How to Gain Weight : A Guide For Skinny People

This instructable will show you how to gain weight. This is really aimed at the fast metabolism (I eat like a horse and still can't gain weight) crowd.

If you appreciate this instructible, please visit my blog for more ideas:
GoodCleanCrazy

Supplies:
Exercise Book
Lots of Good Food (TM)
Weights to train with or access to a gym.

You can find good descriptions of stretching and strength training exercises in many books, "Scrawny to Brawny" is one example. I bought that book and it could have been fit into a pamphlet, but it described the exercises well.

You could look up information on your basal metabolic rate and caloric intake and lots of nifty formulas, but it's not really necessary to follow this as a process. In fact, I encourage you to look up all the assertions I'll be making to educate yourself and better understand why these techniques will work for skinny people. Don't take my word for it.

Now I'm going to boil down the weight gaining process for you. It's up to you to gradually work it into your life. It's work, but you can do it.

Step 1: Why You Have A Hard Time Gaining Weight

If you're skinny, like me, and you always have been, chances are you have a hard time gaining weight if you want to.

You've got a few things that prevent you from gaining weight:

1) A fast metabolism. The only way to get around this burn-everything-you-eat metabolism is to eat more than your system has the capacity to burn.

2) Higher percentage endurance muscle fiber vs. strength muscle fiber. There are two big types of muscle fibers. One is really good at aerobic exercise (if you're me, you have a lot of this). The other is strength fiber. Increasing body mass requires you to avoid endurance training as much as possible, especially during the first three weeks. You must lift weights to increase your proportion of strength muscle fiber. Heavy weights.

3) Your body proportions make some exercises difficult to do, if not impossible, without injuring yourself. The standard overhead barbell press will hurt my back, for example. This is because I have long arms, a short torso, and really long legs. I have to hold the barbell a different way than Ah-nold does. Avoiding injury will help you stay on the weight-gaining bandwagon.

4) A lack of knowledge. Previously, you didn't know what the price really was to gain weight. This instructable should square that away.

Comments

[admin]

Hey, this is a great instructable and is very informative. Just one thing is missing... pictures! It really helps a lot when trying to follow directions so you should consider taking some photographs. Once you do that and leave me a message when you have so that we can publish your work. Thanks! Thanks for the cool instructable and we hope to publish this soon!

[PandaxxxLove]

Welllll you see....... i was about 95lbs and i just turned 14. and i cant even pick up HEAVY weights, cus i have no muscle. and i have a (very) high metobolism (about 3 1/2 faster than normal ppl) im on my 3rd day, and dramaticly, ive lost about 5 more pounds. any tips? becuse i have offically decided to starve my self. -_-

[hmanana]

i have the same problem and i will follow these instructions thanks for helping us ultramind

[craftyv]

My husband (now deceased) was very skinny . He went to the Dr. to ask about " how to put weight on?". The Dr. said, "have I seen your before?" my husband said,"no". The Dr. said "goodbye, I don't want to see you again". LOL.

[deltri]

this info. was very helpful to me you said that you fell off the band wagon and time for me to get on. i agree i've been saying this yo my friends and famiily for a few weeks now. you sound like the male version of me. so anyway i'm going to try your tips and check back in in two weeks and post my results. thanks so much!

[elimyers3]

 Hey im 13, and looking to gain 20 lbs in about 10 weeks, any tips on exercises and foods? please

[killersquirel11]

aww man 4000 calories... that's it?  ... When I was in track i logged my times etc into mypramid.gov and it said I should be eating like 4500 calories... I was only eating like 3500

[Punkguyta]

Well generally, people shouldn't really need to gain weight unless you're into wresseling (yes, I don't care for the spelling). I seem to have a bit of a problem for some reason. I seem to have a weird metabolism, I'm not skinny, but I'm not fat either, I go to the gym and I can lift my riding lawnmower above my head in one fellow swoop (me and a friend had a weird competition, don't ask) and I barely eat at all, When I eat, it's so I don't die from malnutrition. Yet I don't seem to loose any weight, I hate the human physiology, and to be blunt, I'll say it now, human's are utterly disgusting, not saying people are pigs, but just how even basic animal organisms work..just nasty.

