Many people associate weight loss with exercise and fitness. There is a time and place for weight gain, but it can be just the same! Both athletes and the general population need to achieve muscular weight, whether for their aesthetic, health, or sports goals. Their first instinct is to eat more.
Let’s get this straight. It’s important that you gain weight in a healthy manner, just like weight loss. Sometimes this is called a “clean bulk”. Clean bulk is when you combine strength training with nutrient- and calorie-dense food to gain as much weight or muscle mass as possible. You can build your muscle mass and support other body systems by eating whole, unprocessed food. However, processed foods and empty calories are more likely add fat to muscle than those that are prepared from whole, unprocessed foods.
Doug Kalman, registered dietician and instructor in Bodybuilding.com’s Foundations of Fitness Nutrition course, says that “Gaining quality body weight, which is essentially gaining a lot of lean muscle mass and very little fat, is difficult than it seems.” The key to success is not how you train. Full-body training, CrossFit, bodybuilding splits, and CrossFit are all ways to gain muscle. What you eat can make a big difference.
Watch the entire “How to Gain Weight” video from the Foundations of Fitness Nutrition course to get a complete education on quality weight gain and healthy eating habits. Read on for tons of great tips that you can use today to make the scale rise.
The Fast Version: How to Lose Weight Quickly
Here is a simple way to gain quality muscle weight.
* Keep track of your nutrition to see what you’re eating right now.
* Eat lots of healthy food.
If eating becomes difficult or costly, you can drink shakes that are rich in nutrients, calories and protein.
* Strength train at minimum 3-4 times per week
* Sleep big–6 hours minimum, 8 hours ideally, plus naps if you can.
Be patient and do the hard work. Adjust as needed. Doug Kalman, Ph.D. RD advises, “If you aren’t gaining half a pound a weeks… eat more.” Keep doing what you are doing if you gain 1 pound per week. You can dial it down a little if you are gaining more than that.
Don’t expect to continue to gain weight forever. Kalman suggests that you give this approach six to eight weeks. Then, slow down a bit and watch what happens. Doing this for long periods of time will only wear you out and increase the likelihood that you are adding muscle, not fat.
Basics of Weight Gain
How to Lose Weight
It can be difficult to eat enough food to make weight loss happen. You don’t have to eat junk food or fast food if you want to increase your calories. There are better options. Do not eat at the drive-thru. Instead, make an effort to eat more muscle-building foods that are both nutrient-dense as well as calorie-rich.
Then, take the following list to the store. Plug each item into the below eating schedule and watch the scale change in the right direction. You could still get all the nutrients you need by drinking one gallon of milk per day. However, mixing your diet with other foods will allow you to have a wider variety of nutrients and make it less monotonous over time.
The Best Weight-Gain Foods
Proteins
* Oily fish such as salmon and sardines
* Red meat
* Dark meat turkey and chicken (thighs, drumsticks).
* Protein bars and powders
* Homemade protein treats
* Whole eggs
Fats
* Nuts, nut butters
* Seeds
* Avocados and avocado oil
* Olive oil and olive oils
* Coconut milk, coconut milk, or coconut oil
* Full-fat milk, butter, or cheese
* Mayonnaise
Carbohydrates
* Fresh and dried fruits
* Starchy vegetables such as carrots and peas
* Sweet potatoes and potatoes
* Whole-grain breads, bagels, pasta, and other whole-grain products
* Granola
* Trail mix
Here is a sample of Douglas Kalman’s daily meal plan, Ph.D.
Weight-Gain Meal Plans
* 7:30-8 a.m.:3-4 Eggs, 2 slices whole-wheat bread with nut butter, bowl fruit, glass milk
* 11:15 a.m.: Grilled chicken breast, thigh, or broccoli, and a cup of brown rice with olive oils and nuts
* 3:00 p.m. – A few more large handfuls of nuts and dried fruit or granola
* 6 p.m.: Post workout protein shake (if you train during the night).
* 7 p.m. : Flak steak, sweet potatoes, or a grain, large salad with avocado
* 10 p.m. Yogurt, cottage cheese or casein protein mixed in nut butter
Weight-Gain Shakes
Cooking and eating all the food can become a chore. Here’s where shakes come in.
High-calorie smoothies or drinks called weight-gainer shakes allow you to consume a lot of calories and protein in a short time. These can be used as a quick, substantial meal replacement, or as a snack before bed.
There are two main ways to make gainers. You can either buy a mass-gainer or create your own. Both have their advantages. Both are great for your health. Even if DIY is your preferred method, powders are great for when it’s not practical to use a blender. These situations call for one of our top muscle-building protein powders.
