Trying to gain weight, need some help!

Alanstrainor

Hey guys,

I'm on a mission to gain weight, currently I stand at 188cm(6' 2") and 72.7kg and I'm 26. I am a very slim build and always have been. I've struggled to keep weight on for a long time, and need to focus more. Ideally I'd like to put on 4kg or so. I am also a type 1 diabetic, well controlled and this does not affect my diet. I can eat what I want, when I want and can control the food intake.

The main issue for me, is that I cycle to work, I cover 23km per day, and at a fast pace. How many cals that totals at is an unknown. The closest I have to a guess is a garmin reading saying 600+ per day, however I would be very wary of this figure.

My typical diet on a work day will be:

8am: large bowl of cereal (kellogs) with ff milk. I know this is a poor choice, the main benefit is that it is quick.

12:30pm: Typically a dinner sized portion of food, consisting of carbs in the form of brown rice/ steamed potatoes/ potentially chips. And chicken/beef, and there will be a side of veg/salad. This is canteen food so it can be variable. But it is a large portion.

3pm: bar of chocolate, this is to pre-empt the cycle home and keep my blood sugars up.

7pm: Another dinner size portion, cooked by myself, spaghetti bolognese (pasta, beef, peppers, muchrooms, onion.) stir fry, (chicken, brown rice, peppers onion, carrot, etc and sauce from a packet. Again this is changeable, but it is all cooked from scratch if possible, with the exception of any sauces.

10pm: a couple of slices of toast.

I will keep a more accurate day by day food diary in the coming days and post it up. But I'm looking for some advice on ways to up my calorie intake. The last time I did this it was awful, spent weeks feeling too full and it took me a long time to see any gains. Unfortunately I fell back to something similar to the above and lost any gains pretty quickly.

Mellor

You need to eat more, that's the be-all and end-all of the situation. Anybody who thinks the eat loads, but can't gain weight is almost always off the mark with their idea of loads.
600cals for a 23km cycle sounds about right, you'll have to eat to cover this too.

As it stands, your diet is pretty poor.
Cereal is a poor choice. And Fat-free milk, why? Your goal is to get more calories in, using FF milk is making this harder.
Switch to full fat milk, oats, eggs, meat, beans, avocado. Endless options here.

If you are tied to canteen options then choose the best option available. Get an extra serving of meat, and have a glass of milk with your lunch.

The chocolate bar isn't ideal, but maybe its best to leave it in if it works for your blood sugar. Maybe try to include energy bars that include nuts and well as carbs/sugars. There are lots aimed at running/cycling.

Dinner could be better. Sauces from a jar aren't great, you probably know that. But the same general fixes apply, eat a bigger portion for dinner. Drink a glass of milk.

Toast before bed. you can do better than that. Make it a proper meal. Add scrambled eggs, meats, lashing of peanut butter.

Have a high calorie protein shake at some point. Various combinatinos of Whey, milk, greek yogurt, peanut butter, coconut, chocolate, oats,

Alanstrainor

Cheers!

Sorry, I meant full fat, when I said ff for the milk. I also forgot to mention having milk with my lunch too. I'll post up my diet today for a more accurate idea.

I do know I need to eat more, its just about finding ways to get the calories as easy as possible. As I've struggled in the past!

Pat_custard

beans on toast as your late supper is a surprisingly filling, quick and easy to make meal with a lot of calories and protein

It's also delicious!

Mellor

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Sorry, I meant full fat, when I said ff for the milk

Sorry, my fault. Mind went straight to fat-free for some reason. Fat free is good, keep it up

ford2600

Do being Type 1 and being lean not go hand in hand for lots of people?

Alanstrainor

ford2600 wrote: »

Do being Type 1 and being lean not go hand in hand for lots of people?

I don't believe here's any correlation between the two.

ford2600

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I don't believe here's any correlation between the two.

Ok, my bad, was sure I had read that while looking up something else in the last week. Apologies

Alanstrainor

ford2600 wrote: »

Ok, my bad, was sure I had read that while looking up something else in the last week. Apologies

Not at all, thanks for the input. Better to clarify these things I reckon!

Alf Veedersane

ford2600 wrote: »

Do being Type 1 and being lean not go hand in hand for lots of people?

