How to Gain Weight

How to Gain Weight

Weight Gain

The need to lose weight is undoubtedly the most widespread, and rightly so seen and considered that excess weight has negative effects on an individual's health.

Read this: How To Lose Weight

But the opposite can happen: that is, a person wants to gain weight, perhaps by strengthening muscle mass. The result, however, is not so obvious, in fact, you must avoid making compromises with your health, which will only end up making you eat any kind of junk food.

Obviously, we do not deal with pathological cases such as weight loss in anorexia or in cancer patients, situations that require very specific medical interventions, but those situations in which the person is healthy but he must recover  some kilos to see himself and feel much better. These are generally people who are genetically inclined to be very thin and who want to bulk up in terms of muscle and not just put on fat.

As always, there is a clear distinction to be made when it comes to weight: fat and lean mass exist.

Obviously our goal is to increase muscle strength, and therefore the lean mass.

This, among other things, is the main cure for aging. In fact, with the studies done on astronauts, we have discovered that the first consequence that the absence of gravity brings is the loss of muscle. Only from that moment on will all other physical damage take over.

This is why some countermeasures have been introduced for a few years which include muscle training also on board space stations. Muscles represent for us both the main defence and best source of energy.

Most likely, while being overweight is more linked to a lifestyle problem, to a series of errors especially in the nutritional field and as regards poor physical activity, thinness seems instead to be more genetically determined than dependent on lifestyle and therefore it actually requires a greater effort to be in a certain sense opposed.

Also read : How To Stay Healthy In Isolation

The mistake in which these people who try to gain weight most often fall is to risk doing it at the expense of their health, inserting a whole series of unhealthy foods that, yes, can also help you gain weight, but almost certainly that weight will be fat, instead of being muscle, which is what really strengthens an organism, and above all the risk is to do it in an even negative way for the metabolism, for the blood parameters, and therefore to try to counteract a phenomenon that is judged as dysfunctional by going in a direction that causes even worse dysfunctions.

5 tips on how to gain weight effectively

1. Don't eat junk food

Don't stuff yourself with biscuits, cakes, drinks; do not think that the more foods of this type you introduce, the easier it will be to correct the situation. No, it will be easier to create another problem for you.

SAY NO TO JUNK FOOD

So everything you consider to gain weight, do make it a healthy one. However, industrial foods rich in calories are low in nutrients and therefore alter the metabolism. They generally contain ad hoc mixtures of sugars and fats or fats and salt that raise blood sugar, stimulate the pancreas to produce too much insulin, increase pressure and tend to inflame the body.

Over time these effects are amplified and end up creating damage at various levels: they increase oxidative stress and glycation (the link between sugars and body proteins that compromise their functionality), worsen the inflammatory state and deprive us of the basic nutrients of which we need and that must be provided by a regular supply of genuine food.

2. Plenty of naturally high calorie nutrients such as nuts

Examples of foods to be introduced in abundance because calories but also healthy nutrients full of good fats, well nuts for example. This is a key element for anyone who wants to keep the energy intake of their diet high, but choosing foods that are caloric but absolutely natural, rich in vitamins, rich in antioxidants and rich in good and healthy fatty acids. We can choose from walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, cashews or other to taste but always in the natural, unsalted, unroasted versions.

3. Increase the intake of cereals in their whole versions

It is clear that increasing the carbohydrate intake in these cases is necessary, but rather than eating high doses of refined flours, white pasta, white bread, white rice, we choose the whole wheat versions which are also rich in fiber and will still bring that surplus of calories, of starch you are interested in, but not at the expense of the metabolism of regulation of blood glucose for example or of the production of insulin, which are delicate mechanisms that you run the risk of targeting too abruptly with a super refined diet.

Healthy Diet

Healthy Foods

4. Use noble proteins

If we want to try to gain weight especially through an increase in muscle mass we must also nourish these muscles with proteins. These proteins should be fish, eggs, lean meat and poultry. These are the richest and most noble proteins that the muscle is able to assimilate better.

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5. Increase muscle mass

If you want to gain weight, in particular to gain muscle mass, you cannot do an excessive amount of aerobic activity, so that activity we say with medium-low effort, prolonged over time: walking, running, cycling a lot, taking long swims duration are all healthy activities but in this case they risk being a little counterproductive compared to the attempt to increase muscle mass. Much more effective is going to the gym and doing some calibrated weight training to strengthen muscle mass.

Then there are those people who want to regain muscle mass after losing it. There are several reasons why this happens:

Cessation of physical activity due to injury: Sport and in particular the gym allow you to increase strength and muscle mass but wear your joints and tendons. Sometimes you are forced to prolonged periods of rest which negatively affect muscle mass.

Periods of severe stress: In some cases, stress leads to eating more and gaining weight, but in other cases, tension closes the stomach, increases consumption and leads to weight loss.

Lifestyle change and reduction of food intake: when there are important changes in life, eating habits and consequently weight can vary. Leaving the house for example for study reasons often compromises the quality of nutrition for the children.

Even in these cases, first of all, medical causes that lead to weight loss should be excluded. Then it is necessary to adopt those changes mentioned above but logically in these cases the results come faster than constitutionally thin people.

In fact, if we have to counteract a mechanism, which is above all genetically determined, a key word to do so is "have patience" because evidently the organism is calibrated for a certain body weight. This may not be a pleasure and there may be valid reasons why a person wants to gain weight, but it must be done with that sweetness and delicacy that respects the needs of our body. To gain muscle mass it takes time, it takes method, and you cannot expect immediate results.