How do I gain weight and gain fat in a healthy way?

[yuuichi]

I am someone with a very fast metabolism and like many young men my age, I have a very hard time gaining weight and gaining fat.

 

Cooking a good, healthy meal takes so long. Like 1 hour out of my day. So cooking 3 healthy meals a day takes 3-4 hours out of my day. But I don’t want to cook unhealthy quick meals. Even cooking a simple rice pudding takes almost an hour, and I have to stay near it and continuously stir it all the time.

 

So what I sometimes do is make a lot of fried rice in the morning, refrigerate what I didn’t eat for breakfast and continue to eat it throughout the day. But I don’t want to eat fried rice every day. It’s quite dry and gets boring after a while.

 

Does anyone have any good ways to get fat quickly, but in a healthy way, without complicated ingredients and without too much time required?

Edited October 4, 2018 by yuuichi

[Kar3n]

Protein shakes.

 

Get yourself a crock pot or and Insta pot for cooking meals you do not have to stand over. There are many recipes on line for cooking meals in both.

[Aetherous]

45 minutes ago, Kar3n said:

Protein shakes.

 

True, these and protein bars make people fat. I think it's the whey protein that does it, and maybe other types don't have quite the same effect, like hemp protein. (This same advice is bad for people who are already overweight wanting to simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat, because they might gain muscle but they won't be losing any of that fat! They'll be adding some).

 

Drinking milk works. Have a glass with every meal, and sometimes with a snack. For instance here's a snack...apple slices, cheddar cheese slices, and you could add a glass of chocolate milk. Yum!

Your meals should be big. Do you live in the US? If so, this will make sense: when you go out to eat at a typical restaurant, the portion is generally pretty big for most people. Keep all your meals around that size, and finish the whole thing. If you're really wanting to get fat, then know that being stuffed and bloated is how fat people feel after their meals.

Have at least breakfast lunch and dinner. Include a snack some time in the day. Have a snack before bed, too. It's not necessary to eat every 2 hours or something, but fat people do tend to have the square three meals and then add snacks sometimes.

Meal ideas: burgers, chicken enchiladas, pepperoni pizza, egg salad sandwich, etc. It sounds like you've just been eating fried rice? That's not how bigger people eat. Sounds like cooking has been a pain...well some of these things can be made quickly. You could prepare certain ingredients ahead of time, and then just throw things together and heat it up...for instance with making a burrito.

When you make your own food, if you're wanting to get fat, make sure it's turning out to be the same size as at US restaurants...not smaller.

Develop a sweet tooth. More sugary foods, and just munching on these things whenever you want. Junk food is what fat people eat. Look at the snacks and candy aisle of the grocery store...find some salty snack, some sweet snack. If you're sitting down later on to watch a movie, have the snack during.

I bet if you took all of this advice, and if someone followed you, they would see that you still weren't eating quite enough. You might really have to analyze if you're eating as much as I'm saying here, and not just feel like you might be...I tend to think naturally skinny people really don't eat as much as natural fat people do.

Anyway...it'd probably be better for you to build muscle, than to gain fat. Having a tiny bit of fat is good for us, but other than that it's not so healthy. You can look bigger with added muscle.

Warning: Once you overeat and get fat, you have set yourself on a life long path of having developed a ruined metabolism. Trust me, I wish my metabolism was super fast...and as we age it only worsens. Who wants to actually be obese? It looks bad, and is bad for us. I would really encourage you to lift weights instead of try to get fat. Look for a strength training program that slowly progresses to heavier and heavier weights...for instance, the book "Starting Strength" is a type of program like that. People who are naturally skinny tend to become very aesthetic looking when they build muscle...you're lucky!

[Aetherous]

Oh also, high fructose corn syrup really makes people fat, too. For instance, that's in Coca Cola.

It's one of the worst sugars in existence in terms of causing fat to build up.

[oak]

Fenugreek

[Michael Sternbach]

Gaining fat isn't healthy. It just puts additional strain on your circulatory system, joints etc. If you want to gain weight, gain muscle - not fat.

[yuuichi]

Wouldn’t consuming protein fill me up and not give me extra weight? I thought only consuming carbohydrates and fat can put on fat?