People with type would tend to lean but I think it's only framed that way because more people with type 2 tend to be overweight and it certainly doesn't mean they can't put on weight.

conzy

Its boring but the best thing you can do is track everything in myfitnesspal for a week. Get a ballpark figure of what you are eating.

From your activity and goals you should probably be eating ~3100 calories or so. You can aim to build up to that over a few weeks. From a quick guesstimate of your current intake its closer to ~2400.

Getting in the calories can be a struggle but its about what works for you and fitting it into your lifestyle. If you have no issues with dairy it could be as simple as drinking a litre of chocolate milk a day ontop of your normal intake. You'll find that when you eat more calories you will feel better and your performance on the bike will increase too

ford2600

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMdSHNnRbEs

Have a listen to this, he discusses of how in the long term our bodies are protective of a certain level of body fat. It also discusses what @conzy alluded to above i.e. if you eat more you will feel better and the role of ghrelin, leptin, thyroid etc in controlling this.

Alanstrainor

conzy wrote: »

Its boring but the best thing you can do is track everything in myfitnesspal for a week. Get a ballpark figure of what you are eating.

From your activity and goals you should probably be eating ~3100 calories or so. You can aim to build up to that over a few weeks. From a quick guesstimate of your current intake its closer to ~2400.

Getting in the calories can be a struggle but its about what works for you and fitting it into your lifestyle. If you have no issues with dairy it could be as simple as drinking a litre of chocolate milk a day ontop of your normal intake. You'll find that when you eat more calories you will feel better and your performance on the bike will increase too

Cheers man, appreciate it. Not a bad idea with the chocolate milk!

Dixie Chick

My bf has similar stats to you and is very lean. At the moment we are trying the GOMAD approach and he is eating lots of nuts as well, grazing away throughout the day

GOMAD is a gallon of milk a day. He does have one giant yazoo a day included in this. He works in a warehouse and lifts and drags all day so there literally is a huge calorie burn going against our attempts

Alanstrainor

Dixie Chick wrote: »

My bf has similar stats to you and is very lean. At the moment we are trying the GOMAD approach and he is eating lots of nuts as well, grazing away throughout the day

GOMAD is a gallon of milk a day. He does have one giant yazoo a day included in this. He works in a warehouse and lifts and drags all day so there literally is a huge calorie burn going against our attempts

I'm going to incorporate more milk into my diet, and fresh fruit as it's been lacking of late. I signed up to myfitnesspal which is very handy!

Alanstrainor

Okay, so here is my diet for yesterday:



This was easier than expected, but I suspect my entries aren't 100% accurate. I had to pick generic items for a lot of them so I can't be sure if the nutrition details are terribly accurate.

Although I was at Wagamama for dinner, so that should be accurate I reckon!

Jezek

Butter/Cheese/cream - have a buttered piece of toast with cheese as well as cereal for breakfast. Grate loads of cheese on top of your dinner, e.g. if its a pasta dish. Learn to make creamy sauces for pasta, very quick and easy. E.g. Add some heavy cream to a tomato sauce, just to make it richer . Ice cream is also very calorie rich, you could have some as a treat (if you like it)

Zillah

I am very similar to you. I'm 6'5" and would have been very light - currently 84kg, was at 88 but wanted to get the body fat down a little (six pack summer is the plan...). I also do a 16km round trip on the bike every day for work. My Fitbit claims an average calorie burn total of 3300 for most days, which usually includes a weights session.

Commit to drinking two litres of full fat milk per day. Do everything you normally do but add two litres of milk. Drink a full glass with breakfast, a litre with lunch, the rest wherever you can. Milk is awesome: protein, fat, low-GI carbs, easy to consume.

The nuclear option is olive oil with bread. Obviously bread is not ideal for a diabetic, but lordy, most oils are somewhere in the region of 900kcals/100ml, they're bonkers. Get a dish, pour in some olive oil and a splash of either soy sauce or balsamic vinegar, dip something into it, consume the whole lot.

You'll be a fatty in no time.

