Diet for weight gain: 20 important components of the diet

Not every­one wants to lose weight. There are quite a few peo­ple who are con­cerned about the oppo­site prob­lem: how to increase body weight. Because being too thin is not only not beau­ti­ful, but also not healthy. The body needs to be in prop­er, healthy con­di­tion in order to func­tion nor­mal­ly. Oth­er­wise, prob­lems begin.

But “get­ting bet­ter” should also not be just like that, if only the num­bers in the win­dow would grow on the scales. As a rule, we are talk­ing about an increase in mus­cle mass. And diet plays a key role in weight gain. Med­AboutMe talks about 10 impor­tant com­po­nents of prop­er nutri­tion.

Do not save fat, but feed the muscles

In an effort to gain weight, you should focus not on the size of clothes, not on kilo­grams and not on cen­time­ters of vol­ume. As a rule, BMI is bet­ter suit­ed for this — body mass index, which gives an idea of ​​u200bu200bthe cor­rect ratio of height and weight of a per­son. BMI is cal­cu­lat­ed by the for­mu­la:

• Weight expressed in kg : (Height in m) ²

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) con­ducts sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies, on the basis of which a “nor­mal” BMI val­ue is deter­mined, devi­a­tions from which are con­sid­ered unde­sir­able. A low BMI means you are under­weight, while a high BMI means you are over­weight or obese.

It can­not be con­sid­ered an ide­al indi­ca­tor of BMI, but it is quite pos­si­ble to focus on it when cor­rect­ing body weight.

There are oth­er indices that allow you to deter­mine not only the ratio of height and weight, but also the ratio of mus­cles, bones and fat “reserves” of the body. In order to cor­rect­ly build a plan for mov­ing towards the goal in the form of a beau­ti­ful and healthy body, it is bet­ter to con­tact spe­cial­ists who will not only be able to cor­rect­ly deter­mine the cur­rent state of the body, but also give advice regard­ing the train­ing sched­ule, reg­i­men, and, of course, diet.

If the goal is not to become a sumo cham­pi­on, then it is very impor­tant to prop­er­ly plan the diet so that the mus­cles get enough ener­gy for phys­i­cal work, the organs of the body are not nutri­tion­al­ly defi­cient, and that noth­ing has to be stored for future use in the form of fat.

The process of increas­ing body weight should be as grad­ual as los­ing weight and should not exceed 2 kg per month. To main­tain just such a reg­i­men, you need to indi­vid­u­al­ly cal­cu­late the dai­ly calo­rie intake. This indi­ca­tor will be adjust­ed if nec­es­sary, and for this you need to keep a diary in which to record changes.

As a rule, when gain­ing mass, the basis of the diet is car­bo­hy­drates — from 40 to 60%, a lit­tle less pro­tein — up to 35%, and the least fat — 10–15%.

Changes in nutri­tion should be grad­ual so as not to dis­turb the func­tion­ing of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract.

What foods best meet the require­ments of a weight gain diet?

Carbohydrates: cereal, chocolate, bread

• Por­ridge is an excel­lent source of “slow” car­bo­hy­drates that sup­ply the body with ener­gy. It is usu­al­ly advised to focus on oat­meal and buck­wheat, but rice should not be neglect­ed either. Por­ridges can serve as side dish­es for meat and fish, or be an inde­pen­dent dish, for break­fast, for exam­ple. You can add dried fruits or fresh berries, milk, kefir, but­ter (in mod­er­a­tion) to the por­ridge.
• Bread is also a good source of car­bo­hy­drates. Suit­able whole grain bread or with the addi­tion of bran. If you have a bread machine, you can pro­vide your­self with deli­cious bread with a vari­ety of addi­tives — sun­flower or pump­kin seeds, nuts, prunes, etc.
• For those who love choco­late, it is quite pos­si­ble to include a treat in your diet. But only high-qual­i­ty, with a cocoa con­tent of at least 70%.
• Nat­ur­al mar­malade, marsh­mal­low and marsh­mal­low. But not east­ern, but in the north­ern ver­sion, from apple­sauce with egg whites. Although the east­ern one, made from pureed berries, is also a good del­i­ca­cy.

Protein sources: meat, fish and seafood, eggs

Pro­tein is nec­es­sary for build­ing mus­cle mass, these are the “bricks” from which mus­cles are built. The source of this impor­tant com­po­nent is:

• Chick­en and quail eggs. They can be con­sumed almost every day, and togeth­er with the yolks. The norm of chick­en eggs — up to 10 pcs. per week, quails can be more. Eggs can be scram­bled, boiled, or added to oth­er dish­es.
• Seafood is an excel­lent source of pro­tein. Crabs, shrimps and squids should take their right­ful place on the table. And they will be accom­pa­nied by fish, from which the body will receive not only eas­i­ly digestible com­plete pro­tein, but also such impor­tant nutri­tion­al com­po­nents as Omega‑3. Fish can be both fresh­wa­ter — carp, pike perch, pike, and marine. In par­tic­u­lar, mack­er­el, cod, all types of salmon, from chum salmon and salmon to arc­tic char and trout.
• Meat and poul­try. The opin­ions of nutri­tion­ists are divid­ed here. Some rec­om­mend mak­ing beef the basis of the pro­tein diet, while oth­ers insist that turkey and chick­en breasts are much more suit­able for those who seek to increase mus­cle mass. But, since red meat is still bet­ter to lim­it in the diet, you should give pref­er­ence to poul­try meat. Turkey and chick­en fil­lets can be boiled or baked, used both as a hot dish and as a cold snack and snack.