How to make your own Weight-Gain Shakes
Start with protein powder, and then add calories in any way that you can. Be creative! Blend at least one of the ingredients from each category until you get a smooth texture.
* Protein: Whey protein powder or plant protein powder, mass gainer, Greek yogurt, silken tfu
* Carbs: honey, fruit, molasses and sweet potatoes (seriously!)
* Fats: nut butters, coconut oil, tahini, avocado, avocado oil
* Liquid: Milk, cream, almond, soy, coconut, coconut milk, coconut water and fruit juice
6 Monster Weight Gain Shake Recipes
Here are six powerful shakes that will help you make massive gains. They were created by Paul Salter MS, RD, a registered nutritionist and competitive powerlifter. The three best are great for anytime you need calories and the rest are great for post-workout when your muscles need fuel.
What amount of protein, fat, and carbs should you eat to gain weight?
Protein
While protein is important for weight loss, it is not necessarily more. There are many weight-gain diets out there that recommend eating 2-3 grams of protein per pound. However, Doug Kalman, Ph.D. registered dietician, states that beyond that point, extra protein won’t help to increase muscle mass. It could actually cause you to lose your money and upset your stomach.
“As long you are within the protein sweet spot of 0.8-1 grams per pound [of bodyweight], you are covered. This is approximately 1% of total calories for most people.
Kalman says that it is best to spread your protein in small doses throughout the day.
Carbohydrates
To support strength, size and performance, aim for 50% of total carbohydrate intake. These are some carb tips taken from Kalman’s video in Bodybuilding.com’s Foundations of Fitness Nutrition course.
* “If you are looking to gain weight, this is not the time to eat low-carb. Yes, there may be a slight loss in muscle definition as you gain weight. It’s okay. Each pound of muscle that you add now will help make it easier later.
* “Keep added sugars to a minimum, even if you are bulking. They are not worth the calories or fat. Whole grains. Veggies. Fruit. These are your carbs, eat lots of them.
Fat
Fats are an essential part of our diet. Fats are important because they help to digest certain vitamins, maintain optimal hormone levels and brain function, and many other vital functions. They are also the easiest way for you to increase your calories. A gram of fat has 9 calories. This is more than double the amount of calories found in protein and carbohydrates, which each have 4 calories.
Fats are good for you, as they provide energy and taste great. This doesn’t mean that you need to eat a lot of donuts. You’ll reap all the benefits of fats from high-quality sources like nuts, seeds and olive oil, but without the empty calories.
Fats have a lower thermic impact than protein and carbs. This means that your body will burn anywhere from 5-30% less calories digesting fats than the other macronutrients. [1,2] The less calories your body uses to digest food, the more weight it can retain.
Cooking your meat or vegetables in olive, coconut or another calorie-rich oil is a great way to increase your diet’s fat content. A little oil can be added to protein shakes, but you won’t notice it. With your choice of protein, you can sneak in extra fat. You can opt for 80/20 ground beef or chicken thighs, instead of super-lean chicken breasts. Also, look for more marbling in your steaks. You can also try T-bone and rib-eye.
How many calories do you need to gain weight?
Calorie counting may seem like something you do only for weight loss. However, it can also be helpful for weight gain, particularly if there isn’t much change in your body. Sometimes, you may not be eating as much as your body needs.
It is very simple to gain weight. The calories you consume must be greater than the calories you burn. This calculator will give you an idea of how many calories it takes to gain weight.
The calculator will ask you to select the activity level that best suits your lifestyle. Be honest! It’s not going help you to gain quality muscle weight if you claim you are very active but you are not.
Add at least 500 calories to your TDEE number once you have it. For a few weeks, continue eating 500 more calories than your TDEE to see what happens. If your weight doesn’t change, you can increase your TDEE to 750 calories or 1000 calories.
Doug Kalman, Ph.D. is a registered dietitian who explains how to count calories in Bodybuilding.com’s Foundations of Fitness Nutrition course.
“Create a food diary. Keep track of what you eat and how much. You can then take this information and enter it into one of the many nutrition database websites. This will give you your baseline calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown. This is much easier with a cheap food scale than it was just few years ago.
You should not gain weight too fast, e.g. more than 2 lbs per week for several weeks. Drop it to an additional a day. You can expect to gain 0.5 to 1.5 pounds each week if you eat the right calories and do the right exercises. Adjust your calorie intake if you aren’t in that range.
