in. 50g will give you ~300kcal extra and it'll only make your drink a little creamier.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264769626

this peanut butter has 5.5g sugar per 100g,. it's as low as the myprotein 100% peanut butter (skins and all) stuff I got before. it's quite tasty too, and cheap as balls



http://ie.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/peanut-butter/10530743.html

this stuff is bloody awesome though. must get more.

Nino Brown

I used to take a supplement called mammoth. That stuff will put weight on you!

http://www.discount-supplements.co.uk/sports-supplements-weight-gainers-interactive-nutrition-mammoth-2500-4-4kg?utm_source=goe&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=dyc&utm_content=gec&utm_campaign=goeUK%20%3E%20Dynamic%20Search%20Ads&gclid=CJ32iqrZpb0CFQKy2wod4RgABA#reviews

fearcruach

I use this peanut butter from Tesco - even lower sugar (3.3g/100g)

http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255161153

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

fearcruach wrote: »

I use this peanut butter from Tesco - even lower sugar (3.3g/100g)

http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255161153

oooooh, dedly

syklops

292 2 pots yogurt
606 1 litre whole milk
529 Lasagne
420 160g cheese
262 200g pasta
585 1 servingAnabolic Musclefuel powder
1,184 200g dry roasted peanuts
135 banana

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm not seeing 3-4 meals in this never mind 5-6. Very little meat, very little veg.

Mellor

Mellor wrote: »

If your daily routine involves being on your feet then 1.5 hours isn't a whole lot of walking.


You need to long your diet too.
Can you do more weights? Can you walk less to free up some time.

I'd guess that either you aren't eating 3600 calories, or the food you are eating aren't being fully absorbed (for example, if your diet contains lots of nuts)

syklops wrote: »

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm not seeing 3-4 meals in this never mind 5-6. Very little meat, very little veg.

Where did he say he was eating 5-6 meals?

Yogurt, milk, fruit
Cheese and past
Lasagna
That's three "meals" plus lost of snacking.

On sheer quantity there's probably enough protein there. As I guessed above its a lot of nuts, and he might want to switch that out for a bit. But replace then with similar macros from whole food and its fine.
There's no rule that he needs to eat 5+ meals a day.

syklops

Mellor wrote: »

Where did he say he was eating 5-6 meals?

Yogurt, milk, fruit
Cheese and past
Lasagna
That's three "meals" plus lost of snacking.

On sheer quantity there's probably enough protein there. As I guessed above its a lot of nuts, and he might want to switch that out for a bit. But replace then with similar macros from whole food and its fine.
There's no rule that he needs to eat 5+ meals a day.

I was replying to eurocoach's suggestion of 5-6 meals a day.

We will have to agree to disagree but I still don't see 3 meals in that lot.

Mellor

syklops wrote: »

I was replying to eurocoach's suggestion of 5-6 meals a day.

We will have to agree to disagree but I still don't see 3 meals in that lot.

It's 4000 calories. You seriously think quantity an the issue.

Transform

syklops wrote: »

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm not seeing 3-4 meals in this never mind 5-6. Very little meat, very little veg.

agreed and more importantly very little in the way of nutrient rich foods

I might add that if the stimulus to put on muscle is not there its kind of hard to gain weight.

Just finished working with a guy that gained 10kg in 12 weeks - ate tons, trained his ass off (trained him 4-5 times a week), worked his mobility a fuxk load, got his squat from zero to 100kg, deadlift from never having done it to 145kg, chin ups from 2 to 20kg added weight for a double, dips from 3 reps to 30kg added weight for a single.

He did conditioning work EVERY session i.e. he still did a rake of 'cardio'

its possible to make these kind of gains if you are a little underweight to being with but unless you work hard on the big bang for your buck movements and you are eating high nutrient dense foods it aint gonna happen dude

oh and he also said that his appetite only went up when he was training propely.

syklops

Mellor wrote: »

It's 4000 calories. You seriously think quantity an the issue.

I never said quantity was the issue. I said I wasn't seeing three - four square meals a day.