[royalestel]

Ah, c'mon girls are cute. And little kids. I have a two-year old daughter, and while I'm not too fond of her poopy diapers, she's just so dang cuuuuute! Anyhow, worked with hogs? I helped a guy castrate some pigs once, and it was NASTY. Boy do those things stink.

[Punkguyta]

Actually I'm helped decapitate a pig that died in it's stall and was too big to get out.

[royalestel]

Oh, icky.

[Punkguyta]

I would imagine.

[chennate]

Seriously, 6 eggs at a time? I mean, for the most part you sound what you know what you are talking about, but all of the cholesterol and fat and crap in the yolks, at least tell people to take them out. Good stuff about changing lifestyle slowly and making a commitment, though. Anyone considering this plan: the 4000 calories a day dosn't mean eat all of the crap you want, that has to be good, healthy food. Good Instructable!

[Cinder2007]

(removed by author or community request)

[royalestel]

Yeah. It's tough. One 1000 calorie shake goes a long way towards it, though. Also, as you start to eat more your capacity grows a bit.

[royalestel]

I was talking to my Dad (a long time nurse) about this last night. I never really thought about it until you brought it up. He thinks it's according to which medical camp you believe whether or not 6 eggs is good for you. The way I look at it 6 eggs is about 420 calories which is about 10% of my daily weight-gaining diet. I figure that's not a risky percentage, considering the adjustments your body must make to absorb/discard so many calories. I'm open to any other thoughts, though! And thanks for the compliment!

[rish009]

Thanks for the great info guys but here's my story. I'm 24, i'm from South Africa, i'm about 6"0 and i weigh just 110 llbs. I've tried it all but this is the diet i'm going to implement. Let me know what you think about it... Breakfast- 4 eggs, oatmeal, tea/coffee Brunch- Protein shake, snack of choice or fruit Lunch- Chicken with a salad Mid Afternoon- Two sanwiches Supper- Chicken or Curry or Pasta with a protein shake Before bedtime- 4 eggs. I've done the calculations and this should provide me with about 250g of protein. If i begin a light workout routine, surely i'll gain some weight! Well that's my hope. This is the last throw of the dice for me. Let me know what you think.

[royalestel]

I'd skip the tea/coffee for fruit juice, and having the 4 eggs as the last meal might make sleeping a bit harder. If you can stand eating those eggs with supper and eat a piece of fruit before bed, I think you'll avoid that problem. But, hey, we're all different! Let us know how it goes. I should post some updated pictures of my weight gain.

[metrometro]

Eat the eggs but dump the yolks. Some of the calories and most of the protien are in the egg whites, most of the cholesteral (which eggs have a ton of) is in the yolk. So go one or two regular eggs, then do just the egg whites. You might try reading running mags - most of them are full of recipes for healthy high calorie stuff. Now someone's gonna have to do an instructable on how to seperate an egg yolk. It's all in how you crack em.

[metrometro]

Important: you mention "eat good stuff." I'd add "Don't eat bad stuff." If you're ramping up calorie intake, you need to watch out for things like cholesterol and saturated fats. You hear stories about ultra-fit marathon runners who have low BMI, but really dangerous cholesterol because they're burning through a lot of supersize nastyness. You can burn off the calories but clog your arteries, even if you're young. A good physical (with blood work, not the 30 second 'sign the form so I can play sports kind) before and after this sounds like a really good idea.

[royalestel]

Yah, good point.

[SirisC]

The Calorie intake a day seems low to me, especially for high school age. We had to keep track of our daily calories for health class, I consumed between 6000 and 10000 calories daily and was still significantly underweight. (nope, no tapeworms) In fact, when I stayed in the hospital for 5 days at that age I lost 20 pounds eating the everything they fed me. Now that my metabolism (and my level of activity) has slowed down I can maintain my weight on about 3000 calories. Granted, I'm probably and exception to the general rule.