Or, more usefully, lift weights in addition to everything else so the weight you gain will be awesome weight instead of sadface weight.

ford2600

Zillah wrote: »

but lordy, most oils are somewhere in the region of 900kcals/100ml, they're bonkers. Get a dish, pour in some olive oil and a splash of either soy sauce or balsamic vinegar, dip something into it, consume the whole lot.
You'll be a fatty in no time.

I've a 24hr cycle tomorrow, on which I won't eat very much. On Saturday and Sunday I'll be doing what Zillah suggests to get lots of calories in easily.
Really easy to hit 2000 calorie meals.

Eat more veg. Cook them in a saturated fat(coconut , beef dripping or whatever, but not butter if heat is high) and and cold olive oil on top. Add eggs srambled again cooked with generous butter. Really easy way to add 50-100g of fat circa 450-900 calories and you'll hardly see it on plate. Add semi boiled potatoes then roasted/fried in duck/goose/beef dripping or whatever

I notice your counting cholesterol content; don't bother. Natural foods with high cholesterol content are foods you want to be choosing; eggs, lamb's liver, shell fish etc. Your body is very clever it'll make less if you eat more of it, and you get the other essential nutrients also in higher concentrations than almost any other foods

Zillah

Yeah the cholesterol thing is interesting. You can't blame previous generations for assuming that eating large amounts of cholesterol caused an increase in blood cholesterol, but it turns out there's actually a very weak connection. Also with the amount of exercise you do you'll have no problem keeping your cholesterol low anyway. Eat fatty things, your body needs fat and it's easy calories.

Alanstrainor

Cheers lads! Really appreciate it!

The stats I put up are just taken from myfitnesspal....those fields are just default, not necessarily concerned with them it just so happened that it displays them!

Although my sodium intake might need review! Feel like I've been eating all day today, very full!

ford2600

http://sigmanutrition.com/?s=salt

http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2014/05/13/salt-is-good-for-you/

http://anthonycolpo.com/low-salt-recommendations-based-on-poor-science/

Alanstrainor

I should mention that I actually went to the dietitian in Vincents maybe 6 months ago to discuss this when I first tried. And she essentially said I could eat what ever I wanted. And not to worry about fat and salt intake for the short term. She did say not to go to extremes, but chips and other similar food was all on the cards! She also had results from my bloods to review so I'll just plough on!

Greenmachine

I would watch your milk intake closely to see how well you tolerate it. Years ago when I wanted to bulk I found it incredibly hard to put on weigh even when I upped the calories above 4k a day. Milk was problematic in my case, but taking lactase enzymes whenever I ate dairy took care of that.

Handy snack after a cycle.
Two slices of bread, thick slatter of butter on one slice, a layer of peanut butter on the other slice. And 250ml of milk after a cycle for a handy 500kcal or so.

Blacktie.

Greenmachine wrote:

Handy snack after a cycle. Two slices of bread, thick slatter of butter on one slice, a layer of peanut butter on the other slice. And 250ml of milk after a cycle for a handy 500kcal or so.

Replace butter with honey. It is unreal. Especially on toast. I found this out in Australia. Mmmmm

galljga1

You simply have to turn forty, get a car, drink too much and have a fry up most mornings. Then you too can have a body like mine.

Seriously: oils, butter, sauces, meat, eggs, starchy veg, dense fruit, bread and eat more often.

Greenmachine

Blacktie. wrote: »

Replace butter with honey. It is unreal. Especially on toast. I found this out in Australia. Mmmmm

Forgot the medium banana, but honey sounds like a sweet idea.

papu

Adding cream to everything is great for boosting the cals, Scrambled eggs and cream , Chocolate milk and cream , Ice cream and cream , Its also delicious in porridge.

Alanstrainor

So essentially we're talking this:

Alanstrainor

Also, this is my diet from yesterday...which was pretty ridiculous. I think I pushed it to far to be honest, didn't feel great from about 8ish onwards. Probably too much dairy.

jungleman

I don't know much about working out or fitness but this is an interesting thread! A few of you are saying that OP needs to build up his calorie intake and eat more fats; I always thought that to put on weight in muscle you needed to cut carbs and load up on protein? Would loading up on calories not make you flabby?

