Exercising without losing weight

KiyomiNL

Hello, I just started using MFP yesterday in order to gain weight and I've been struggling with getting enough calories, partially because my parents don't know what they cook half the time so I don't know what to fill in.. (yes I'm an adult but I live with them and I don't know the names of every food) and I want to exercise to be healthier because I work from home and rarely go anywhere, all I do is walk around the house and dance sometimes lol. I bought Just Dance for exercise because it makes me super exhausted/sore and sweaty which probably means it's working? I'm just worried I'm gonna lose weight or not gain any if I do it for 30 minutes every day. What do you guys recommend?

puffbrat

You need to eat more calories than your body burns throughout the day in order to gain weight. Exercise does burn calories but the type you are talking about shouldn't burn more than a couple hundred calories, if that, in 30 minutes. However, if you are already struggling to eat enough to maintain or gain weight then you do need to be careful about adding cardio which make that more difficult.

Can you work with your parents to generally figure out the calories in the food they make? If they give you the recipe or tell you all of the ingredients and amounts, you can use the Recipe Builder on here to estimate the calories in the dish.

KiyomiNL

But the problem is that I don't even know accurately how many calories (and other things) I get in a day. My dad flat out refuses to look at the things he buys, he already refuses to just look at the package and tell me the name before he throws it out.. he's a very very difficult man.. I can't force him to suddenly listen to me and stop being so stubborn.

sardelsa

If you can't track meals, give them a low estimate. If you still aren't gaining you will have to up your portion sizes and add more snacks, add oils, cheeses, etc. You can even add a high calorie smoothies to boost cals.

Doing too much cardio at this point could be counterproductive for you so I would try not to go overboard with it.

If you want to gain some muscle you can incorporate bodyweight resistance training into your schedule, it can be done every other day and won't burn too many calories.