While the majority of people are pursuing a slimmer self, there are some who need to gain weight. Did you know that being underweight could be just as dangerous to your body as being over weight? This diet revolves around you consuming an additional 500 calories each day in addition to your regular intake. Experts agree that 500 is the optimum for weight gain, however if this is not working you may wish to test bumping your additional calorie intake up to 700.

Eating calorie dense but nutritious food is what most doctors agree is required to gain weight in a healthy way.

Here is an example of a daily meal plan on the weight gain diet:

Breakfast:

Granola, chopped nuts, milk, a banana, and juice.

Lunch:

A can of tuna in oil, a tomato, a handful of olives, 1/2 an avocado, mixed salad, and whole grain crackers.

Dinner:

High in complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Mid Morning and Afternoon snacks are allowed. Fruit, nuts and whole grain crackers are recommended.

As you are aiming to gain weight, it is beneficial to eat multiple meals of smaller quantities each day, over a few large meals. Eating multiple small meals, when combined with your training schedule encourages your body to use the calories you have eaten to build muscle. The focus of your eating should be on nutritious foods from a variety of food groups and sources. Some might indulge in fatty fast foods in an attempt to gain weight, but this is certainly the wrong path to take if you wish to remain healthy.

In most cases the need to purchase expensive weight gain powders and vitamins is not necessary. As long as you are eating a good well balance diet including more calories than you burn you will gain weight.

I’m sure that in your search for information to gain weight you would have come across some of those ads for weight gain pills. You know the ones that promise to increase your appetite, decrease your metabolism, or somehow magically redirect your weight gain exactly to the places that you want it.

Excellent, so pop a couple of pills before each meal and you’ll soon be exactly where you want to be - no need to train, and you can eat what ever you like. These websites usually have very convincing testimonials, but cite no research or studies. These products will not work as dramatically as suggested in the advertisements, however they can have a positive impact on your weigh gain goal.

If you stop and check the ingredients of the pills, you will find out that they are nearly identical to the average multi vitamin.

What the manufacturers have done is found a new market for their product in the weight gain industry, and just re branded their product as a weight gain supplement - at a heavy markup! The reason they work on some people is because small vitamin deficiencies can have a direct impact on your ability to gain lean muscle weight. If you have decided to employ an intense training program, then the additional stress to your body will create a greater need for nutrients, and a multi-vitamin should be the first thing considered.

Even though something is given the title of a weight gain product, it doesn’t mean that it is going to help you to put on weight. Make sure that you do your research. You will definitely want to look into taking a multi-vitamin, as it will be a great value to you weight gain goals. However your diet and training plan are the most important ingredients to your weight gain plans.

You may think this is a bit of a strange topic to be writing an article on. I mean isn’t everyone trying to lose weight? Sure, all the press talk about is how the world is getting fatter and fatter, but there are a multitude of people putting their hands up and saying - give your fat to me!

Who would want to gain weight?

Just like a fat person looks at himself in the mirror and sees himself as fat, and ugly - a skinny person does exactly the same. He stands at home in his mirror and all he sees is his light frame poking through his skin due to lack of fat/muscle.

‘If only I could gain weight‘

Everyone tells you that they wish they could have your body, or that they wish they could eat as much as you do and not put on weight, but you wish you didn’t. You wish it wasn’t so hard to gain weight - all you want is another 5-10pounds.

How do you gain weight?

The Right Diet

As a person that finds it hard to gain weight, I have to eat more that the regular person to gain weight. But does this mean that I can eat anything - junk food, high sugar, high carbs? No I am talking about a diet consisting of plain natural-healthy food full of calories, proteins, and essential fats.

The first thing you want to do is to get a solid eating plan in place before you look at anything else, and this plan will vary depending on your age, height, sex, weight, and lifestyle. This is why it important to calculate your calorie intake against your specifics.

The Right Training Program

The first thing to do when deciding to start training is to make a good training plan. To gain weight and build muscle the usual routine is 1 day on and 1 day off. So 3 days of gym and two days off to rest your muscles and allow them to rebuild.

There is barely any cardio in the muscle building routine. Usually just 5 minutes warm up on a treadmill then straight onto the weights. The usual gym sessions lasts for about 45minutes. But if you work yourself hard for 30 minutes and reach your limit each training day you will see a huge improvement when it is run in conjunction to the right diet.