How to train for weight gain
When weight loss is your goal, strength training is essential. There is nothing better to send your body a clear message to grow on a hormonal and muscular level. It also makes you hungry! !
If you want to lose weight, it is important that you do strength training at least 3-4 times per week. It doesn’t matter what style you choose, it matters that you do it consistently. If you do the exercises well and eat right, you can easily gain weight by doing bodyweight exercises in your living room. If you have the means to access a gym or weights, they can be an excellent tool for weight gain.
These guidelines will help you maximize your gains.
* Keep to strength- and hypertrophy-focused protocols. They can be done in many ways but they all involve a lot of repetitions of 8-12 reps, with a maximum of 5% of your one-rep max. This type of training has been proven to significantly increase muscle-building hormones, testosterone and growth hormone. [3] While you may perform some more intense work than others, it is worth spending some time in the muscle-gain “sweet spot”.
* Work hard but allow yourself to take breaks between sets. If you are unsure, take a few seconds to rest between sets of 8-12 reps. You’ll burn so many calories if you push yourself to the limits and then jump back in, that you won’t be able to do as much work during a workout. Your heart rate will drop if you take adequate rest breaks before starting your next set. You can keep your heart rate low to help you eat less calories while you train.
* Try to gain more weight by pushing, pulling, or squatting more. Strength and muscle go hand in hand. Mechanical tension, which is the tension that your muscles create when you are trying to resist a heavy weight, can be one of the mechanisms that promote muscle growth. Cell swelling, also known as “the pump”, and muscle damage are the other two mechanisms. These are what you do in those intense sets of 8-12 reps.
* The number of sets you do is not as important as your exercise selection. You won’t get big if you do only wrist curls. For mass packing, big lifts like the bench press, deadlifts, deadlifts, row variations and the squat are hard to beat. Single-joint work can be done. You can increase strength and size through leg extensions, curls, lateral lifts, and arm workouts. Cell swelling is maximized by doing leg extensions, curls, and lateral raises. They are not sufficient on their own but they have their place.
* You don’t have to be your nutritionist or personal trainer. You are probably not qualified, sorry! You can gain weight by following proven methods that increase muscle strength and weight.
The most popular programs for muscle-building in Bodybuilding.com BodyFit Elite are:
Here are 16 ways to see better results with weight-gain tips
Increase your food intake, eat more, and lift more weight. It sounds easy, right? Information flash: It is not.
There are some tricks and habits that will help you gain weight faster and more easily. These aren’t revolutionary solutions but can help you fine tune your plan and stick to it for a longer time. This will pay big in the long-term.
1. Never train if you are hungry. You will be unable to train at the same intensity if you don’t fuel your body before starting a workout. This can make your body use muscle tissue to gain energy. This will not cause you to gain weight.
2. When you train in the morning, the most important meal of the day should be the one that you have right after you finish your workout. Your body will absorb any calories that you provide it after you have finished a workout. This is the time to get a higher-calorie shake.
3. Eat every three to four hours. You don’t need to eat eight or more meals per day. However, you should not go longer than five hours without eating. Spread your calories, especially the protein, throughout the day.
4. Do not leave the house without a plan. Keep wholesome snacks on hand, like trail mix and peanut butter sandwiches–seriously! This classic recipe is a weight-loss miracle. In case you are caught without food, always keep a large shaker bottle with protein or weight-gain supplement in it.
5. You don’t need to adhere to the no-salt no-butter no-flavor rules. All of them can have their place, provided they are within reasonable limits. You must eat more and your food should taste better.
6. A post-workout protein shake is a must. Why? It is quick to digest and takes up very little space in your stomach so you can eat quickly.
7. Avoid following any trendy diets like keto, intermittent fasting, or paleo. All of these are great for weight loss, but not weight gain. You can always return to your goals later, so focus on your goal.
8. You can eat more food at home so that you don’t feel guilty about eating larger portions. The same goes for your glasses: Take out the 8-ounce glasses. Grab those 16-ounce tumblers. Fill them with milk and protein shakes.
9. Learn from someone else! It becomes a team project and a competition if a friend is training with you. This also helps to put “eating a lot” in perspective by comparing how much others eat.
10. A workout program that increases muscle strength or muscle mass is recommended. It won’t take much cardio or light lifting to make it work. You must give your muscles the signals to grow in order to build muscle. You don’t need to eat extra calories to build muscle.
11. Sleep should be a top priority, just as important as training and eating. You don’t grow your muscles when you go to the gym. They grow when you rest! Napping was a well-known technique used by old-school bodybuilders. You won’t see the results you want if your sleep isn’t good.
