Help Needed to Gain Weight

Alright all you body builders....hubby is having a hard time consuming the number of calories he needs each day. Any favorite snack ideas for weight gain? You know...something easy, nutritious, but not empty carbs.

P.S. Wish I had this problem!! lol

Whole milk. It is grow juice.

300 cal/16g protein per pint glass.

Also adding peanut butter to anything. 2 tablespoons is 180 calories with 8g protein.

Whole milk and peanut butter are long time staples of bulking. Dirt cheap and easy sources of lots of calories with a lot of protein.

3083 calories

Is he really small?

Unless that is how much he is netting after exercise, and not grossing before exercise, that probably is not nearly enough calories to gain much.

Most guys will need to be in the high 3000's to low 4000's area gross daily intake to gain.

He is about 5' 10" but thin build -- nice muscles but thin frame. He exercises regularly. He wants to gain at least 2 lbs. a week. MFP recommended 3083 calories a day.

Here's your problem first of all. If he thinks gaining 2 pounds per week is going to be muscle, he's sorely mistaken. This is how to get really fat when trying to bulk. He will build about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH. He should be eating about 200-300 calories over per day to ensure he is both getting enough calories to gain muscle, but not SO MANY calories that he's going to gain a bunch of fat.

In any case you can check out the link I provided. It will have mass gainers/supplements so that he doesn't have to gorge himself on food 24/7 to hit that goal.

He is about 5' 10" but thin build -- nice muscles but thin frame. He exercises regularly. He wants to gain at least 2 lbs. a week. MFP recommended 3083 calories a day.

Here's your problem first of all. If he thinks gaining 2 pounds per week is going to be muscle, he's sorely mistaken. This is how to get really fat when trying to bulk. He will build about 1 pound of muscle per MONTH. He should be eating about 200-300 calories over per day to ensure he is both getting enough calories to gain muscle, but not SO MANY calories that he's going to gain a bunch of fat.

In any case you can check out the link I provided. It will have mass gainers/supplements so that he doesn't have to gorge himself on food 24/7 to hit that goal.

Guys new to bulking can gain at 0.5 lb-1 lb/wk for quite a while.

1 pound per month is applicable to someone with bad genetics or that has been at it a while. Almost any guy in their first year of gaining will gain at a significantly higher rate than 1 lb/month.

2 lb/wk is overkill, but that calorie goal isn't out of line as 2 effects have to be overcome. The first is that people grossly underestimate strength training calories. You don't really notice this effect when losing, but a lot of people spin their wheels trying to gain because they are eating too little. And obviously when gaining you are going to be strength trainign hard. The other effect which is quite similar is that strength training recovery burns a ton of calories as well. Your measureable base calorie burn rate goes up by 10% of so for a few days after each session.

So whereas someone can eat a net of 2000 calories and maintain if their only exercise is cardio might have to net 2500 calories a day to maintain if they are strength training heavy to gain. That's half of that 1000 cal/day surplus wiped out right there just to maintain.

Consider with strength training - When you are doing it you are burning MORE energy than you are you are when you are running. This is obvious, it is at a higher intensity and it is harder work, but you can only do it for a short period of time. However the anaerobic energy system is hideously inefficent. The aerobic energy system creates 38 mols of ATP per mol of glucose. The anaerobic energy system creates 2 mols of ATP per mol of glucose. Say that squatting burns 2x as much energy per a given amount of time as running. That is energy in the form of ATP, not glucose. 20 seconds of squatting (assuming it burns 2x as much ATP in 20 sec as running) uses 38 times as much glucose as 20 seconds of running, so that 20 seconds of squatting burns as much energy as 760 seconds of running or almost 13 minutes worth. Even if it burns ATP at a 1:1 ratio (which it doesn't since burning more ATP than the aerobic system can handle is why the anaerobic system is needed in the first place), that is still one 20 second set burning as much glucose as more than 6 minutes of running. That is a lot, especially when you consider that it is normal to do 10-20+ sets per workout.

The problem is that it is nearly impossible to actually measure the amount of energy used for strength training, even in a lab. You would have to sample muscle tissue as the work is being performed. Hence there is virtually no science on how many calories strength training burns. People's HRM's meausre the small amount of ATP production via aeobic reactions, but totally miss the ATP production via anaerobic reactions, which is a reaction 19 times less efficient than the aerobic reaction. HRM's grossly underestimate strength training calories. But you can rely on the practical experience of people bulking, those gaining weight are generally eating a lot more calories than you would think they would need on basic calories in/out. This is because people grossly underestimate the calorie burn of strength training, the calories out. MFP's strength training entry is downright laughable, the real number is probably closer to 10x that amount.

As to MFP's recommended # of 3083 per day, that is a good number AFTER workout calories, so including exercise calories that is eating somewhere in the ballpark of 3600-4000 cal/day, which is about right to bulk at a moderate rate (about a pound a week) for most guys. Obviously adjust goals to fit results.

400ml whole milk
100grams instant oats
50 grams protein powder

That's 800 good clean calories in an easy to drink shake

Put extra virgin olive oil on everything and he should hit 3000 Cals without even trying too hard