My comprehensive guide to gaining weight

People are always asking for gaining advice here, so I thought I'd just make a post for me to refer people to. I've gained on and off for most of my life, and am currently 70 pounds heavier than my lowest weight. Like a lot of beginners, I used to be skinny, and I have a fast metabolism. Some people gain easily, and others don't - it mostly comes down to genetics. I have to put in a lot of effort to gain, or even maintain my weight, but if I can get fat, you can too!

The keys to gaining are knowing your body, having a goal, and being consistent. Let me break it down: First, consider your body and your calorie needs. You've probably seen the general advice of 2000 calories per day to maintain weight. However, that number can be much higher if you are tall, physically active, male, and have a fast metabolism. I'm all of those things, and from my own experience, I need to consume closer to 3000 calories per day, or else I lose weight. Second, consider your goal. It doesn't have to be a number on the scale. In fact, I discourage you from relying on just a number. You can set weight milestones along the way for sure, but for your goal, try to imagine the body you want. What shape is it? How big do you want to be? Do you want only fat, or muscle too? How much do you care about maintaining your health? Third, make a realistic plan and follow through with it. Stuffing yourself huge one day is great, but you're not going to gain much weight from one stuffing alone, and it's probably not something you can do every day. In a realistic period of gaining, you're likely not going to gain more than a couple pounds per week, but if you think about it, that's a lot and it'll add up quickly if you stay consistent, so stay focused!

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's do some math - I'll use myself as an example to make it easy. I need 3000 calories every day to maintain my weight. Anything beyond that gets stored as fat, and one pound of fat is generally considered to be about 3500 calories. So, if I eat 4000 calories every day for one week, that's 1000 excess calories per day times 7 days, so 7000 excess calories or ~2 extra pounds gained in one week. Now, in reality, the human body doesn't always work exactly like that - you may gain more than that, or less, but you *will* gain either way. If you are meticulous about counting your calories and tracking your weight gains, you can do the math to figure out what your daily calorie needs are. I was only able to figure out ~3000 for me after I'd been gaining for a week or two and could crunch the numbers from that data, so don't worry about it too much at first. If you're not sure what your daily calorie needs are for yourself, consider what I said above about height/activity/sex/etc. or if you're similar to me (6'1" active male), you can probably go with 3000 and follow the plan I made for myself.

Let's do some more math, and make a weight gain plan! All you need now is an amount of weight you want to gain over a period of time. Let's say I wanted to gain ten pounds in one month. That's 35,000 excess calories total (10 * 3500), so about 1166 per day (35000 / 30), on top of my own daily calorie needs of 3000. So, that means if I ate 4166 calories (3000 + 1166) every day for 30 days, theoretically I would gain 10 pounds. I've done this before, which is how I know it works! If you don't know how much you want to gain, find someone with a body shape you like, and figure out their BMI (requires height and weight). Figure out what weight you'd have to be at your height to be that BMI (you can use a BMI calculator). Once you have a goal weight, think of a reasonable timeframe to achieve it in. I wouldn't push for more than 10-15 pounds per month, so you may need multiple months. I strongly recommend making a note or spreadsheet to keep track of your daily calories and weekly weigh-ins, especially if you're new to this.

Okay great, now we know how to make a plan, but what do we eat to absorb all those precious calories? Well, if you don't care about your health, you can eat whatever you want. I value my health personally though, so I have some tips if you do too. Basically, you'll want to eat the same foods gym rats eat when they're bulking. You'll want to aim for calorie-dense foods, while avoiding too much salt, sugar, and dairy. You'll also want to make sure you're getting enough of the right nutrients, and lots of protein and fiber as well (it's easier to be both fat and malnourished than you might think). Here's a list of healthy foods that are high in calories: granola, potatoes, sweet potatoes, oats, bananas, avocados, flaxseed, chia seeds, walnuts, oat milk or low-fat milk (slightly fewer calories, but significantly less cholesterol), any type of nuts (I try to keep trail mix and things like that on hand at all times), peanut butter, chickpeas, olive oil, hummus, pita, pasta, dark chocolate, bread, bagels, black beans, corn, and cottage cheese.