Sleep is important for rest, allowing you to train harder and ensuring that your anabolic hormones are at their highest levels. Cortisol levels can rise if you don’t get enough sleep. [5] Cortisol, a stress hormone that your adrenal glands produce, can stimulate muscle loss.
12. You should pay attention to details so that someone is not losing weight but gaining it. This means you should log your food and exercise, keep track of your body, take note of the changes in your mirror and keep track how you feel. It’s possible that you don’t care about counting calories. It’s worth it to stay on track during a dedicated gaining phase.
13. Find your motivation. What is your motivation for following this path? Are you pursuing a particular strength goal? Do you require more muscle mass? A friend or doctor has told you that you are underweight. Are you looking to gain strength and more activity? Do you need more bulk to build muscle? You might also want to be more muscular or less thin. No matter what reason you have, consider your ideal weight to reach your goals. It will be easier to keep track of your progress and remain motivated if you have a weight goal.
14. Remember that increasing your calories to build muscle will also increase your fat mass. Don’t panic! Your fat gain will be minimal if you lift regularly and include cardio. The more muscle you have, the easier it is to lose weight and appear defined. It’s unlikely that 20 pounds of unneeded fat will be added to your body if you have been struggling to lose weight.
15. Be patient. It takes time to achieve healthy weight. Understanding the importance of going in will make it much easier to stay focused and not get discouraged. Your body will have time to adjust to your new eating and training habits.
16. Let’s not forget about the importance of using this opportunity to develop a positive relationship around food. Cook your own meals and enjoy sharing your meals with others. Too often people get too caught up in the meaning of food that they forget to enjoy the food. Enjoy the process of feeding yourself. When possible, eat with your family and friends. Invite friends who will be willing to accept second–or third–helpings.
What are the best weight-gain supplements?
Food and strength training are the real factors in quality weight gain. These simple supplements can help you gain weight. Some help with recovery, others increase intensity of workouts, and some help to get enough calories to continue growing.
Protein
Good luck if you are looking to build muscle mass on a diet that doesn’t include occasional shakes. Research has shown that protein supplements can be combined with strength training to increase lean mass, i.e. muscle. While you can certainly reach the scientifically supported benchmark of between 0.8% and 1.5% per pound of bodyweight per day by eating only, you can achieve it much more quickly with a few scoops of protein supplements to aid you.
Douglas Kalman, Ph.D. recommends that you consider powders and drinks as convenience supplements. If a shake is all you need to get your protein, then have the shake. The shake is a good choice if you are trying to lose weight or you don’t want to eat a meal.
Read “The Complete Guide to Protein” to learn more about protein and how it can help you train more effectively.
Weight Gainer
Many weight-gainer products are loaded with protein, carbohydrates, and fats so that you can increase your calories quickly. You can consume over 1,000 calories from a single product! These products are also known as mass gainers, gainer drinks, and weight-gain proteins. The Complete Guide to Protein explains how these protein-rich supplements can help you achieve your goals.
Creatine
Creatine can help you improve your performance at the gym and has been repeatedly shown to increase strength and muscle. Creatine can also draw water into your cells, making your muscles bigger and more powerful. Take 5-10g per day anytime of the day. This is a great way to build muscle. Read “Your Complete Guide To Creatine Monohydrate”
Supplemental Carbohydrates
You can get more calories into your diet now than you ever have before. Add some quick-digesting carbs such as dextrose to your pre- and/or post-workout shakes or BCAAs to your diet. You can train harder if you use carbs more as fuel for intense workouts. Registered dietician Paul Salter explains this in his article “Your Guide to Intra Workout Carbs.”
ZMA
You need to allow your muscles to rest after a workout if you want them to grow. ZMA is a popular supplement for muscle recovery and repair. ZMA, a combination of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B-6, is recommended before going to bed in order to increase muscle recovery. [7,8]
Testosterone Boosters
It is not the same as testosterone replacement therapy. Testosterone boosters don’t work like that. They are usually a combination of ingredients that athletes have a low level of, such as zinc, or that have been linked to higher testosterone levels in research. You can find a wide range of ingredients and dosages. The “Complete Guide to Testosterone Boosters” provides a deeper dive.
Pre-workout Supplements
Pre-workout supplements can do one thing, they help you get the most from your training sessions. Vasodilators are often found in pre-workout supplements. These ingredients can increase muscular pump, which is one of the main drivers of muscle growth, and also provide energy and intensity for training. You can find more information in “The Complete Guide to Preworkout Supplements.”
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