People who want to gain weight are always looking for easy ways and food options that will help them. However, gaining weight is not a cakewalk. It requires ongoing effort and a well-planned strategy that needs to be followed consistently to get the desired results.

If you’re underweight, you should look to gain a balanced amount of muscle mass and subcutaneous fat, rather than a lot of unhealthy belly fat. Therefore, it is important to gain weight in a healthy way. Here we list a few tips that will help you gain weight effectively and safely.

Increase your food intake gradually

When you are trying to gain weight, it is important to be in a positive energy balance. This means that you should eat more calories than your body can burn on a daily basis. For this, it is important to increase your food intake. You can try to the “3-meals plus 3-snacks” pattern to increase your food intake. Adding calorically and nutritionally-dense foods to your meals will also help.

Include strength training to gain muscles

It is crucial to gain healthy weight and not pile up only fat. With strength or weight training, the extra calories are used up by muscles. Weight training at least 2-3 times a week is recommended to gain muscles.

Eat plenty of complex carbohydrates and good quality fat

It is important to include complex carbohydrates and good quality fats when you want to gain weight. Sufficient amount of carbohydrates is required for protein sparing effect.# Fats provides slightly more than double calories than carbohydrates and proteins, therefore, smaller portion of fats can help increase calories significantly.

#Protein sparing (amino acid sparing) is the process by which the body derives energy from sources other than protein. 

Eat enough protein content

For muscle growth, it is important to increase the protein content of food. Proteins are the building blocks of your muscles. Eating sufficient protein is required to gain muscles instead of just weight.

Avoid drinking water before meals

This will fill up your stomach and subsequently reduce the amount of food that you consume.

Avoid eating junk foods to gain weight

You can gain weight by consuming junk, calorically-dense foods. But these are empty calories and provide no nutrition. In the long run, these foods will affect your health as they are rich in fat and calories but not nutritionally rich. Consuming the right nutrition is important to support healthy weight gain. In doing so, you can achieve your goal feeling nourished and energised, rather than sluggish.

Avoid smoking

Smokers tend to weigh less than non-smokers, and quitting smoking often leads to weight gain.

Sleep soundly and in regular patterns

Having sound sleep in important for weight gain. Sleeping well helps in muscle growth.

Eat in bigger plates

When aiming for weight loss, eating in smaller plates helps you eat less. Conversely, using bigger plates can help you eat more.

The process of working towards gaining weight requires consistency and patience. Following the above-mentioned tips can help you gain weight effectively and safely.