18 yr old underweight male, some help?

My 15yo son is small for his age, too, and is very conscious about it. He does eat everything in the house, though, so sometimes it really doesn't have to do with eating. Your metabolism is just high right now and your hormones are working at finding the balance you need to put on the size you want. Good luck sweets!!!

It always has to do with eating at some level.

Even at his age? IDK, my son literally eats everything and anything. He is just underweight.

My 15yo son is small for his age, too, and is very conscious about it. He does eat everything in the house, though, so sometimes it really doesn't have to do with eating. Your metabolism is just high right now and your hormones are working at finding the balance you need to put on the size you want. Good luck sweets!!!

It always has to do with eating at some level.

Even at his age? IDK, my son literally eats everything and anything. He is just underweight.

Yes. Even at his age. Energy balance is not age dependent. Age may effect energy output. He is young and he probably burns a lot of calories.

At some point if his calorie intake gets high enough he will gain weight.

My 15yo son is small for his age, too, and is very conscious about it. He does eat everything in the house, though, so sometimes it really doesn't have to do with eating. Your metabolism is just high right now and your hormones are working at finding the balance you need to put on the size you want. Good luck sweets!!!

It always has to do with eating at some level.

Even at his age? IDK, my son literally eats everything and anything. He is just underweight.

You should actually start a new thread if you'd like to pursue this topic in more detail. But suffice it to say (and I don't know how old you are and your son is) compared to your calorie requirements, your son's are probably going to be higher, so it might seem like he's eating a lot to you, even when he is eating what he needs or under eating. Being male increases calorie needs, as do height, weight, lean body mass, and physical growth/maturation. Also, activity can burn more than we think. A couple of hours of brisk walking can burn up on the order of 500 calories, depending on someone's other stats. There are a lot of calculators online that use different formulas, and they give different estimates. Some give too few daily calories needed. MFP has an accurate one built in.

I have a son just like you, use your young techy skills to surf the internet for gaining options. I made him a milkshake everynight, should have added protein powder, and made sure he always had food he liked to snack on all day long in the house at all times. Basics, find food you like, buy it, eat it. learn to make it, and exercise & lift as much as is comfortable. . Good luck!

Track your intake, get on a lifting program, and monitor your change in bodyweight and increase intake as needed if you are not gaining.

^ what he said.

I agree with this as well. If your goal is just to gain weight, eating at a surplus to your TDEE will work. Lifting (Starting Strength, Stronglifts 5x5 etc) will help you add more muscle as you bulk. At your age you should be able to add strength pretty quickly.

To give you an idea of how much you need to eat to reach your goal lets do some basic math:

You want to gain 12 pounds (118 to 130) by mid March. 12 pounds over about 10 weeks means you need to gain an average of 1.2 pounds (4,200 calories) a week. You should be eating at a surplus of about 600 calories a day to reach your goal.

Some people suggested GOMAD (chocolate milk works too) as a cheap and easy way to add more calories (with decent macros) and I don't disagree. That being said if you don't like milk, feel free to substitute other foods you like better. Just make sure you are consuming enough protein in order to support your muscle growth. Personally I like getting protein from pizza, greek yogurt, chicken, burgers and whey protein shakes.

Eat at a sufficient surplus and there is no reason why you cannot be 130 pounds by mid March. Good luck!

Hi there everyone,

I am 18 years old. I weigh 118lbs, 52kg and 8.1st to those in the UK.

I am approximately 5' 11" / 6' tall and my chest size is 34" (85cm). My waist is around 29"

I know that I am underweight, and to become a 'normal' weight, I'd need to weigh around 130lbs, around 60kg and 9.5st. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me to begin putting on weight. I'm a bit of a fussy eater and although I probably would've said I eat lots but don't put on weight, come to think of it I don't eat a lot.

I don't exercise / do cardio whatsoever, so I'm not very active. I do have a 20kg set of dumbbells, if this helps. I don't do any weights though because I've no clue whether it could do damage if I'm not putting on weight at the same time & I've no clue what exercises to do.

I am going on a school trip in the middle of March 2014 - I wanted to become a 'normal' weight by then. Do you guys think it's possible to do this and will it be hard work?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again in advance

Ok, so re: weights - they will not nessicarly do damage (Providing you do them right), in fact they are a good idea - I know a few people who lift and were underweight, In fact you'd be surprised how many people in the gym have been underweight at some point (My self included - 6.5 stone at 14 years old, at 5 foot 6!!) and used weights and food to gain the weight. I've failed to find a blog that one of the lads had though, that would have been ideal

As for the training they did, they kept it basic - Squat\Deadlift\Bench\SOP\BOR\Pull-ups. Stronglifts\Starting Strength are good basic programs in the first instance.

In general.

Eat
Train
Eat
Sleep
Repeat

Put the TV on, get that video game controller, get a bag of chips and some tasty candy. Order some buffalo wings, get a pizza, have some soda. Sit back and watch the progress.

Being someone who was overweight much of my younger life, I never could understand how people couldn't grasp the concept of gaining weight. Just eat a lot until you are at the weight you want to be.

WTF. He wants to gain weight not make himself unhealthy eating a heap of crap.

Put the TV on, get that video game controller, get a bag of chips and some tasty candy. Order some buffalo wings, get a pizza, have some soda. Sit back and watch the progress.

Being someone who was overweight much of my younger life, I never could understand how people couldn't grasp the concept of gaining weight. Just eat a lot until you are at the weight you want to be.

WTF. He wants to gain weight not make himself unhealthy eating a heap of crap.

Pretty sure that was meant as sarcasm. Too bad the OP wasn't 100% sure about that.

To answer the OP's earlier question. Yes, this method would let you gain fat, not muscle. Even as a young man, you will need to put in work to gain muscle.

If your son needs any help/support or just another CFer I will gladly encourage and talk to him. I am 26 years old and have been living with CF since I was 22 months old. Maintaing weight can be tough, I however need to lose some. (my parents arent small people) Good luck in your travels and stay in touch! Breathe Deep!

Drink Ensures every day with 3 course meals... and healthy snack.. with weight lifting , that will do the trick in no time