Not trying to second guess any of you, I genuinely am just interested in knowing about calories vs proteins!

papu

jungleman wrote: »

I don't know much about working out or fitness but this is an interesting thread! A few of you are saying that OP needs to build up his calorie intake and eat more fats; I always thought that to put on weight in muscle you needed to cut carbs and load up on protein? Would loading up on calories not make you flabby?

Not trying to second guess any of you, I genuinely am just interested in knowing about calories vs proteins!

Muscle builds very very slowly , some people because of metabolism and activity need to horse down allot of calories to maintain weight. And then add some on top to be in a surplus to grow. The idea would be to put on weight slowly , maybe 1 or 2 kg a month , some will be muscle and some will be fat. The slower you gain weight the better the ratio of muscle to fat you'll be adding, the muscle grows at a slow and capped rate, after that I'll just be fat.

As for just going more proteins , proteins are expensive and after a limit wont benefit muscle growth , carbs make people feel bloated , that leaves fats

runawaybishop

jungleman wrote: »

I don't know much about working out or fitness but this is an interesting thread! A few of you are saying that OP needs to build up his calorie intake and eat more fats; I always thought that to put on weight in muscle you needed to cut carbs and load up on protein? Would loading up on calories not make you flabby?

Not trying to second guess any of you, I genuinely am just interested in knowing about calories vs proteins!

He ate 186 grams of protein which is more than enough. If you are trying to put on mass then fats are calorie dense and relatively easy to stuff into you. Not all fats will directly translate into flab, just the excess but to gain weight and muscle you need to have a calorie surplus.

jungleman

papu wrote: »

Muscle builds very very slowly , some people because of metabolism and activity need to horse down allot of calories to maintain weight. And then add some on top to be in a surplus to grow. The idea would be to put on weight slowly , maybe 1 or 2 kg a month , some will be muscle and some will be fat. The slower you gain weight the better the ratio of muscle to fat you'll be adding, the muscle grows at a slow and capped rate, after that I'll just be fat.

As for just going more proteins , proteins are expensive and after a limit wont benefit muscle growth , carbs make people feel bloated , that leaves fats

runawaybishop wrote: »

He ate 186 grams of protein which is more than enough. If you are trying to put on mass then fats are calorie dense and relatively easy to stuff into you. Not all fats will directly translate into flab, just the excess but to gain weight and muscle you need to have a calorie surplus.

Thanks for the info! That actually does make a lot of sense. I'll bear it in mind for next January when I pound the gym for a week as part of my New Years Resolution!:D

Zillah

jungleman wrote: »

I don't know much about working out or fitness but this is an interesting thread! A few of you are saying that OP needs to build up his calorie intake and eat more fats; I always thought that to put on weight in muscle you needed to cut carbs and load up on protein? Would loading up on calories not make you flabby?

Not trying to second guess any of you, I genuinely am just interested in knowing about calories vs proteins!

If you compare growing muscle to building a house:
The proteins are the bricks of which the house is made, calories are the workers who actually build it.

Growing muscles takes both a load of protein and some extra calories.

Also, OP: 4500 in a day is huge overkill, you're going to actually be a fatty soon. RIP OP's physique.

Blacktie.

Zillah wrote:

Also, OP: 4500 in a day is huge overkill, you're going to actually be a fatty soon. RIP OP's physique.

If his portion issues are correct which unless he's weighing I doubt.

Zillah

All that tells us is that there is a margin of error. It could be 5000 then.

Alanstrainor

Blacktie. wrote: »

If his portion issues are correct which unless he's weighing I doubt.

Not carrying around a weighing scales in work. Portions are very much ballpark, as is the options. Some of those listed are from american fast food places...probably excessive in every way to what I had. Its more a guideline.

Trust me, I will not be a fatty any time soon! I've tried similar before and failed to gain reasonable amounts. Just have to put in the effort for longer and persist with this now! The dairy will help, as its something I hadnt copped before!

As for today, another good day I think. Although I wasn't as able to eat in the morning but I made up for it at lunch and through the afternoon.

Blacktie.

Alanstrainor wrote:

As for today, another good day I think. Although I wasn't as able to eat in the morning but I made up for it at lunch and through the afternoon.