 

I don’t live in the U.S. I don’t know what some American food suggested are. And meat where I am is quite expensive. So I try to get most of my protein from egg, tinned tuna and chicken. I don’t want to eat junk food. I never snack, and although I have a sweet tooth and can eat a lot of chocolate and cake, I don’t want to cause health problems by eating so much processed food and sugar. Most days, the only source of sugar in my diet comes from fruit.

 

For most of my life, I have been underweight and very tall, with very little fat percentage. But it’s very hard for me to add fat. I try to consume a lot of dairy, milk and rice, but it doesn’t help and it takes so long to cook.

 

people are thinking I want to be obese. I just want to get my body fat to a healthy percentage. Like 10-15%. I think this is good body fat percentage goal. But it’s so hard to get there.

Edited October 5, 2018 by yuuichi

[yuuichi]

Does anyone have some meals or recipes they can recommend? I’m not a good cook, so I don’t want to cook something that uses a lot of complicated or difficult to obtain ingredients.

 

At the moment, I usually eat rice pudding for breakfast, followed by cereal. And for lunch and dinner I may have fried rice with chicken, omelette or pasta bake with tuna.

[yuuichi]

Also, I hardly ever exercise.

Edited October 5, 2018 by yuuichi

[Fa Xin]

Exercise will help you gain.  Start lifting something if you want to get bigger

 

I worked for a moving company for a while. I was super hungry and packed on pounds from that job.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Fa Xin

[yuuichi]

I don’t want to gain muscle. I want to gain fat. My fat body percentage is very low.

[Fa Xin]

You can get married then. Seems to work for most men. 

[Jonesboy]

15 minutes ago, Fa Xin said:

You can get married then. Seems to work for most men. 

 

Only because my wife is a great cook and spoils me

[Aetherous]

8 hours ago, yuuichi said:

Wouldn’t consuming protein fill me up and not give me extra weight? I thought only consuming carbohydrates and fat can put on fat?

 

For some reason, whey protein builds fat. It really works.

 

8 hours ago, yuuichi said:

I don’t want to eat junk food. I never snack, and although I have a sweet tooth and can eat a lot of chocolate and cake, I don’t want to cause health problems by eating so much processed food and sugar.

 

You're saying things that you already do, and your results are that you don't gain fat. If you want to gain fat, you have to change what you do.

 

8 hours ago, yuuichi said:

For most of my life, I have been underweight and very tall, with very little fat percentage. But it’s very hard for me to add fat. I try to consume a lot of dairy, milk and rice, but it doesn’t help and it takes so long to cook.

 

Milk doesn't take any time to cook.

 

8 hours ago, yuuichi said:

people are thinking I want to be obese. I just want to get my body fat to a healthy percentage. Like 10-15%. I think this is good body fat percentage goal. But it’s so hard to get there.

 

I think if you closely follow what I said, you'll get there in no time. But if you refuse to eat the way fat people do, then you won't get there.

I normally wouldn't recommend someone do things that increase their bodyfat, but sounds like you could use it. I think it's healthy for a very underweight person to have sugar and eat big meals. It's unhealthy for a fat person.

[thelerner]

Cook bigger, ie in an hour you can cook one meal or 6.  Get a book (or google it) of stews and work through it.  Slow cookers and Instant Pots are great.  For gaining weight you can add some ghee or butter (fat) to recipes or an extra helping of rice or noodles(carbs).   Find a couple of recipes, soups, stews, etc., master the ones you like. 

 

I like chili, its easy to make, can work well with fattier cuts (or go veggie), plus you can top it with sour cream, shredded cheese and avocado, and 'bottom' it with noodles or polenta.  Eat it for lunch, dinner and put on top of eggs for breakfast. Same with most stews.  Winter is great time to learn to make hearty soups.  Ofttimes its easier to drink extra calories then eat them. 

 

I've also heard eating late tends to be better for weight gain. 

 

[LAOLONG]

https://www.lingualift.com/blog/what-sumo-eat-wrestlers-diet/

[Fa Xin]

2 hours ago, Aetherous said:

I normally wouldn't recommend someone do things that increase their bodyfat, but sounds like you could use it. I think it's healthy for a very underweight person to have sugar and eat big meals. It's unhealthy for a fat person.

 

I disagree here. 

 

Its one thing to want to gain a few lbs. but Diabetes and heart disease effects the blood vessels and arteries of skinny people just as it does heavy people. 

