How to Eat To Gain Weight _ Foundations of Fitness Nutrition

In a world where it seems like everyone is trying to lose weight .

You're going to go against the grain and try to make the scale go up .

You're active and athletic and maybe you wanna add size for your sport to get stronger for your appearance or just for the heck of it .

It's great .

But know this gaining quality weight .

In other words , mostly lean muscle mass and relatively little fat is harder to do than it gets credit for how you train is just one part of the formula .

You can gain muscle with full body training , a body building split , doing crossfit or something else entirely .

How you will eat makes the biggest difference to be clear .

You're going to be eating a lot .

But smart weight gain is about far more than just overeating .

Anyone can overeat .

But how you allocate all those extra calories will make the difference in how your body responds to continue the food as fuel metaphor that has guided us throughout these videos .

Many people chase muscular gains by dialing back fuel quality and simply trying to pump as much as possible into their tank .

That's the recipe to end up wheezing while you walk up the stairs and seeing waist gain , which is not to be confused with quality weight gain .

Instead of that , you're going to be far , far better served during this time to think of your body as an expensive sports car that demands the highest quality fuels and plenty of them .

Here's how to do it .

Ok .

You wanna gain weight ?

Let's start by counting calories .

Isn't that more for someone who's looking to lose weight ?

Actually , it's probably more important for you now than ever .

Here's why when weight gain is the goal , everyone is different and no standard recommendation will work for everyone for a number of reasons .

Some people will have a very difficult time gaining weight , no matter what they do , others will gain easily and plenty of so called hard gainers just think they're eating a lot .

But a more objective measurement shows them where they are seriously lacking .

You can't understand which camp you fit in until you know how you're eating right now .

No , the answer won't be exact , but you still need it to start off on the right foot .

Here's where to begin .

Create a food diary record .

Every bite you eat and every drop of calorie containing beverage for an entire week .

Don't change how you eat during this week .

Try to keep it as normal as possible because you're creating a baseline to work from record both what you eat and how much then take that information and plug it into any of the many free nutrition database websites and get your baseline calorie and macro nutrient breakdown .

With the cheap food scale as your only tool .

This is actually a lot easier than it was just a few years ago .

You'll also need to know your basal metabolic rate , which is how many calories you burn each day at rest if you do nothing at all .

This is something you can have precisely measured in a lab or not quite as precise , using online calculators .

Again , this won't be exact .

But along with your calorie baseline , it is a great place to start when you have it though .

You need to add to it .

Usually about 500 calories above your maintenance calorie level is where you'll start if you're not gaining weight after a few weeks of eating 500 extra calories a day , add another 500 calories a day and try again be patient .

This could take time .

You could also call this step , don't miss a meal .

But honestly , if you don't have a plan , do you even know if you're missing a meal when wanting to gain weight ?

It helps to think of your body as a fireplace .

If you have ever had a room that is being warmed by a fireplace , you know that it is only truly warm when the fire is burning .

Not when the fireplace has glowing numbers or is totally empty .

So how do you keep your fire burning at an even flame and temperature by adding wood every few hours at a minimum for you .

This means never going longer than four or five hours and ideally more like 3 to 4 hours without taking in some quality nutrition for most people .

This means at least four meals a day along with one or two snacks or small meals .

Here's how it could look .

Breakfast at around 7 30 or eight in the morning , three eggs , two slices of whole wheat toast with some nut butter along with a bowl of fruit and a glass of milk .

An early lunch at 11 .

Let's go full bodybuilder for this meal .

A grilled chicken breast , broccoli and a cup of more brown rice along with some olive oil and nuts in the rice .

At three , a snack , a couple of more big handfuls of nuts , plus some dried fruit or granola .

Let's say you work out after work .

Ok , then you'd slam a protein shake and an hour or so later have a big dinner flank steak , sweet potatoes or a grain and a huge salad with avocado in it before bed time again .

For more protein and calories , maybe it's yogurt or cottage cheese or a case and protein drink or maybe it's one of those mixed with nut butter .

It may sound like a lot , but none of this is a huge meal .

The first rule of weight gain club or at least quality weight gain club is to eat something relatively small but nutritionally substantial every few hours .

This helps you distribute your calories throughout the day .

A far better approach than piling them on with the starve all day .

