Questions on weight gain

toluseawealth
toluseawealth Posts: 1 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
Hello. I want to gain weight and I know I need to consume more calories and also do some exercises like thigh and glutes exercises. But you also loose calories during exercises. So how do I balance the two to gain weight and have my dream body? (Ps: I'm a girl and I'm a beginner)
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Answers

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,808 Member
    Talking about doing leg exercises suggests you want to build those up. Working out with weights doesn't burn a lot of calories. It's much less than cardio.

    If your weight has been stable lately, figure out what you've been consuming. That's your TDEE. If you're doing more lifting, presumably several times a week, add maybe 300 per day. That'll probably still leave you in a surplus, gaining some weight but not so quickly that a lot of it ends up as fat. Track your progress and adjust as needed.
  • joeyy888
    joeyy888 Posts: 17 Member
    Everyone will say “eat more” etc but if you are like me who can’t physically consume any more than humanly possible then I suggest protein shakes but do be aware you don’t need to consume tons of the stuff.
  • KickassAmazon76
    KickassAmazon76 Posts: 4,677 Member
    Simple answer:
    Calories IN: what you eat and drink
    Calories OUT: what you burn just breathing and existing + daily activity + extra exercise/activity

    If Calories IN is less than Calories OUT, then you should see a decrease in your weight over time.
    If Calories IN is more than Calories OUT, then you should see an increase in your weight over time.

    If you add exercise to your "Calories OUT" as a result of a workout, then in order to gain weight you'll need to ADD to your "Calories IN" in order to offset that burn.



    If you want a more detailed answer, with disclaimer notes, see below:

    When you fill out your MFP questionnaire to get the recommended calories, they ask you what your activity level is. Depending on how you answer (sedentary, active, etc) it assumes a certain portion of the calories you burn a day go to just running your body if you weren't moving at ALL (e.g. laying in a hospital bed just breathing lol), and a certain portion goes towards the energy you spend moving around (that increases based on activity level).

    Example (with very random numbers for ease of explanation)...

    - Hospital bed with no movement: 1000 calories
    - Working a sedentary desk job with a bit of extra movement from chair to fridge and back: 500 calories.

    MFP then says ok, the number of calories you burn on an average day is roughly 1500 calories. If you want to lose weight, then you should eat roughly 250 calories LESS than that so that you're in a deficit... and it gives you a calorie goal of 1250 calories per day.

    At a very simple level "To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume". As long as you eat 1250 calories a day, you should * be in a deficit and see a downward trend in your weight.

    If you then go and exercise and burn an extra 300 calories, that will increase your deficit (taking you to a net value of 950 calories: 1250 - 300 = 950**) thereby increasing the rate of weight loss.

    ** NOTE/Disclaimer: That is why we say to eat back your exercise calories ESPECIALLY so that you ensure staying at 1200 calories MINIMUM a day. 1200 cals is roughly the accepted bare minimum that the average person should consume per day

    * Note/Disclaimer: Life is never this easy... each body works differently (and changes as we age), so the amounts we ACTUALLY burn differ from person to person - so that's why a lot of people use fitness trackers and add a bit of safety rounding to their estimates. Furthermore, if you're not measuring/weighing and tracking your intake, there could be errors in logging. The more accurate you are in figuring out your calories in and out, the more consistent your loss will be.

    Also.. medical conditions like metabolism issues, pcos, menstruation, etc can throw a wrench into the calcs, so please keep in mind that this is weight loss thing is like a credit card statement... you don't see the changes in your account immediately, they all appear on your statement after about a month LOL. Give yourself time ( and grace) to see a difference.

    I hope this isn't too confusing! It can be overwhelming at times!

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