In this article, we will discuss the top ways to gain weight fast and naturally. Do you need to increase a few pounds to make a sports team, better your health, or simply to bulk up? Most people are out to lose their weight, but you can reverse some basic dieting principles to gain some weight. However, many people do not realize that how challenging it can be to gain weight quickly. Fortunately, gaining weight is fairly natural and need not be strenuous or expensive. You only need some basic calculations and lifestyle modification to earn impressive results.
Ways to Gain Weight:
1.) Calculate the Required Number of Calories You Need to Gain Weight
To gain a pound, you will need an excess of calories over your daily calories a.k.a. resting metabolic rate (RMR). For an average man, this is 2500 and 2000 for women, and this will vary if you are doing any activity. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the amount of calories per day that your body needs to maintain your existing weight. We can easily figure it out with the Mifflin – St. Jeor formula:
- Find your weight in kilograms. You need to divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to convert it from pounds to kilograms.
- Find your height in centimeters. You need to multiply your height in inches by 2.54 to convert it from inches to centimeters.
- Put in your information into the formula: RMR = 10 * weight (kg) + 6.25 * height (cm) – 5 * age (yr) + x.
- For men, x = 5.
- For women, x = -161.
- Please note that the given formula calculates that how many calories you would burn if you spent the whole day resting. You would probably burn a few hundred more calories than your RMR indicates during the course of a normal day. The RMR is just a rough approximation to get your weight-gain diet started.
2.) Focus on Hefty Foods to Gain Weight
You don’t need to exclusively eat high-fat foods to gain your weight. Actually, you will gain weight more steadily and safely with a balanced diet. Adjust your diet slightly to include denser foods and extra herb. Consider these options in your diet:
- Drinks — Add some protein shakes, juices or whole milk. Avoid diet sodas.
- Breads — Hearty and dense breads, like whole wheat, oat bran, pumpernickel and rye, these are more nutritious than white bread. Make thick slices and spread generously with peanut butter, jam, cream cheese, honey, or hummus.
- Vegetables — Increase the amount of starchy vegetables such as potatoes, peas, winter squash, corn, carrots, beets. Avoid vegetables that are mostly water like cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, zucchini, celery, and cucumbers.
- Fruit — Prefer dense fruits (apple, bananas, pears, pineapple, dried fruit) and avoid taking watery fruit (peaches, oranges, plums, watermelon, berries).
- Soups — choose hearty cream soups over broth-based soups. Avoid store-bought soups if you have trouble with edema or high blood pressure, as it’s high in sodium and can be harmful to the patients with high blood pressure.
- Added oils — while cooking, add a generous amount of oil to your food. Unrefined (extra virgin) oils such as olive, coconut, canola, palm, and (of course) butter are the healthiest oil. Less healthy but yet satisfactory sources of oil are those high in omega-6 fatty acids (pro-inflammatory) like safflower, sunflower, and peanut oils. Unhealthy oils are those contain trans fats including shortening and soybean oil also known as aka vegetable oil.
- Spreads — you can spread delicious calorie-rich toppings on toast, bread, pitas, and any other carbohydrate source. This is an excellent way to increase caloric consumption. Guacamole, olive oil, hummus, cream cheese, butter, sour cream, nut butter, cheese slices, and mayonnaise are some of the good high-calorie spreads. For even more calories, try mixing these with shredded meats like chicken or fish.
- Supplements — there are some nutritional supplements that are designed especially for weight gain. Browse through the brands and products that are recommended for those suffering from illnesses that result in weight loss, such as Crohn’s disease or hyperthyroidism.
3.) Eat More Protein to Gain Weight
- A lack of protein in your diet can result in the loss of muscular body mass, even if you’re consuming excess calories. You need to include some protein-rich foods in your diet in order to gain body weight. Here are some foods to consider:
- Boiled soybeans: Soybeans are a natural source of protein. It contains a high amount of proteins that help increase your body weight quickly.
- Whey protein powder: Sometimes regular diets are not enough to fulfill the requirements of protein in your body. Whey protein is the best food supplement that fulfills the need of protein in your body and helps you gain your body weight.
- There are some other foods such as Peanuts or peanut butter, Steak or hamburger, Chicken or Tuna that are highly richer in protein and beneficial for weight gain.
4.) Start Weight Training to Gain Weight
- Weight training can greatly help in weight gain. It stimulates your appetite as well as converts your extra weight into lean body mass. There are few points you need to focus on before you start:
- The additional muscle will increase the rate of your metabolism, therefore you’ll need to consume a few hundred more calories to maintain or gain weight.
- During the first month of weight training, you may encounter enormous gains if you are committed to your schedule. However, also expect this to level off after this initiatory phase (also called as a plateau in the bodybuilding world). You can usually overcome this by re-evaluating your weight and muscle mass, along with altering your diet to add more food and heavier weights.
- When you begin a new training routine, you will often undergo extreme muscle soreness, known as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). This is completely normal and it should not prevent one from keeping to their weight training schedule. It normally goes away in 3 to 5 days, but may extend for more than a week in some cases.
5.) Lift Heavy Weights for Maximum Muscle Gain
- Weightlifting can be another good way to achieve hypertrophy (large muscles). The weights should be so heavy that after 12 or 13 reps you hit the “failure” (or the physical inability to lift again).
- Use forced reps. Seek the assistance of a spotter; you can do 2 or 3 more lifts even after the point of failure. Forced reps increase the stress exerted on muscle fibers and burden the target muscles, making them work harder than ever.
- Lift your weights as soon as you need to. If you can go with 15 lifts without hitting failure, you need to add more weight. It’s necessary that you keep increasing the weight of your lifts so that you can stave off plateauing.
6.) Avoid Overeating to Gain Weight
Cycles of overeating and fasting have been a known cause of uneven levels of glucose in the body especially in the people who aren’t used to it. It also causes insulin spikes as a result of the unexpected consumption of carbohydrates. You may need to give your body chance to adapt, or spread your calories more evenly throughout the day, in the case of uneven energy level in your body. This will be more helpful for people who are more active throughout the day, as glycogen levels will be difficult to replenish. Additionally, periods of calorie restriction improves insulin sensitivity that enables the body to perform specific maintenance operations it otherwise would not, such as recycling empty fat cells. Decreased insulin sensitivity improves the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
7.) Eat Figs to Gain Weight
Figs are considered as the most effective fruit to gain weight fast and naturally. They are mainly made of polyunsaturated good fats, which add healthy calories to the existing diet. Also, figs contain a sufficient amount of carbohydrates that is required by you to gain weight. You just need to soak five dried figs in water overnight. In the morning, eat them in two parts, morning and evening. Repeat this daily for few weeks to gain weight.
8.) Raisins to Gain Weight
Raisins can be really effective to provide you the desired result. They are rich in essential fatty acids which are required to gain weight. Furthermore, the raisins provide important nutrients to your body. You should eat a sufficient amount of dried raisins throughout the day to gain some extra weight. This is one of the simplest ways to gain weight naturally. You can also soak some raisins overnight and in the morning just eat them to gain weight.