[ewilhelm]

I'm a huge eater too, but I doubt the 10K calorie number. However, I'd be convinced by, and would love to see, a list of what you ate and how much. For comparison, these guys skiing across the arctic only ate 6K calories per day.

[SirisC]

breakfast: 12 slices of french toast (made with 3 eggs, 2 cups whole milk, cinnamon and 12 slices of bread) topped with slice of butter and about 1.5 tbsp powdered sugar. Downed with 3 glasses of whole milk (5 cups I think)
(12 * 70 bread + 7 * 157 milk + 3 * 76 eggs + 350 sugar + 408 butter) = 2925

lunch: 4 slices of pizzahut meatlovers pizza with a glass (1.5 cups) of milk
(428 * 4 pizza + 235.5 milk ) = 1947.5

afternoon snack: box of macaroni and cheese made with whole milk
(270 * 3.5 + 408 butter + 39 milk) = 1392

So roughly 6250 Calories before dinner

dinner: bbq chicken (1 breast, 1 thigh, 2 drumsticks), mashed potatos with butter and garlic (roughly 1 and 1/4 cups), green beans (1/4 cup), corn on the cob (2 pieces with butter)
(about 900 for chicken?, about 340 for potatos, 310 for corn + 136 for butter) about 1680

midnight snack: 3 cups of dreyers cookies and cream ice cream
(960)

so I guess you're right, around 8900 calories.

[ewilhelm]

That's a lot! I used to drink that much whole milk, too. How tall are you, or what's your body mass index (mass in kg / height² in meters²)? I come in at a 19.9 BMI.

I think the real question is how much do you eat in a week? I could imagine myself eating this much in a day, but I wouldn't eat much the next day. While it would probably be too much to ask, I'd love to see a week's worth of data.

[SirisC]

Reply may be a bit late, but our assignment didn't require us to keep track for a whole week. Breakfast, afternoon and midnight snacks varied the most for me. Breakfast could be anywhere between 3 cups of cereal and a loaf of bread made into cinnamon or french toast. Afternoon snack usually at least 4 slices of cinnamon toast if I didn't want to cook. Midnight snack was usually a large serving of some dessert. Of course, now I wish I had kept track of how much I ate when at Scout Camp, it would have definitely been more.

[gmoon]

I expect you are the exception.

Through-hikers on the Appalachian trail (eastern US) average something like 8000 calories a day. These folks are hiking 7-10 hours per day, most carrying backpacks w/ > 50 lbs of gear.

And generally the appy trail isn't terribly physical...

[Dorkfish92]

This is a VERY helpful instructable! Thanks! I'm 14 and 90lbs. I have to gain weigth for wrestling and this will hopefully help.

[royalestel]

You know, since you're still growing, I'm not sure if this is a good idea to follow, asking your doctor would be better, I think. Just a caveat to consider .. .

[Dorkfish92]

Actually, my doctor told to try to gain weight because weight-wise, i'm in a VERY low percentile of people my age. Thanks!

[ELF]

Yea, eating alot of healthy stuff to gain some is a great idea, but I think royalestel is talking about the exercise. In that age, all intense muscle-strength training should be avoided unless you're under supervision of a professional instructor with experience in training anyone at your age...

[Robotrix]

nice! my friend and i scoured the internet for this very type of information a couple months ago.

[ewilhelm]

This might also be a great candidate for a collaboration in a food and health or food and eating group. See my other comment about that here.

[royalestel]

Aaaaand [http://www.instructables.com/group/WeightandExercise// Done.]

Wierd. It's not showing up.

[ewilhelm]

I think you put an extra slash in the URL.
Try going here to delete the group and make another without the trailing slash:
http://www.instructables.com/edit/manage/?groupId=GAC6QMOF2FRVBMN