Another quick tip is liquid calories. Obviously, there's a reason Boost VHC is so commonly-used in the gainer world. I limit myself to two of them per day, because they contain a lot of vitamins and minerals, and I don't want to risk damaging my liver by consuming too many. Soda is another common one, but I try to limit that because of all the sugar and lack of nutrition. Protein shakes are very useful. Mine has 2% milk, rolled oats, protein powder, flaxseed meal, chia seeds, peanut butter, and a banana, and contains around 800 calories. It's easier to drink calories than muscle down more food, so be sure to try that.

Cool, now we know how to make a plan, and what we want to eat. Now, how do we eat all this food? This will require a strict schedule and lots of planning. For me, it was almost like a boot camp. I ate six "meals" per day, and I woke up at 8:00am every day to make sure I had enough hours in the day to spend eating. I'd eat breakfast, drink a protein shake around 11:00am, eat lunch around 1:30pm, have a Boost and a protein bar around 4pm, eat dinner around 6:30pm, and eat a snack around 9pm. Each meal had to average 650-700 calories for me to reach my daily goal, but it's way easier for me to consume more calories later in the day than it is in the morning, so I ended up skewing it a bit. This all may sound like bliss if you have a big appetite, but this was hard for me to get used to. I was almost never genuinely hungry, and really had to push myself to eat every bite.

Meal-prepping is going to be essential. If you don't cook, it's going to cost a lot of money for takeout, and you'll have less control over how much salt, sugar, and cholesterol you're putting in your body. Some things I've meal-prepped include sausage and eggs (reheat and have with toast or a bagel for a quick breakfast), burrito bowls with tortillas, pasta with chicken, Chinese-style beef and broccoli with rice, chicken with pita and hummus, etc. Having things to snack on is helpful, too: nuts/trail mix, peanut butter toast, cottage cheese, veggies and hummus, dark chocolate, etc. When I meal-prepped, I'd calculate the total amount of calories, and divide it into portions of ~700 calories, so I'd know how many meals I had and how many calories each.

I recommend exercising during your gain as well. Exercise helps with digestion, boosts your appetite, and keeps your heart healthy. Your body is going to grow, and your heart is going to be working a lot, so it's good to keep it pumping. Lifting weights to build muscle is also nice for looking beefier, and fat also grows on muscle, so it'll be good if you want bigger arms, chest, thighs, and butt, in addition to a bigger belly. Don't forget to keep up that protein!

When it comes to tracking your weight gain, count your calories meticulously, but don't use the scale too often. I recommend only weighing yourself once a week, but being consistent about how you do it. I weighed myself on Monday mornings, after a bowel movement, and wearing nothing but my underwear. If you meet your goals every day, you'll see a higher number on the scale every time. You may have a week where you gained less than you would've expected, but don't be discouraged - a gain is a gain, and it'll probably be an even higher gain next week. It's happened to me.

It's not easy to meet your goals every day. Sometimes your appetite just isn't there. Sometimes you're busy and miss a meal. Sometimes you don't have time to cook. Sometimes you push yourself too hard and puke. It's okay, it happens. I've doubled up on calories by eating a big fast food meal later. I've had days where I didn't think I'd be able to make my goal, but turned it around by the end of the day. I've lost my lunch and thought about giving up. There will be ups and downs, but stay focused, and you can reach your goals. If it takes a little longer to gain than you'd planned, so be it. Don't hurt yourself, just enjoy the ride.

Hopefully this guide is helpful to anyone wanting to gain weight, especially if they've tried and failed before. It definitely takes time, dedication, and money for all that food you'll be eating, but it worked for me. It also removed some of the "mystery" about gaining for me as well, and made it into a more straightforward numbers game. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll try to answer them. Now go get fat!