To preface, I kind of know the answer to this. I’ve put on weight before but I was hoping to get advice on how to go about better/more efficiently. I guess my question is really: what are healthy high calorie foods I can use to put on weight?
I’ve been underweight pretty much my entire life. I don’t think I have a chronic eating disorder, but there are times where I just don’t want to eat. I believe, however, that’s actually not my largest issue.
I’m potentially too health conscious. I’m vegetarian by accident (So I dated this girl right…) mostly, and as a result I eat a lot of nutrient-dense but calorically-low foods. I’m currently sitting just under 56kg (125 lbs) at 180cm (5’11ish). My plan currently is to just eat more often, and slowly ramp up how much I eat at each meal. About 6 years back I managed to hit 77kg by eating 4/5 large meals per day but then lost it all over the years by being sedentary and losing my appetite.
If you’re just under your calorie target, you can add high calorie snacks or toppings to gain weight. Do you like nuts and seeds? Avacados? Olive oil? Cheese?
You can buy or make lots of nice high fat nut snacks, roast them with your favourite spices if you like flavour or just a little salt if you prefer blander stuff. Snack on them throughout the day, and schedule times to have a portion of you’re not naturally a snacker. Sprinkle them over salads or rice bowls or whatever.
Dip nice bread in olive oil and vinegar (with some zatar or other spice mixes if your like). Shallow fry things in olive oil - take slices of nutrious but calorie light vegetables, dip in a simple tempura batter of cornflour and water, then fry in olive oil. Crispy, fresh, delicious and lots of calories.
So you eat desert? Start having nice fruit with heavy cream poured over the top. Use cream in sauces or add to mashed potatoes, vegetable gratins, etc.
Hey, Beavis. He said “fat nut.” Heheheheh.
Cool.
Peanut butter is rather calorie dense. On sandwiches, as a dip, in sauces, or by the spoonful. Potatoes are quite nutritious and especially delicious when mixed with things like cream, butter, etc.
Add more oil or even lard to your healthy meals and slowly increase consumption.
Workout bro’s use mass gain powder. I’m fat so I’ve never tried it, but I assume it’s protein powder and probably sugar and maybe some fats.
My problem was probably similar to yours. I just don’t get hungry. In university, I would have some oatmeal for breakfast and cruise through until about 10pm and get some fast food, too often.
My solution was to start working out. I saw my colleagues were all carrying fat bellies and I didn’t want to end up that way. But I also knew that if I wanted to work out, I needed to fuel my body. So every day I just plan my diet like building with Lego, filling out the macros and calories and eat it whether I want to or not. For some people, that’s not a good approach from a mental health perspective, but it works for me.
Start a workout plan (strong lifts 5x5 is a simple starting point without much fluff) and get an app (I strongly suggest MacroFactor - it’s excellent) that tells you how much to eat, and follow it. I went from 58kg to 77kg in a year, and after dieting the somewhat excessive fluffy parts back off I landed at 70kg and looking pretty shredded. The reason i say MacroFactor is because it starts off with an estimate of your caloric needs and based on your dietary intake (non-judgemental - if you miss it, you miss it) and your daily weight, it calculates your caloric and macronutrient needs. It’s based on good scientific research.
As a vegetarian, you probably don’t need to worry nearly as much about getting fibre and vegetables, but it can be harder just because animal products are nutritionally dense. Picture 600 calories of broccoli. Now picture a hamburger. It’s an unfair comparison, but the point is the calorie density is way higher. If you can do eggs and whey it can help. Renaissance Periodization (another good app) has a recent YouTube video about protein sources that’s really good.
Why? The diet you describe is one of the only proven ways to extend a healthy life span. If you following a cron diet from early on you could live to record old age vs the populace if you keep it up.
Yeah my diets fine. That’s why I’m not asking for a diet change, I’m asking for some specific food examples that fit into my diet
I’ve seen people have good success not trying to eat more, but eating a carnivore or very low carb diet and adding in resistance exercise. The body will naturally hunger for the proteins to build more muscle as long as the muscles get challenged regularly
Things to stimulate muscle growth (anything where your muscles feel a little sore at the end)
- physical activity
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- walking
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- weight training
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- swimming
Hormones can have a massive impact on your body composition, if you have a doctor get your hormonal panel done. Eating low carb food will help your body’s hormones get back into balance. High carb/sugar filled food messes with the super hormone insulin and that can keep you off balance.
Dont eat high sugar foods just to pack on fat, you want to build your natural muscle for a healthy lifestyle. If you must stay plant based you could explore plant based keto https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/vegetarian
Make sure you map out your food intake, at least once, in a micronutrient tool like cronometer and ensure your hitting all the targets
If you’re young, don’t have any other medical issues, are undermuscled, and have low energy - it sounds like a hormonal issue. Probably it can be resolved with a better diet.
I genuinely believe this is great advice. Just not for me in particular. I’ve followed that diet before and had great success with it, I’ve also had great success with my current diet. I don’t believe that a huge change in my diet is necessary for my goals. I just need some specific food examples that fit in my diet because it’s been a while since I’ve really thought about this stuff and I could use a refresher on my options.
Currently I mostly get protein from meat substitutes, nuts, dairy and supplements. I plan to start tracking my macros so ensure I’m actually getting enough protein but I know I’m probably closer than most people are, including meat-eaters, when they first start thinking about it since I do have some base-level knowledge on the subject already. I hit around 40 to 50 thousand steps a day when I work, and am pushing/pulling anywhere between 50 and 500 lbs all day. I intend to do more strength training particularly in my arms, back and legs to keep myself balanced.
I think the major problem with plant-based proteins is they are coupled with carbohydrates in abundance. To hit your protein goals you typically get a large amount of sugar, which it causes a large amount of insulin, leading to the hormonal problems I indicated above.
So to recap, you’re doing a vegetarian diet, you have great success with it, but you’re undermuscled. You want advice on which foods to help you build up your muscles? Your lifestyle is very active, and you get lots of resistance exercise at your job.
Your already doing the most important thing to stimulate muscle growth, you say your getting enough protein, so I think the next place to look is at your hormone levels.
Verify the diaas score of your major protein source, make sure it’s a complete protein. https://www.diaas-calculator.com/
Down thread you say you can eat eggs? Eat more eggs by themselves, i.e. not within 4 hours of other food. Each egg is 6g of bio complete protein. Mixing eggs and plant based foods will reduce the absorption of the egg itself.
Oh you know what I actually should have read this more closely. I’m not undermuscled or low energy. I feel fine, I’m just losing a lot of weight and want to start building it back. Like I mentioned in the post, I know how to build weight, and I’ve done it before. I’m going to increase my protein intake and particularly use healthy carbs and fats for fuel. I mostly made the post as a way to find specific food/meal examples to do so because I haven’t thought about it in a long time and have just been kind of eating whatever so I don’t remember what my options are. I got lucky and a trainer responded who was also able to give me some advice on how to hit the gym more effectively once I have the means to do so