The Healthy Way To Gain Weight?

I have been skinny my whole life. recently though, I've let it get even worse because my diet hasn't been the best in getting 2k calories per day. Mostly because I've been eating a lot of vegetables, fruit, other things, but not really reaching the mark. I know my appearence is now needing a change because I've become way too skinny. I'm 5'10" about 135 pounds right now.

I actually think this has to do with why I even had hairloss to begin with.

Anyway, what can you guys tell me about gaining weight in a healthy way? I'm planning on doing smoething like maybe a pound of white rice per day, a pound of seafood per day or other meat, lots of beans, a lot of fruit like apples to load up on carbs. But I know according to the "perfect diet" that is like almost what it asks for anyway (pound of starch and pound of meat). So I'm lost on waht else to eat.. plus I heard fructose is bad for you in big amounts which seems to have many different thoughts here on this forum.

What do you guys recommend I should do to gain weight without jeopardy my health?

btw, I can't eat potatoes or my hands get swollen as if I have arthritis if anyone knows that is about

In regards to fructose, have a read of abc123's posts.

Train with free weights outside in a rural enironment, bracket your work outs with protein and eat huge amounts of a 70 - 30% of plant based diet to protein. Salmon is key.

I also have been underweight all my life. Recently I've been gaining some weight through weight training and drinking whole milk. I also eat plenty of sugar in the form of fruit. Potatoes are in the nightshade family, which has been associated with the exacerbation of autoimmune conditions like arthritis.

Hey man, I feel ya....

I've been skinny most of my life. This past year and a half I have been able to put on about 30lbs with lil gain in body fat (mostly muscle gained).

The keys for me:

1. Lift the heaviest weights you can during exercise time - make sure you are doing 6-8 reps with good form per set - at least 2 sets per each exercise - quality over quantity
2. Avoid cardio like the plague - if you are going to be running, do only short bursts (ie sprinting)
3. Eat lots of healthy protein and fat - whole eggs (omega 3 free range) are key for protein, fat and vitaminas and minerals! I eat at least 10-15 a day - make sure to eat them with a side of green veggies to aid in digesting - keep in mind your body can only digest 30-40g or so of protein per sitting so don't overdo it.
4. Don't overworkout - give your body time to recover - my sample regimen would be 3 workouts a week - monday - arms/shoulders, wednesday - legs, friday - back/chest. I only workout each group of muscles once per week (except abs - 3 times a week - once after each core workout and even that may be overdoing it)

Hope that helps man. Weight lifting has been an amazing stress reliever and motivator for me personally.

You dont want to be eating white rice. Basmati brown rice and oats are my staple carbs as they are low on the glycemic index, which means they dont spike insulin, plus they are packed with nutrients white rice lacks. Chicken and eggs are my staple food protein, supplemented with pea protein, rice protein, and hemp protein since I avoid dairy.

thanks for all the help guys. i want to do weightlifting, but unfortun I had a back muscle issue to where I can't do it. I really need to do some massage thearapy to work out the kinks to get that cleared up. But I will take your tips and implement them.

Regarding white rice being bad, CS posted this in another thread which is why I went with white rice:

White rice doesn't have the toxins that brown rice has. Also, unlike other grains, rice does not promote the sort of "immune problems" and does not cause a sustained elevation of blood glucose like wheat or other grains can do.

In fact, rice will help reduce cortisol, so it might actually aid hair as a safe starch.

https://immortalhair.forumotion.com/t6956-cs-weight-gain

After personally spending many hundreds of pounds on supplements that supposedly regrew hair, according to this site, and only continuing to lose hair, forgive me for not accepting white rice as better choice of food. You can create a theory for EVERTHING being good or bad.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/497287-brown-rice-to-clear-toxins/

Prolly not the healthiest but I started skipping breakfast and eating a decent size lunch and big dinner along with a protein shake before bed. I think it has slowed down my metabolism which like I said isnt the healthiest but it has been on the only thing that has helped me gain any weight along with weight training 3 times per weeks. You cant forget to do legs/squats.

Why do you say it isnt healthy to skip breakfast? What time of day do you lift?

Organic whole milk, lots of pastas, lots of everything lol.
What about simple dumbbell exercises like curls and overhead presses? Over the past year, I put on 35 lbs, and by doing only those two exercises, my arms look way bigger.
I currently weigh about 185. Eating super healthy had me way too skinny, I eat alot more junk now and honestly I feel just as good as I did when I was super healthy. I think the 5 minutes I spend a day lifting weights makes a big difference.

You only do 2 exercises?

Every other day: 3 sets of dumbbell curls till failure w 30lb , 30 second break
Other days: 3 sets of skull crushers until failure, 30 minute breaks.
Eat breakfast immediately afterwards My arms looked way bigger almost immediately.

Yeah but unless you had disproportionately small arms to begin with, your arms will now be disproportionately large compared to rest of your body.

