How to Gain Weight

Ok so in the last article I gave you the rules for gaining weight. In this article I want to elaborate on the diet rule. Some people will tell you that you just need to eat everything in sight to gain weight. While that is one way to do it I would recommend that you take a better approach. Mind you I said better approach, not easier. This approach involves some effort on your part in that you need to keep track of how many calories you are eating and how much protein you are getting.

I recommend along with many others that you take in at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you weigh 150lbs you should take in at least 150 grams of protein each day CONSISTENTLY. As you gain weight you must increase this number. You must spread your protein intake throughout the day and try to keep any single serving less than 40 grams. Your body can only digest so much protein at a given time.
If you don't take in this minimum amount of protein consistently each day you will not gain the muscle you desire. I know this can be difficult but if you plan ahead of time and make it a priority it can be done. I will post some tips on how to make this easier soon.

Now lets talk about calories. As you probably know you burn calories throughout the day. Even when you sleep you burn calories. To maintain your current weight you have to take in a certain amount of calories each day (this varies from person to person) but lets say you need 2000 to maintain your current weight. So if you ate more than 2000 calories you will start to gain weight. How much weight? Well 3500 calories is equal to 1 lb. This is something you want to remember. If you were eating 2500 calories a day instead of 2000 calories that gives you an extra 500 calories per day. If you did this for seven days (7 x 500) this equals 3500 calories which equals 1lb. Seems pretty simple huh? That really is the basis for gaining weight.

There are however a few tricky things to this simple concept. One of those being that most of us do not know how many calories we need to eat to maintain our current body weight. This is where keeping track of our calories comes into play. It's impossible to know how many calories your taking in if you don't keep track of it. This is why I feel that this is very important. Another tricky part here is that your body will burn more calories the more active you are. The amount of calories you burn each day will vary depending on your activity for that day. This makes it impossible to know exactly how many calories you would need to take in to get your extra 500 calories.

Here is what you can do to overcome this challenge. First you need to weigh yourself then start tracking your calories without making any changes to your diet. Do this for 3 or 4 days then weigh yourself again. If you haven't gained or lost any weight then average those days out. This will be an estimate of how many calories your body needs each day to maintain your current weight. If you lost or gained weight during those days you will need to make some slight adjustments. Once you have a rough idea of how many calories your body needs to maintain your weight you need to add calories to that number in order to gain weight. How much should you add? I recommend a goal of adding 1-3 lbs per week. Any more and you will start to add more fat than muscle. Any less and you will likely get frustrated at the slow progress and give up. Let's again say you need 2000 calories to maintain your weight. If your goal is to gain 2 lbs a week then you need to add an extra 1000 calories on top of this (3500 x 2 = 7000 calories. Divide this by 7 days equals 1000 calories per day) This mean you would need to eat a total of 3000 calories each day to gain your 2 lbs at the end of the week.

It is also important to eat these 3000 calories throughout the day. You need to eat more than 3 times per day. I prefer that you eat 6-8 meals a day. You should be eating every 2-3 hours. This gives your body a consistent flow of calories, protein and nutrients throughout the day. It's also easier on your digestive system.
I will be writing more on specific foods you should be eating. This should give you a basic understanding of what you need to do to get started though. Remember you must stay consistent on this. If you eat 3000 calories one day then go back to 2000 the next your not going to see any results.