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Healthy Diet Plans >>  Weight Gain Supplements >>  Weight Gaining Techniques

How to Gain Weight Healthily

I am a 17 year old girl, 5'9 in height and weighing 47 kgs. I want to gain weight. Can you please help me out with some weight gaining techniques?

You are much below your ideal body weight because according to your height your weight should be approximately 70 kg. You need to gain more 23 kg to achieve your ideal body weight. Your body mass index (BMI) according to your height and weight indicates that you fall in the category of under weight. Your BMI is just 15.3 and any values below 18.5 falls under the category of under weight.
Weight gain can often be little tricky for you if your body metabolism is high or simply if you are not found of food. Try the following tips mentioned below to gain weight –

What to Eat to Gain Weight?

  • Increase the number of meals you consume. Instead of 2-3 meals that you eat consider having 5-6 meals per day. However don’t make such drastic changes suddenly; you can increase a meal every 2-3 days to increase your food intake.
  • Increasing meals might just not be enough sometimes. Focus on what you eat, consume calorie dense foods. Some foods that will provide you enough calories along with other nutrients include nuts and oilseeds like almonds, walnuts, cashew nuts, pistachio nuts, ground nuts, poppy seeds, flaxseeds, sesame seeds; dry fruits like raisins, dried figs, apricots and dates. You can include these foods in combination with other calorie dense foods for example you can make a dry fruit and nuts milkshake by churning some of the nuts and dry fruits you like with milk.
  • Eat a balanced meal comprising of all the food groups. Your meal should contain servings from unprocessed cereal, grain or its products; sprouts or other pulses and beans; a vegetable; a milk product like cottage cheese or yoghurt; fish, egg, poultry or meat (you can exclude dairy group or pulses group when you take non-vegetarian food).
  • Even though you are underweight don’t indulge yourself in wrong eating habits. Avoid gaining calories from junk foods, oily foods, fried foods, bakery foods, sweets, creamy desserts, carbonated beverages, colas and sodas. Calories from these are mainly from fats and simple carbohydrates which will increase fat mass in your body. Also these foods provide very little of other nutrients which are required for health.
  • Exercise, many people think that exercise is only for the ones who are interested in weight loss. If you think similarly then let me correct you. Exercise will definitely help you to trim your fat but it will increase your muscle mass which is heavier than fat. Right kind of exercise will not only help you to gain weight but also increase your appetite and food intake.
Submitted on February 24, 2009