Female trying to gain weight

The only way to pack on pounds is through eating more calories than your TDEE.
Weight training is not necessary. However, if you do weight training a larger share of your total weight gain will be from muscle, not just fat.

There are many tips to increase your calorie intake.

First off, I would try just eating normal amd logging your calories for a week or two.
After that, eat 100 calories a day more than you did the week before and slowly build your way up to a higher calorie intake.

Other tips are to eat energy dense food ( http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10142490/a-list-of-calorie-dense-foods#latest )
Also, replace everything in your diet that is non/low fat with full fat.

The easiest way to gain wait, is to have a protein drink. 2 scoops is 300 calories, have 3 of those a day.. your weight will increase

laurenallonsy wrote: »

Thank you for all the great tips. I just made a list of items to buy from the store that are calorie dense. For now I will put the runs on hold and focus on light strength training. It's just so difficult to gain weight. Some people just don't understand.

I drink boost protein shakes they're 360 calories, but. Definitely understand

Being an avid runner, I know it can be difficult to put running on hold completely. If you do decide to go for a run, just be sure to have some protein afterwards and some carbs. Any form of exercise will require you to ingest more to gain because calories in should be greater than calories expended. Definitely track what is "normal" for you for a few days then find some areas where adding in extra calories won't seem so daunting. For example, if you eat yogurt as a snack, spruce it up with some protein powder, fruit, and nuts. Shakes are an easy way to get in calories; you can have one before you go to bed without feeling too full to sleep. If you find you don't usually eat between breakfast and lunch (example), factor in a snack or have a shake if you aren't hungry.

Nuts are a good calorie dense food that can be added to salad, oatmeal, yogurt, cereal etc.

I'd suggest taking it slow and increase your daily calories each week. Eating 2600 cals when you are accustomed to 1800 (for example) will be a pretty uncomfortable change! Easing into it will make it more manageable.

An easy way to add weight training into your routine could be to use light weights to modify your current routine. It will do more muscle toning than muscle building. But beware of muscle giving you the weight gain you want. While muscle is denser, it also burns fat. My guess is with the activity level you have, you have a fairly healthy amount of muscle. At your weight and height ratio it could be the fat stored in the body you really want. As someone who often feels bloated before reaching my caloric goal, I totally understand. Work up to it slowly, make small changes in which products you eat (like whole milk or cream with honey in smoothies), think about what foods you really like, and mostly pay attention to what you feel doesn't fill you up as much even though the calorie count is high. If you find out rice fills you up but you can eat spaghetti for days without feeling full, throw in spaghetti more often.