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.
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