 

Then again im in the health/medical field and I’m biased 😊

Edited October 5, 2018 by Fa Xin

[Aetherous]

20 minutes ago, Fa Xin said:

I disagree here. 

 

Its one thing to want to gain a few lbs. but Diabetes and heart disease effects the blood vessels and arteries of skinny people just as it does heavy people. 

 

Then again im in the health/medical field and I’m biased 😊

 

I'm in that field, too.

I don't think that short term "unhealthy" eating is bad. Lots of people eat junk food and don't develop disease.

Eating enough to get up to 10% body fat isn't likely to develop these diseases, and there aren't any studies that suggest it would, or that eating junk food short term would.

 

edited to add: the ideas I'm sharing aren't professional medical advice, but should just be taken as the opinions of some stranger on the internet.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Aetherous

[sustainablefarm86]

9965

Edited July 23, 2022 by King Jade

[Fa Xin]

7 hours ago, Aetherous said:

 

I'm in that field, too.

I don't think that short term "unhealthy" eating is bad. Lots of people eat junk food and don't develop disease.

Eating enough to get up to 10% body fat isn't likely to develop these diseases, and there aren't any studies that suggest it would, or that eating junk food short term would.

 

edited to add: the ideas I'm sharing aren't professional medical advice, but should just be taken as the opinions of some stranger on the internet.

 

Yes, short term sugar intake won’t cause any disease. If his metabolism is as fast as he says, I’m not sure it would cause any weight gain either. 

 

 

[Desmonddf]

I suppose you don't want to become obese like people have been assuming, but simply get rid of having a WAY too low fat content under your skin. 

 

Being too skinny will make you prune to disease and can be as harmfull as being obese, so I understand were you're going eith this. 

 

Now, there are three kinds of fat ny TCM. There's humidity, phlegm and "meats".

 

Humidy and phlegm are bad fats. The kind of thing which make you obese. The "meats", however, are the things which constitute your underskin fat and muscles. 

 

Now, to gain "meats" you'll need to tonify your spleen while also increasing your Yin and heat consumption. This need to be done concomitantly. If you do only one of them, then you'll end up sick. 

 

In order to do that, you would need a lot of exercise and lifestyle changes, so I suppose that would take too much time. 

 

I have a girlfriend who has the same problem as you, and I can say that most of this "poor absorption" problem comea actually from deeply-ingrained mental issues. Not like you're crazy, but common  neurosys we all carry. They could origin from this life or others. 

 

In order to help you with your desire, henceforth, I would recomend to make a simplifyed tea cerimony for yourself everyday. Fifteen minutes should be enough, but it would give you the calm and feel needed to listen to what your body carves and desires. Once you do that, achieving a good weight with a healthy amount of fat should be enough. 

 

The objective is to reduce the mental restrains you unconsciously put on yourself and allow for you to listen to your "meat sack" (body). It will know what to eat

[dawei]

And you will be back here when your metabolism changes to slow and asking how to lose that added weight?

 

Forget adding weight.  Listen to your body.  If it runs fast, smile at it.   I think a few small additions like shakes or avocado or salmon for healthy fat is ok.   Otherwise, I would not forcefully try to gain weight.  

[Wu Ming Jen]

@ yuuichi Have you tried grazing meaning many small meals a day. We have a lot in common with very effective metabolism I can feel the energy conversion of anything I eat and I eat very well natural, organic, whole foods  much of what I eat is locally sourced. I am in a unique situation that allows me to eat this way.

 

Being young and thin always bummed me out BUT on the bright side I am well into my 50's now and my body is like it was at 18. I do physically demanding martial arts and exercise so this condition is also my advantage as I become older.

 

18 year olds that have not been training there whole life are unable to do what I can do or even keep up so good luck on your journey you are being pro active and aware of the situation well done. Having great metabolism,  is a blessing.

[MooNiNite]

Im trying to gain weight too. But I'm mostly a vegan. So what protein and milk /ghee are a no go...

 

I think having a job helps people gain weight. When I don't have a job I get skinny as a straw.

[yuuichi]

@Wu Ming Jen hey, thanks for your response. Sorry for not writing this before but I just saw your reply now. It’s reassuring to know I’m not the only one here with a fast metabolism!

 

Anyway, I’m happy to report that although i’m still thin, I have reached a healthy weight. My method is eating lots and lots of cream, and adding lots of olive oil or butter to meals