Will going over my macros speed up my weight gain?

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willowbybear
willowbybear Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself
To make a long story short, I reverse dieted after a very long and restrictive diet and accidently ended up losing more weight in the process, making me mildly underweight by the end of it. Since the end of said reverse diet a few weeks ago, I've been eating in a calorie surplus in an attempt to bring myself back up to a healthy weight again. My goal with this surplus is to take it slow (if that's possible) instead of gaining more weight than I want to or reaching my goal weight super quickly, but I'm finding it difficult to eat the amount of recommended amount of surplus calories for someone my size without either going over my sodium, sugar, or carb limit and I'm worried that going over any of these macros will make me gain weight faster than I'm comfortable with. I haven't been able to find much info or personal accounts of whether or not eating over your macros in a calorie surplus affects the pace of weight gain so I'm kind of stuck in the river without a paddle so to speak and I could really use some clarification if any of you have any experience with this sort of thing :)
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  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,115 Member
    edited May 2023
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    Calories is what determines your weight (fat) gain.
    Carbs and sodium in higher amounts will give you more water weight, but that's just temporary.

    If you give an indication of your calorie goals and what you're currently eating, we might be able to give tips? Generally speaking, I would recommend high fat foods for some easy added calories: avocado, nuts, oils, higher fat dairy,...
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,164 Member
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    Generally, no, it's the calories that matter for weight gain or loss.

    The one thing I'd say is that if you seriously under-consume protein, relatively more of your weight gain could be fat, since a certain minimum of protein is required to maintain muscle, not to mention build new muscle. Strength training without adequate protein is going to be less productive, maybe unproductive.

    If you're not significantly under a rational protein level, that shouldn't be an issue. The other macros (and micros, and other beneficial phytochemicals, probiotics, etc.) are useful for health, maybe energy level, and that sort of thing.

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