Dairy products: forget about low-fat varieties

• Milk is valu­able not only because it con­tains both pro­teins and fats in a rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­ly digestible form. Drink­ing milk can reduce the unpleas­ant con­se­quences of intense phys­i­cal activ­i­ty in the form of mus­cle pain. If there is no lac­tose intol­er­ance, whole milk and dairy prod­ucts can be includ­ed in the diet dai­ly. They can be includ­ed in smooth­ies, milk­shakes. Milk is added to cere­als, and yogurt and kefir can serve as a dress­ing for sal­ads.
• Cot­tage cheese is a good source of pro­tein and cal­ci­um. You can serve it with sweet fruits, nuts, dried apri­cots and raisins, or fla­vor it with herbs, gar­lic and light­ly salt. A good snack is obtained from a mix­ture of cot­tage cheese, sour cream or yogurt, fresh herbs. The mix­ture can be spread on bread or stuffed with fresh toma­toes. The opti­mal fat con­tent of cot­tage cheese is 9%.
• Real, live yogurt will not only ensure the intake of pro­tein, but also main­tain the opti­mal com­po­si­tion of the intesti­nal microflo­ra, help to improve the func­tion­ing of the intestines. To have com­plete con­fi­dence in the absence of unwant­ed com­po­nents in yogurt, it is bet­ter to cook this healthy prod­uct your­self, it is not dif­fi­cult at all.
• Cheese, hard and soft. Cheese is an excel­lent source of cal­ci­um and pro­tein. It is only nec­es­sary to avoid too salty and spicy vari­eties of cheese so that excess salt does not cause water reten­tion in the body and swelling.

Fruits, vegetables, berries: fiber and carbohydrates

First of all, it’s just deli­cious. Sec­ond­ly, it is very use­ful from any point of view.

What veg­eta­bles and fruits should you pay atten­tion to first?

• Bananas. These fra­grant fruits con­tain starch — a source of “slow” car­bo­hy­drates, and potas­si­um. You can snack on bananas (includ­ing after a work­out), add them to smooth­ies and fruit sal­ads.
• Cher­ry, the juice of which helps to get rid of mus­cle pain after sig­nif­i­cant phys­i­cal exer­tion.
• Dates. A few dates are a great, ener­giz­ing snack.
• For­est and gar­den berries — cur­rants, rasp­ber­ries, lin­gonber­ries, straw­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, etc. A won­der­ful source of vit­a­min C, a deli­cious addi­tion to por­ridge, cot­tage cheese, as well as a com­po­nent of nutri­tious and vit­a­min cock­tails and smooth­ies. Please note: when prepar­ing home­made yogurt, berries should be added to the fin­ished prod­uct, as fruit acids inhib­it the growth of ben­e­fi­cial bac­te­ria and inter­fere with fer­men­ta­tion.

• Avo­ca­do is a unique fruit that should be con­sid­ered more of a veg­etable than a fruit. Avo­ca­do fruits are very high in calo­ries, while they are per­fect­ly absorbed. Avo­ca­dos are used to make sal­ads, add them to rice and pas­ta dish­es, or sim­ply scoop out the ten­der, oily pulp of a ripe fruit with a spoon.
• Root crops: car­rots, beets, turnips. They are quite high in car­bo­hy­drates, but the main advan­tage is their high fiber con­tent. In addi­tion, it is one of the most inex­pen­sive and wide­ly avail­able prod­ucts. Unlike the same avo­ca­do, for exam­ple.
• Pota­toes. Pota­to lovers can exhale: a diet for mass gain allows the inclu­sion of pota­toes in the diet, unlike “weight loss” diets. Pref­er­ence should be giv­en to boiled and baked pota­toes. And don’t overuse it.

Seeds and nuts

• A hand­ful of nuts can be a good snack. And they are added to sal­ads, casseroles and home­made bread. Pay atten­tion to almonds, wal­nuts and hazel­nuts, cashews, as well as sun­flower and pump­kin seeds, sesame, flax seed.

Bon appetit and beau­ti­ful fig­ure!

Expert com­ment

Grant Tins­ley, Phys­i­ol­o­gist, Sports Nutri­tion Spe­cial­ist, Texas

The first thing to start with any weight cor­rec­tion, both down­ward and upward, is an exam­i­na­tion of the body. This will deter­mine his con­di­tion, and pos­si­bly iden­ti­fy the rea­sons why the weight does not increase or decrease. Only after that, tak­ing into account all the data obtained, it is pos­si­ble to begin to devel­op a cor­rec­tion pro­gram, includ­ing not only the amount and sched­ule of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and diet, but also the lifestyle.

It is good if it is pos­si­ble to con­stant­ly mon­i­tor the state of health and the process of weight change, mus­cle growth and fat reduc­tion.

In order for weight gain to pro­ceed grad­u­al­ly, it is nec­es­sary to cal­cu­late the dai­ly num­ber of calo­ries so that the sur­plus is about 10%.

It is impor­tant to have a bal­anced diet. And it is equal­ly impor­tant to avoid stress and dis­rup­tion of work and rest.

In the best case, all work is car­ried out under the con­stant super­vi­sion of a sports nutri­tion spe­cial­ist in coop­er­a­tion with a train­er. So you can time­ly adjust both the diet and train­ing loads.