Yes, I always had a large trunk

The Jaminets, authors of The Perfect Health Diet, prefer white rice to brown rice for the same reasons CS gives.

1) Focus on compound, multiple muscle group movements: deadlift, squat, bench press, front squat, clean, clean and press, and anything that stresses the back such as pullups and pulldowns. Stress the intensity and minimize the duration of your workout, done properly should take 30 min. Hit each muscle group once per week, twice maximum. Perform either one full-body routine or a split, perhaps upper and lower. Go for heavy weight and a low rep scheme. If you are performing an exercise 15 times without failure, you're missing the point. Opt for a weight you can perform a maximum of 8-10 reps before failure.

2) Avoid endurance exercise and cardio. Focus on your resistance training, recovery, and nutrition.

3) Use a macro ratio of 45% C, 35% P, and 25% fat. You'll likely need 4-5 meals daily of 700 calories each.
If you are not gaining weight, increase each week until you begin to see progress. Each meal doesn't have to hit this ratio. Its important that the entire day's worth of food does.

4) Get the majority of your carbs in your pre- and post-workout meals, stressing fast digesting sources: fruit, milk, rice, etc. Avoid gluten containing grains when possible. Dextrose is a wonderful supplement for your situations and can be incorporated into protein shakes post workout. You'll likely need at least 125-150g carb post workout, and can be divided between two recovery meals (perhaps a whey/dextrose shake and a whole food meal one hour later). You need to replenish glycogen post workout for the anabolic benefits and the anabolic effects of insulin.

5) Sleep eight hours a night, no questions. Turn off your devices and lights at least 30 min. prior to when you want to be asleep.

6) Stay hydrated.

7) Reduce cortisol: phosphatidyl serine, phosphatidyl choline, adaptogens (ashwaghanda) in the morning and post-workout. Your carb intake should also do a good job of mitigating this, hence the need for high carb post workout nutrition. Lower your stress, you're a cool cat, everything will be fine.

8 Optimize T: vitamin D, saturated fats (grass-fed butter/steak, coconut oil), ashwaghanda, heavy exercise, sleep, ZMA or regular zinc supplement and other B-vitamins

9) HGH: sleep, exercise, lower body fat %, Arginine/Ornithine/Glycine/Glutamine immediately prior to going to sleep

10) No antioxidant supps immediately after exercise. MTOR is an inflammatory process, and unfortunately we can't pick which inflammation we are battling. Save it for the hours prior to exercise.

11) Stay Anabolic: HMB, BCAA's pre- and post-workout, casein powder before bed

Doesnt dextrose increase insulin? A no no for hair

And if you still cannot gain weight and it bothers you that much you can always go the creatine route.

Hellwig,

Insulin resistance is bad for hair, because it keeps serum levels chronically high. Insulin is the most important anabolic hormone and thats why we spike it immediately after a workout, to shuttle nutrients to the muscle when they need it. Spiking insulin when the muscles aren't primed is a bad thing. But after an intense bout of exercise the GLUT receptors are activated and muscular insulin sensitivity goes through the roof so spiking it strategically at that time will ensure you are using all of the carbs you are taking in to replenish the glycogen in your muscles and liver. This process is essential for prolonging the anabolic state or else you'd be breaking muscle tissue down (and you only want to do that within the workout), making you less insulin sensitive in the long run. So really, you want a short, intense insulin spike rather than the chronic high insulin you see in insulin resistance. But exercising and feeding like this are only going to make you more insulin sensitive in the long run. But again, I only advocate these large carbohydrate meals immediately after a workout, with a marginally high carb meal prior to the workout. You can be much more lenient with this when you are an ectomorph like the OP.

Spiking insulin when the muscles are replete with glycogen is only going to cause fat gain. When the body senses the muscles are fatigues and glycogen depleted, GLUT-4 receptors are upregulated. Insulin is the energy storage hormone, its anabolic, builds things up. If the muscles don't need the energy, its going to be added to the fat cells. Its a double edged sword. When we don't need the energy, insulin is making us fat. When want to build muscle, its the most important hormone in the body for that purpose.


BH,

Yes sir. Good point. Creatine is good for mass gain. There probably hasn't been a performance supplement with more research backing it. Its good shit, if for nothing else other than the performance benefits in the gym. It is going to add water weight to you, so if you think you tend to look a little "puffy" on it, don't worry. When you go to cut back after your bulk (if you truly bulk, you are going to add about as much fat as you do muscle), that water weight will all disappear when you go lower carb.

hellwig wrote:After personally spending many hundreds of pounds on supplements that supposedly regrew hair, according to this site, and only continuing to lose hair, forgive me for not accepting white rice as better choice of food. You can create a theory for EVERTHING being good or bad.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/497287-brown-rice-to-clear-toxins/

Ever try RAW Foods brown rice protein? Are they the same, I wonder if it would have the same effect as eating the brown rice itself.