What to Eat to Gain Weight? Proven Eating Plan for Skinny People

Posted by Rob D. on March 23, 2011 in Training and Nutrition | 2,907 comments

In this article you’ll learn what to eat to gain weight. It doesn’t matter whether you are just starting out and you are completely new to muscle building or if you’re an experienced athlete who wants to add few extra pounds to his or hers frame – the strategies that I am about to share with you are effective and more importantly – they are proven and tested by time.

• Increase your daily caloric intake.

I know that this doesn’t sound groundbreaking, but the reality is that the energy, calories, which is needed to make your body grow comes from the foods that you eat. In order to start gaining weight you first of all you need to increase your daily caloric intake.

First of all you should figure out how much energy (calories) does your body needs per day. You can do this simply by using some of the online tools that are easily accessible to everyone. Simply enter your gender, weight and activity level and you’ll be given the exact number of calories you need per day in order to maintain your body weight.

Once you know your daily caloric needs you then need to increase that number. From my experience I can tell that the best way to start gaining weight is to simply start to consume around 500 extra calories per day. For example at this moment in time I need around 3000 calories just to mantain my body weight, yet I actually consume around 4000 calories which provide my body with enough energy to make it grow.

• Gather calories from high quality foods.

Once you know how many calories you’re going to consume then you need to be really careful about where do you gather those calories from. The reality is that some foods will make you gain fat, whereas others will help you to add high quality lean muscle mass to your frame.

For example 110 grams of chicken breast contains 202 calories, 0 carbs and 30 grams of high quality protein, whereas one “Snickers” bar contains 202 calories, 34.2 grams of carbohydrates and around 4 grams of protein. As you can see one type of food is packed with high quality muscle building material (proteins), whereas the other one is packed with empty calories and sugars.

Maybe this is an obscure example, but the point I want to make here is that if you want to gain high quality lean muscle mass then you need to be really careful about what you eat.

So what should you eat?

Foods that contain a lot of high quality protein

Proteins are building blocks of everything within your body: your skin, your nails and most importantly your muscle tissue. If you want to start gaining high quality weight then you need to make sure that you provide your body with enough building materials. It is recommend that every meal that you eat should have around thirty grams of protein which can come from foods like:

• Cottage Cheese
• Chicken
• Tuna
• Salmon
• Beans
• Beef
• Eggs

Food that contain complex carbohydrates

You also need to make sure that you consume enough complex carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide our bodies with easily availble sources of energy and if you won’t consume enough carbohydrates your body will start to look for other sources of energy – proteins! If you won’t consume enough carbohydrates your body will be constantly in a catabolic state where instead of gaining lean muscle mass – you will be losing it. Therefore make sure that you consume enough carbohydrates:

• Oatmeal
• Rice
• Pasta
• Potatoes

Food that contain healthy fats
Finally you also need to consume enough healthy fats in order to make sure your joints remain healthy and also to make sure that your cell production runs smoothly and efficiently:

• Fish oil
• Flaxseed oil
• Olive oil

To conclude this article I just want to say that if you are new to fitness then you need to understand that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. To many people are looking for the “secret diet” or for the “secret little pill” that will allow them to achieve their fitness goals with no work. The reality is that there are no such secrets. All you need to do is focus on the basics, it doesn’t matter whether it’s nutrition or training, and move one step at a time. If you want more information about how to quickly and easily gain lean muscle mass then make sure that you check out Vince Delmonte’s website about muscle building. Click here.