A lot of people have trouble gaining weight, even if they try to. This is especially true for skinny guys, that’s why they are skinny after all in the first place, they can’t gain weight to save their lives.
Some ways to make this easier are: having more frequent meals, having shakes and smoothies and eating more calorically dense foods that contain a higher amount of fat and calories.
In this article, we will talk about how we can do this and maintain a healthy diet at the same time.
Is being skinny bad?
There is nothing inherently wrong with being skinny, if that is the look you want, then go for it, no-one is stopping you and you have my blessing.
The issue comes when you take things too far to the point of being severely underweight, which can have a negative impact on your health in numerous ways. You can read more about the risks of being underweight by checking this article.
If you just happen to be underweight due to you intuitively being on that weight, due to high metabolism etc, this article will definitely help you gain weight but if you have some sort of mental illness that contributes to you being underweight, this article is not enough and I would highly recommend that you seek help from a doctor and/or a therapist.
Coming from a point in my life where I was also underweight and had a mental illness severely affect both my body, my mind and my day-to-day life, I can assure you that there is nothing to be embarrassed about and the sooner you get help, the better.
Another instance where being skinny may not be good, is if you do not want to actually be skinny, which might be the case if you are reading this article. Unless you just enjoy casually reading random articles from people on the internet.
Being skinny when you don’t want to be is definitely something that we need to fix. Not only because you have some arbitrary physique and/or strength goals, but also because it will imrpove your mental health. You will have a more positive self-image and your self-respect and confidence will improve, which will have an overall positive impact on your daily life.
High calorie foods
This means things that you could have from take out, pick up from a grocery store etc, the so-called “junk” or “fast” food.
I am including this first not because this is the best way or the thing you must do no matter what but because this is what most people think bulking is. Orderding pizzas and burgers and fries and clowns and balloons. That’s not it chief.
It is ok to have these foods every now and then and it will definitely help with gaining weight but it would be best if you did not have them very often as they are some of the most unhealthy foods you can find.
That being said, the dose makes the poison, so you can have junk food once in a while without feeling bad for it.
Add more meals
One of the most usual ways to gain weight and eat more food is simply adding more meals to their diet. It make’s all the sense, doesn’t it? It’s easier to have 6 meals of 500kcal than 1 meal of 3.000kcal.
I am speaking from experience here, I have tried this myself. Gather around my chair kids, it’s story time from grandpa skinny.
On my first ever bulk, I was having 3.000kcal per day and all of them were consumed at the end of the day, before bed. I ran that experiment on myself because here at the skinny hero headquarters we are scientists and intellectuals and maybe kinda twisted.
Or maybe I was just a 19-year-old that was busy with university and life in general and that was the way of eating that suited my lifestyle the most. I was out of the apartment all day long and would only come back at night to eat and sleep (and charge my phone because you cannot live in the current day and age without your phone, stop lying to yourself), which was also when I had this big 3.000kcal meal. The next day it would be the same thing all over again.
That being said, just because I did it, it does not mean that I would not recommend it. I have a pretty big appetite and still, it was super hard for me to eat all this food at once and a lot of times I was so full I could not even stand up straight or move in general without my stomach hurting.
And looking back, obviously, there were small things that I could have done to spread out my calories even a little bit, with a quick snack here and there for example. But I kept going, which gave me +3 on wisdom and added to my inventory the right to tell you to not do that.
Nut butters
These are butters made from nuts. Shocking, I know. Now, I cannot tell you exactly how they are created cause I do not possess this knowledge, it is one of the big mysteries of the universe, along with magnets and how they work.
But you can find nut butters from all kinds of nuts, like peanut, cashew, hazelnut and almond to fit your own unique preferences and achieve the flavor profile you long for. The reason nut butters are so good for adding weight is because:
1) They are so high in calories that you can easily hit your calorie goal for the day if you incorporate a nut butter in your diet.
2) They have an ok amount of protein, so it’s not like bulking on chocolate and candy, which have a huge amount of calories without any amount of protein, making it easier to fit it into your macros.
3) It is a really flexible food that can be used in all sorts of recipes, giving you the ability to have it often without eating the same food all the time, which is something a lot of people need to enjoy their meal plan and not feel restricted.
Spreads
You may be wondering why I put nut butters in a separate category than spreads, the reason is that even though there are so many different spreads out there, nut butters are some of the most utilized and popular ones, so they deserve their own category in my opinion.
But there are many more spreads that exist other than nut butters and Nutella. There is regular butter that can be used as a spread, there is jam and there are even savory spreads like cheese spread and tzatziki. You could even mix and match and use two or more spreads at once, the possibilities are endless.
Using these makes it really easy to crank up the calories while having a delicious meal, you can have them on bread, rice cakes or anything else you want, one of the most popular breakfast options is bread and butter for example. It’s no coincidence that the phrase is so popular and if you haven’t given it a shot, you are missing out big time. Like, very big time, at least 4.
Oils
Oil is the food with the highest amount of calories, having around 890kcal per 100 grams, making it really easy to increase the calories of any meal.
Of course I am not telling you to chug glasses of oil to get your calories, that is not the point, we want to make the process as effortless and as enjoyable as possible. Deep frying everything is also out of the question, because we also want to gain weight in the healthiest way possible. Now, as we said above, you don’t need to be super strict and you can have your “junk” food and your deep fried stuff but doing it day in day out is a recipe for disaster.
Instead, what you can do is add some oil here and there to splash in some easy calories. For example, you could add 5 grams of olive oil to your rice after you cook it to add a bit of flavor, you could have a bit on top of your steak, in your salad or even in your smoothie, especially if its taste is mainly dark chocolate.
Smoothies
Last but not least, the king of easy calories, smoothies and liquid calories in general. Smoothies are so good for bulking up and gaining weight because they are much less satieting than solid food. Which means you don’t get as full when consuming them resulting in you being able to eat more food.
Plus, smoothies are super versatile and it’s very easy to make them caloric bombs. You throw a bunch of random sh*t there and it will still taste like heaven as long as you have a good base (eg. milk and chocolate).
Some popular smoothie ingredients that will skyrocket the calories and the taste are protein powder/mass gainers, oats, peanut butter/Nutella, raisins, chocolate drops/sprinkles, bananas, crushed nuts and many more. Try all sorts of combinations, have fun with it and find your favorite
But the true secret ingredient some people include to get the extra edge is olive oil. Just enough so that it doesn’t affect the taste but it still adds calories.
Conclusion
Gaining weight can be hard at times, but hopefully, this article just made things much easier for you. If you have tried all the things I said above and you still can’t see results, you should check this article on the reasons why you might not be gaining weight
Share this article with a friend who might need it.
Cheers!