Eat all night mentality by spreading your meals throughout the day .

You'll not only grow but have the energy to power through intense workouts and recover from them .

Then the next day get ready because you'll wake up and do it all over again .

Now , you know why pro body builders sometimes say they feel like professional leaders after a few days or weeks of eating like this , you could see how it could be exhausting .

It demands planning execution and well , just a whole lot of chewing and swallowing .

This often leads to even the strongest willed people to start chasing their calories from easy sources , fast foods , sugary desserts and epic binges on junk food .

Will this make the scale move up ?

Maybe ?

But it'll also leave you feeling awful adding the wrong kind of weight and struggling throughout your workouts which to be clear , are essential for gaining quality weight .

So how do you push calories high by getting them from the most efficient but still high quality sources ?

That means fats .

But before you reach for the onion rings , remember what we said in the fats video , the type of fat matters both in the type of weight you'll add and in your long term health .

So how much fat should you shoot for in your total caloric needs without advocating any popular diet or system shoot for about getting 25 to 35% of your overall calories from healthy fats .

If you're aiming to eat 3500 calories in a day , this would be about 1150 calories from fat in action .

That can mean strategies like this .

If you've only been having two whole eggs at breakfast , it's time to think more like three or four walnuts and other nuts should be your constant companions .

Maybe even at breakfast having nuts as snacks or in salads is also a no brainer .

So look for deals and buy them in bulk at the big box store .

The same goes for seeds or nut butters , add ground flax seed to breakfast cereals , shakes or yogurt , put almond or peanut butter in your bedtime protein snack .

Look for natural peanut and almond butters , not the sugary highly processed kind marketed for Children and don't pour off the oil .

That's the heart healthy calorically rich stuff .

Mix it back in and enjoy it .

And sorry if you saw this coming .

But if you don't like avocados , maybe you should learn , add them to salad eggs , sandwiches or just have a whole avocado as a snack .

They're undeniably healthy and undeniably caloric .

You'll find plenty of mass building diet plans out there that have you consuming unbelievable amount of protein like upwards of 1.5 or 2 g per pound of body weight a day .

The kind of numbers you can really only get by living off of meat and protein shakes as we discussed in the protein video .

The current research indicates that these sorts of excessive intakes are most likely safe , but are they necessary ?

Probably not as long as you're in the protein , sweet spot of 0.6 g to 1 g per pound of body weight .

Consider yourself in the sweet spot for most people .

This breaks down to about 20 to 30% of total calories .

Honestly , just as important as that precise daily number is how you space it out matters .

Like in our fireplace analogy , get those solid 20 to 40 g of protein from quality sources at each meal and get them often .

But it doesn't hurt to measure this protein number more precisely than the other two just to make sure that you're at least hitting the baseline number when it comes to carbs .

The sweet spot is more like 50% of your total calories .

A tried and true number for strength size and athletic performance .

But whether you measure that number or not , let's be clear about a couple of things when you're looking to add weight , it's definitely not the time to go low carb .

Yes , you might see a slight decrease in muscle definition when you're adding weight .

That's ok .

Every pound of muscle you add now will make it easier to become more defined later .

Even if you're bulking , keep added sugars as low as possible .

There is really nothing to be gained by relying upon them other than pounds of fat .

Instead , aim for whole grains , veggies and fruit .

These are your carbs .

Eat lots of them .

Yes , you may have to work slightly harder and spend more time planning and cooking this way .

No , that's not a bad thing .

Yeah .

Looking for a simple rule to follow here it is .

Eat the same good stuff .

Only more of it .

If you're not gaining a half a pound a week , eat even more .

If you're gaining £1 a week , keep doing what you're doing .

If you're gaining much more than that , dial it down a little bit .

Strain train at least 3 to 4 times a week and sleep big , like six hours , minimum eight hours ideally .

And if your schedule allows it , try to learn that old school body builder , secret weapon of a muscle nap during the day , that's the formula for gaining quality muscular weight .

And it's going to be more effective than any supplement that you buy or any particular rep scheme in your workout .

Give this approach 6 to 8 solid weeks and then dial it back a bit and see what has changed , doing it for months and months at a time will probably just wear you out and increase the possibility that you're adding fat , not muscle , put in the work use your fork and you'll put on the pounds .