Weight gain for dummies?

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  • itsbasschick
    itsbasschick Posts: 1,584 Member
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    if you're doing enough cardio to keep your weight that low, you need more calories or less cardio. since you enjoy your active lifestyle, more calories is the way to go.

    avocado is healthy, versatile and calorie- dense packed with healthy fats. you can spread it on bread, add slices to foods like burritos or eat lots of guacamole.

    nuts are full of healthy fats, and you can pick the ones you like best to snack on, adding a handful to each of your snacks.

    peanut butter is also a calorie dense food, perfect if you like peanut butter and jelly sammiches. you can also make shakes with it if you have a blender.

    drink whole milk (chocolate milk if you like) and eat whole milk cheese, ice cream, yogurt etc.

    if you like them, eat baked potatoes packed with butter and sour cream.


  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
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    KevinWhite14 wrote: »
    It's been a while that Ive been eating like this. I snack basically hourly and still have real meals 3-4 times a day. As for the cardio it's a lot of basketball football and soccer. Anything to stay active really. Genetically speaking my family is relatively thin all around. But I've always been much skinnier than the average relative. I didn't even break a hundred pounds until my senior year of high school and I was already 5'9 or so
    That's my point -- how long is "a while?" Gaining weight and overeating is just as difficult and frustrating for some people as dieting is for other people. If you look around the Losing Weight forum on here, there are a ton of people who are frustrated because they're trying to diet, but they're just not giving it enough time. It seems like it "should" be easier to gain, but it's not.

    The other issue is that people tend to gravitate back toward how they typically eat if they're not tracking really carefully. If you look back through the last month of your diary, how many days were over 4000 calories? What do your weekly averages look like? I would bet that it feels like you're eating much more than you actually are.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    KevinWhite14 wrote: »
    Honestly I dont think my doctors believe me when I tell them what I eat haha they've always just said it's due to a fast metabolism

    Interesting, so they claim a fast metabolic rate without giving you a baseline to verify despite a sub 17.5 BMI? Guess you need to slow down on the activity and see how it goes. Good luck.
  • mustgetmuscles1
    mustgetmuscles1 Posts: 3,346 Member
    edited October 2014
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    Open your diary and log everything you eat after weighing and measuring it. You are probably just not eating as much as you think you are. Lower your activity also. Unless you dont actually want to fix the problem then just keep doing what you are doing.
  • KaraAlste
    KaraAlste Posts: 168 Member
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    Drink some of you calories to make it easy for you as possible. Does not have to be weight gainer. Juice, coffee with sugar cream, soda ensure, milk, sweet tea with and between meals.
  • PwrLftr82
    PwrLftr82 Posts: 945 Member
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    KaraAlste wrote: »
    Drink some of you calories to make it easy for you as possible. Does not have to be weight gainer. Juice, coffee with sugar cream, soda ensure, milk, sweet tea with and between meals.

    I also like to add heavy cream to milk or protein shake. I'm a glutton like that, though LOL
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
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    Do you have any digestive issues? I am close to your size and have a very high metabolism as well, but even if I was as active as you are, 3800-4000 calories and not gaining weight doesn't quite add up.
  • pgg001
    pgg001 Posts: 12
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    Hi Kevin,

    There are three aspects to weight gain - Lifting, Eating and resting.

    Sounds like the part you are missing is the lifting (and possibly sufficient resting).

    You need to be lifting heavy weights (for you) that prompting a defensive response from your body. Creating muscle makes no sense to your body. You actually need to make it start defending and protecting itself (by building muscles).

    You also need to be eating (some of) the right kinds of foods to supply your body with the raw materials to rebuild itself. Eating crap won't help build muscle.

    And then you need to be resting sufficiently to allow this all to happen.


    I was a 'hardgainer' when I was younger. I could eat and eat and eat and nothing would happen. 6 months crushing my legs in the squat rack, deadlifting and heavy bench was the only thing that changed that.


    Eating is one piece of the puzzle, but without the other two elements, you won't be moving anywhere.

  • pgg001
    pgg001 Posts: 12
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    KevinWhite14 wrote: »
    I've been using the fitness pal app thing to track my calories and I'm sitting right around 4000 typically. And I eat a lot lol I'm talking *kitten* food too like donuts cookies anything unhealthy really. Just can't find anyway to keep on any weight

    All you are going to achieve doing that is (eventually) diabetes.

    Do you have any experience lifting weights?

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