You can gain weight with a healthy diet

Certain circumstances make people lose weight, it could be for medical reasons for example after losing weight to sickness or one can look for weight increase for purposes of competing favourably in physical sport.

Monday, July 27, 2015
The first rule for anyone aiming at weight-gain is to consume more calories than one expends. (Net photo)

Certain circumstances make people lose weight, it could be for medical reasons for example after losing weight to sickness or one can look for weight increase for purposes of competing favourably in physical sport. 

People have various reasons for weight increase desire. However, it is not easy to purposefully increase one’s weight.

Medical practitioners say it is much easier to lose weight on purpose than to gain it. The most certain way to add onto one’s weight is through nutrition. A proper weight-gain diet is the best approach in any endeavour to gain healthy and lean muscle mass.

The first rule for anyone aiming at weight-gain is to consume more calories (energy) than one expends.

Much of the food we eat is broken down into calories (energy) to run the body’s metabolic system. To gain weight, one needs to ensure that some nutrients remain there to build the muscles as well as for storing as fat to increase on body mass.

Most people who find it hard to put on weight simply do not eat enough calories. This means all they eat is used to run the body systems and nothing remains for muscle building and storage as fat.

People should have regular feeding pattern. The body can only utilize a maximum amount of nutrients at a time.

Therefore, eating so much between long periods is less effective for weight gain because the body will only utilize a certain amount and pass on the rest.

Yet with the aim of building muscles fast, there is need for maximum retention of the nutrients necessary to accomplish that.

For example you can eat four to five small meals a day, each meal coming after about four hours so that the stomach has time to digest each meal fully.

This enables the body system to be constantly in the process of adding nutrients to its mass from the constant digestion, causing fast weight gain. However, people should avoid inconsistency in the dietary habits while seeking weight gain.

The body is more likely to store fat when it is unsure when it will get its next feeding, so the fat will be turned into calories to run the systems when no meals are taken.

Yet when the body gets used to being fed consistently, it is less likely to store energy as unsightly fat, rather using it for body building.

It is worth to know that the body relies on a wide variety of nutrients to attain mass. Carbohydrates should be eaten as energy-giving foods for the body’s metabolism.

Their calories do not directly build muscles or add to body fat, and so they have to work together with proteins and fats for weight gain.

Foods that are recommended for carbohydrates include whole cereals (like rice), whole grain foods like bread, posho and millet, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.

Proteins are the body’s primary raw-material for muscle repair and construction.

Without enough in-take of them, consumption of other nutrients will have limited impact on muscle development.

Proteins make muscles develop in a lean and proportional shape, as opposed to fats alone which just generate any-shaped mass.

Healthy protein sources include poultry, fish, legumes, nuts and seeds. Red meat is good if eaten once or twice each week, caution should be taken as more red meat contains a lot of saturated fat.

Fats and oils not only combine with carbohydrates to provide energy for the body, they also have more than twice the amount of calories provided by protein and carbohydrates.

They also play great roles in building muscles being the starting point of manufacturing other fatty acids that the body needs to support lean muscle growth.

Healthy sources of fats and oils include fish, flax seeds, olive oil and nuts.

Vitamins are foremost on boosting body immunity and are thus necessary for keeping you healthy so that any gained weight is not quickly lost to sickness.

They also complement the carbohydrates and proteins in both muscle-building and calorie provision.