The increasing rate of overweight and obesity problems in our society indicate the stress on weight reduction as compared to that on weight gain. Many people are naturally slim and are desperate to gain weight. Are you underweight and wish to look better with a slight weight gain? This article can guide you through the process to gain weight in a healthy way in addition to providing info about the benefits of gaining weight through some important and useful tips.
It should be, however, noted that this article is intended only to provide good info and it is advisable to consult a dietician/physician before adopting any of the following suggestions.
Problems with being underweight
There are many underweight people who possess a good health with a slender constitution. Being underweight can be an outcome of appetite loss or eating disorders resulting from different medical conditions. However, being underweight may lead to a number of problems like increased health risks, weak bones, and lesser reserves to maintain the immunity. Moreover, being underweight also affects fertility in women. It becomes a matter of great concern if you are experiencing unintended weight loss and always feel tired. In my opinion, you should think to gain weight but in a healthy manner.
Benefits of gaining weight
There are many benefits related to gaining weight by following some effective tips to gain weight as mentioned below:
Good Nutrition
In order to gain weight, the amount of nutrients consumed is increased. Being underweight may leave you deficient in healthy amounts of vitamins and minerals, like iron, calcium, proteins, and fats. Therefore gaining weight through increase in the intake of healthy foods is helpful in increasing the amount of nutrients consumed.
Feeling Filled
If an individual is underweight due to careful restriction of calories, it can make him feel hungry all the time. By making alteration in the diet and consuming a little more amount of calories to gain weight can make him feel fuller. Besides, if a little amount of fiber is added on to the diet, the digestive system will process that food faster, thus keeping hunger pains at bay.
Increased Immune Health
The journey to gain weight to reach a healthy weight may prove to be helpful in keeping the immune system healthy. Ample quantity of proteins and nutrients in the diet are essential for a healthy immune system and, thus, reduced risks of falling sick and even the seriousness of an illness on falling sick.
Healthy Nails and Hair
Increased amount of nutrition in the diet makes your hair and nails appear healthier. An effort to gain weight can raise the probable amount of nutrients consumed, thus leading to better appearance of nails and hair.
Increased Energy
Energy is obtained from the calories consumed. However, obtaining insufficient amount of energy from the diet can result in feeling irritable, fatigued, and may also reduce concentration. Thus, consuming more calories to gain weight can raise the amount of energy in the body.
Increased Fertility
Underweight women may take longer to get pregnant for the reason that weighing less can result in cessation of menstruation. Moreover, ample amounts of fat are needed to achieve a healthy pregnancy. Lack of sufficient fat on the body can affect the fertility. Thus, fertility is increased after the accomplished process to gain weight.
Increased Body Reserves
Unexpected and fast weight loss can take place on getting sick. Being underweight makes the individual more prone to the risk of complications in sickness. As per a research, efforts to gain weight can provide you with reserves that can be used by the body during illness. Moreover, these body reserves lessen the risk of complications associated with being underweight thus keeping the body supplied with essential nutrients during sickness.
Helpful tips to gain weight
Before starting with the process of weight gain, it is important to know whether the diet plan adopted is right for you or not. To gain weight in a healthy and successful manner, the basic fundamental is to intake more calories than what is normally consumed. The estimated daily requirement of calories on a daily basis for an average male involved in light activities is 2200. The same requirement for a female is 1900 per day. An individual needs to eat approximately 1000 additional calories every day to gain as much as 1/2 kg in a week. This is possible by eating larger portions and having a minimum of five meals every day. The calorific requirement may, however, differ depending upon the height, weight, metabolic rate of the body, and the activity level.
There are, however, certain useful tips that can prove good help to gain weight. These include:
Take healthy food
One of the most important tips to gain healthy weight includes eating milk products and adding non-vegetarian products to your diet. These can include replacing vegetables by eggs as a meal. Taking food with high content of protein and starch, like rice, potatoes, and tapioca, can also help you gain weight.
