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.
Nuts and seeds? Avocados? Olive oil? Cheese?
Good calls. I do avocados a lot and have been ramping up my oil use lately. I used to do a lot of nuts but have stopped recently due to bits getting stuck in my tonsils (I really gotta get them fuckers removed. Big af and cavernous for no reason)
Do you eat desert?
I don’t do a lot of super sugary things like cakes or candy. I used to have really poor dental hygiene which made those foods physically painful to eat and even now I don’t choose them often. Fruits with creams are a great idea though, and yesterday I actually had to slam some chocolate because I could feel my blood sugar getting low lol
Research well before getting your tonsils removed. They’re not vital, but they’re an important immunity center.
I’m aware. I’m also aware that my family has had issues with their tonsils for several generations - especially as they get older. I’d rather bite it in the ass when before they cross the line into harming instead of helping. I’m gonna talk to an orthodontist or whatever and get their opinion on when would be best to do that.
I appreciate the reminder to be diligent
Lift weights and eat proteins. Increasing your leg muscles will gain you several kilos. For protein you can just supplement with pea protein isolate. Has the same effect as protein from meat and you don’t need to eat massive amounts of veggies to hit that target protein intake. For fats you can eat macadamia nuts and pecan trough out the whole day. Like macadamia nuts are about 75% fat. Don’t gain weight through carbs. Yes it’s the fastest way but it’s also the unhealthiest way. It will just fuck up your blood sugars and increase your chances to become a diabetic. Sure carb load if you need to run a marathon in a few days. But doing it frequently will only damage your body.
Agreed with everything here but be careful about which protein powder you choose as some plant based powders have been found to contain higher levels of toxic metals.
See:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7509468/ , https://www.realsimple.com/unsafe-levels-of-lead-and-cadmium-found-in-47-of-protein-powders-tested-here-s-how-to-minimize-your-exposure-8774590
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.
Protein supplements with weight training and other strength building exercises.
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.
Should do potatoes more often. I really like peanut butter but haven’t kept it around in a while, I could definitely do with some more PB&Js. I do peanut sauces on my noodles quite often as well
You need to integrate the food with a workout regimen to build some muscle.
This might sound weird, but it’s delicious if you like peanut butter: mix it with some high-fat, plain Greek yogurt and it’s divine.
I also sometimes sprinkle some fibre buds or chopped pecans on top 🥵
Organic chunky peanut butter is addictive by the spoonful
I have a naturally lean body type. I put on quite a lot of good weight by doing strength training over several months. I supplemented my diet with a protein shake of which I drank half before training and the remaining after it.
Try it! It’ll take time but you’ll gain weight in a healthy manner and feel good about it.
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.
Pastas, oils, lentils, nuts, legumes, and beans ig.
But do conaider that muscle will be a more sustainable form of weight maintenance for your metabolism. Also, protein poweders are very high in calories.
My sympathies. I will be watching the responses, I’m 170cm and I’ve never broken past 55kg, no matter how hard I’ve tried… I’m vegan, but I had the same problem long before I went vegan.
My body seems intent on pinning my weight to this value. Even in periods of high sedentary lifestyle or high exercise, I’ve always been between 53 and 55 kilograms. My fitness watch does report other metrics improving (VO2 max) but my weight stays the same 🤷🏻♀️
First of all, how old are you. You may not have to do anything at all when you agree in your 30s just from natural changes.
I had this same struggle, and I started construction work when I was 25. I had a fightclub physique for a time, and then when I transitioned to office work I gained 20-30lbs.
I’m doing ok now.
You may not have to do anything at all
I’m not gonna sit around and wait for my metabolism to slow down. I’d rather put in the work to fix and maintain my weight and then readjust as it slows down
You could get into baking bread! It doesn’t require much effort or money, it’s interesting (to me, at least, your mileage may vary on this point), fresh bread is absolutely delicious, and bread also happens to have a heap of calories in it. Wheat didn’t get to be one of humanity’s two all time top sources of calories by being weightwatchers-approved
Bread is great! I also do pastas a lot for the same reasons. Thankfully, my sister loves to bake and maintains a batch of sourdough which I’ll definitely be trying to steal off of periodically.
I just moved into my new place and haven’t had time or tools to test my oven yet. I also am still adjusting to a new schedule, and my partner is going to need to adjust to a new schedule soon so we’ll see how much baking we manage to do in our household. Store bought bread will have to make due in the case of a lack of baking
Good luck on settling into the new place and schedule!
My sister is a keen baker as well, but it works out quite nicely for us — she’s excellent at doing sweet things, and I like to do bread, so we’ve got a good exchange situation going on. But yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with buying it when the time and/or effort is needed elsewhere first
You could try a nutritional supplement like carbohydrates or protein;
I’ve been meaning to pick up some Mass Gainer for this reason. Right now, I’ve been drinking those breakfast shake thingies as snacks because they’re like 300 calories. Only issue, they’re pretty nutrient-dense so they sit heavy in my stomach.
Supplements will be getting a more thorough look-through once I have a bit more liquid on hand to do so
If it’s only 300 calories, it’s probably a diet shake and packed full of fiber to make you feel full. You’re better off switching to normal milkshakes.
As you’re vegetarian, I would get really into dahl cooked with ghee. It’s incredibly tasty and has so many calories.
Packed full of fiber
Damn I never even thought to check that. Normal milkshakes will be the future.
Dahl cooked with ghee
To the archives! There’s learning to be done (I have no idea what that is so I’m gonna go look it up lol)
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
-
- 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
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
cron diet though is calorie restriction with optimal nutrition. adding calories would take away from the longevity effect walfords saw in mice, monkeys, and the good results from biosphere 2.
No I know what you’re getting at but I’m like going too far with it right now. I have almost nothing to keep my body going day to day lmao I need to have at least a little bit of life on my bones
ok yeah. makes sense. I do know though people who follow the diet can’t heavily excersise with so few calories.
I’m vegetarian
Stop that.
I’ve tried a few times. It kinda fuckin sucks to transition back to meat
It doesn’t have to be meat. You can eat eggs, cheese, and maybe fish? Salmon is my go-to. Milk products such as cream and yoghurt. Nuts! Maybe seafood, such as mussels, clams, crab, prawns?
Unfortunately I stopped eating fish back around 2020. All plant based these days except for eggs and dairy. Wouldn’t suggest it to anyone, this diet is achievable but difficult.
Nuts and everything else are a great land. I have to be careful with cheese though. Not enough fiber to balance it out and my bathroom breaks start getting annoying.
Yes, changing dietary habits sucks. But a healthy approach is rarely easy.
Right but it’s also entirely unnecessary. It’s possible to put on weight and consume plenty of protein without meat. The lightest I’ve ever been was while I was still eating meat, and the heaviest I’ve ever been was while vegetarian.
You’re holding your own well, but I just want to encourage you not to let the dude bro gym bros talk you into eating meat if you don’t want to