Zillah wrote:

All that tells us is that there is a margin of error. It could be 5000 then.

Margin of errors for people who find it hard to gain weight no matter what tend to be on the over estimating. And the opposite for the can't lose any weight crowd.

OP I get you're not carrying around scales or anything but unfortunately when you have trouble gaining or losing weight you need to cook your own food for a while an measure everything to the gram so you know your actually intake and you then know for a fact you're not over or under estimating. Only for a week or two really.

Alanstrainor

Hey guys,

I just thought I would update you all. I found sticking to my plans over the weekend especially difficult, so it's something I'm going to have to work on big time. As for this week, I am back on more or less the same plan as last week and I'm finding it okay. I cut back about on my extreme milk in take as it made me feel a bit iffy one of the days last week.

I find logging everything really makes me realise just how off the mark I was on previous attempts. I missed my target calorie intake yesterday by a couple of hundred, and yet felt I was eating all day. I'm going to keep my logging up for as long as possible and see where I am in another 3/4 weeks.

I've also started some weight and core training, I figure I may as well make use of the extra energy and not let all of the weight gain just be fat!

Mellor

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I find logging everything really makes me realise just how off the mark I was on previous attempts.

Tbh I akwats think that's the case for all guys who struggle to put on weight. They feel like they are eating lots, but it's really very little.

conzy

Calorie density is hugely important for you.

One tiny tub of houmous has over 500 calories. 3 big tablespoons of peanut butter has 500 calories. A tin of coconut milk has ~800.

Dont waste your time eating foods with low calorie density and feel bloated all the time. Do you have a blender? You could eat relatively normally all day and just have a 1000 calorie shake morning and evening. Weekends are defintely tougher as your socialising and have less routine. But if you wanted you could make a bigger surplus weekdays.

e.g "borrow" 3000 calories from the weekend, distribute across the other 5 days where you have time to eat those calories

Alanstrainor

conzy wrote: »

Calorie density is hugely important for you.

One tiny tub of houmous has over 500 calories. 3 big tablespoons of peanut butter has 500 calories. A tin of coconut milk has ~800.

Dont waste your time eating foods with low calorie density and feel bloated all the time. Do you have a blender? You could eat relatively normally all day and just have a 1000 calorie shake morning and evening. Weekends are defintely tougher as your socialising and have less routine. But if you wanted you could make a bigger surplus weekdays.

e.g "borrow" 3000 calories from the weekend, distribute across the other 5 days where you have time to eat those calories

Cheers conzy, nice videos too! You're most recent has given me ideas...

Blacktie.

conzy wrote: »

Weekends are defintely tougher as your socialising and have less routine. But if you wanted you could make a bigger surplus weekdays.

Ah gaining problems. My weekend beers destroy my weekly deficit!

ThunbergsAreGo

This is an interesting thread and I am another who is always told I am not eating enough (it can be hard when eating "clean")

Just on the alcohal, can it be used for bulking? for example I have eating approx 2200 calories today (with decent protein/Carb/Fat macros), would 4 bottles of beer bring it to 3200 and help me towards building muscle mass or are the "empty" in that regards? For instance would i be better just eating bread

brevity

Ya I'm following this one myself, I'm 6 foot at about 10 stone which I'm not very happy about. I'm just not a big eater so I have to try and get in the habit of eating more and then exercising more.

Alf Veedersane

brevity wrote: »

Ya I'm following this one myself, I'm 6 foot at about 10 stone which I'm not very happy about. I'm just not a big eater so I have to try and get in the habit of eating more and then exercising more.

If you want to add size and you're not a big eater, then make sure you get some calorie-dense food into you.

And exercise selection will help. Trying to add a bit of size and burning the extra calories by running etc will only hamper your efforts

Alanstrainor

Just a quick update on this.

So far so good, starting weight was 72.5, and now reading 76.5 and hoping to further increase that.

I have slacked a bit, so need to focus again, but at least I now know what I need to do to keep on track. My target was around 78kg, so it will be interesting to see what it takes to maintain that weight when I reach it.

I've also been doing a lot of core exercises and using what weights I have, and I've noticed a big change there too over the last while.

Thanks a lot guys, and a special thanks to conzy too!