Protein consumption
Increasing the consumption of protein can also help you gain weight. Ample amount of protein is required by the body to build new muscles. However, as a large number of calories helpful to gain weight are obtained from fats and carbohydrates, they cannot be replaced by proteins. A minimum of 1gram of quality protein should be consumed per pound of the total body weight.
Increase snacks to your diet
Milk shakes, cheese sticks, dried fruits, muffins, and yoghurt for the protein food category. Therefore, instead of eating junk food, try to eat snacks as much as possible in a day. The best snacks to gain weight include nuts.
Consume healthy beverages
As a part of tips on gaining weight, try to avoid cold drinks for these cannot help you gain weight. The only thing they can do is to make your body uglier. Therefore, instead of drinking these aerated drinks, prefer drinking beverages which provide calories accompanied by nutrients. These include milk, energy drinks, and fresh fruit juices.
Exercise well
As there is so much that is consumed during the efforts to gain weight, it is equally important to start working out as a part of tips on gaining weight. There are two reasons to support the need for work outs –
a) You would obviously not like to have a bulging stomach.
b) Also, it is better to look toned after gaining weight.
Pursue weight exercises
There are numerous exercises which can help you gain weight. It is advisable to focus on muscle exercises which can be carried out without the help of machinery. Being one of the important tips of gaining weight, these exercises may include free weights putting more stress muscles thus stimulating most of the muscle fibers. Some useful exercises include dead lifts, squats, bench presses, bar dips, and barbell rows.
Be regular
In addition to the foresaid tips on gaining weight, it is important to be regular in doing what has been advised. Also, it is necessary to be positive and not lose hope. Moreover, keep a proper scheduling and have high level of patience for the process may take a few months.
Some additional tips which can be helpful to gain weight include:
- Avoid overnight work and studies.
- Take proper sleep at night. In addition to proper sleep, it is also important to sleep at the right time.
- Drink sufficient fruit juices.
- Ample intake of fruits.
- Incorporate meat, fish, and legumes in your diet and eggs in the breakfast.
- Stay away from junk food.
- Include starchy foods like sweet potato, potatoes, and corn to your meals.
- Include a minimum of six bananas per day or consume banana milkshake.
- Replace tea with milk.
- It may be useful to drink a minimum of 2 glasses of milk per day.
Gaining weight through exercises
In addition to the above mentioned tips, there are also some exercises which can be helpful to gain weight. Some important exercise tips for gaining weight include:
- Carry out short but intense workouts, i.e. less than an hour.
- If you wish to gain bulk weight, adopt free exercises which strain large muscles in your body. Some of the examples include dead lifts, pull ups, squats, bench presses, and bar dips.
- The repetitions should be short and weights need to be heavy. It is enough to take a rest of 3 minutes between sets.
- Avoid performing more than 2 or 3 exercises for each body part.
- Usually, people with a high metabolism are underweight. It is advisable to train them with higher intensity. However, the workouts need to be less frequent.
- Schedule your workouts for only three days per week but each day should be scheduled for a different body part, for example, chest, shoulders, and biceps on one day; back and biceps on the other; and abs and legs on the third day.
Ideal exercises for gaining weight
1. Chest Exercises include inclined bench press with bar & dumb-bells, flat bench press with bar & dumb-bells.
2. Back Exercises include dead lifts, one arm row with dumbbell, pull-ups, lower back extension, bent over back rows.
3. Shoulders Exercises include hack squats, lunges with dumbbells or bars, calf-raises or presses, and stiff-leg dead lifts.
4. Biceps exercises include hammer curls, standing cable curls, standing straight bar curls, and standing alternate dumbbell curls.
5. Abs exercises include leg raises, lying crunches, cable crunches, stability ball crunches, and inclined bench crunches.
Moreover, yoga can also prove to be help to gain weight as it regulates the body metabolism. Besides, yoga helps in improving the strength and posture. Some beneficial asanas include surya namaskar, chakrasna, bhujang asna, sarvangh asna, dhanur asna, and hal asna.
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