Trouble gaining weight healthily.

I'm trying to gain weight in a healthy manner, but I find that if I only eat fruit/vegetables/lean meat/healthy food, even if I exceed my daily calorie needs, I either lose weight or merely maintain weight.

For example this week I have had three large meals a day, with snacks in between, but as I've eaten fruit/vegetables as my snacks I've ended up losing 3lbs.

However, I don't want to eat loads of chocolates and sweets etc and then gain weight in really strange places eg on my stomach and thighs, yet there seems to be no other way to do it.

I do run/exercise - 5-6 times a week for an hour. Would this make a difference?

Hey madeleine :)

Firstly, yes your exercise is likely making quite a difference. You should definitely cut back on this if you are looking to gain weight, particularly if you are in recovery from an ED. Now, are you sure you know what your calorie needs are? Are you seeing a specialist/nutritionist?

Fruit and veges are great and certainly a necessary component of your diet but they do tend to take up a lot of room in your stomach. You should still eat them, but while you are trying to gain weight you need to be concentrating on nutritious calorie dense foods. You don't need to eat lots of chocolates and sweets. Focus on healthy oils, avocadoes, nuts, seeds and nut butters, whole fat dairy products (if you are not intolerant), dried fruits and the occasional treat every now and then. You can most certainly do this in a healthy way - but you must be committed to doing so. xox

Bottom line is that you are obviously not 'exceeding your daily calorie needs'.... if you're exercising every day then you have underestimated your calorie needs and so you're still undereating.  You'll need to add substantial amounts of energy-dense foods into the mix such as the ones mentioned above.... full-fat dairy products, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, red meat, oily fish, oils, pasta, rice, noodles, bread......

You should also look at cutting back on the exercise until you are back up to a healthy weight.

1. Peanut Butter
2. Olive Oil
3. Protein Shakes

It doesn't matter whether you eat chocolate and sweets vs fruits and vegetables - if you eat more than you expend you'll gain weight and unless you're doing strengthening/weight exercises, the weight will probably go to your stomach FIRST no matter what.  Don't worry about eating a bit of 'unhealthy' food :)

Original Post by eskimo82:

It doesn't matter whether you eat chocolate and sweets vs fruits and vegetables - if you eat more than you expend you'll gain weight and unless you're doing strengthening/weight exercises, the weight will probably go to your stomach FIRST no matter what.  Don't worry about eating a bit of 'unhealthy' food :)

I disagree with the above post, it does matter whether you eat chocolate/sweets vs fruits/vegetables in terms of HEALTHILY gaining weight. I would not put all that excess sugar, saturated/trans-fats into my body, and risk altering my blood pressure/blood cholesterol/blood sugar levels by eating chocolates & sweets in order to gain weight. Like the above post said, eating sweets and chocolates will most likely lead to you gaining abdominal fat first (the worst kind of fat, because it is the fat most readily taken up into your blood stream and transported to the liver where they become LDL "bad" cholesterol and deposit in your blood vessels)

But, it is easy to gain weight healthily if you gain it as muscle as well as healthy fat. Eat more fatty fish, with omega 3 and omega 6 fats, vegetable oils with poly-unsaturated fats are good to stir-fry with, coconut and peanut oils are a great way to add flavor to things such as fried rice or stir fry noodles. Eat a good portion of raw nuts and seeds, drink 3 cups of regular fat milk a day (good for calcium, protein, fats). Eat enough protein and calories per day so that your body can gain muscle and won't resort to breaking-down body proteins, a good healthy source of protein would be meats, poulty and eggs. Another amazing source of omega fats and protein would have to be FLAX! You can mix flax seeds into anything, adding healthy calories and fiber. Grind it up and bake with it, mix it into soups and cereals, add it to yogurt, blend it into milkshakes... it is seriously an amazing food!

Original Post by silverrock:

I disagree with the above post, it does matter whether you eat chocolate/sweets vs fruits/vegetables in terms of HEALTHILY gaining weight. I would not put all that excess sugar, saturated/trans-fats into my body, and risk altering my blood pressure/blood cholesterol/blood sugar levels by eating chocolates & sweets in order to gain weight. Like the above post said, eating sweets and chocolates will most likely lead to you gaining abdominal fat first (the worst kind of fat, because it is the fat most readily taken up into your blood stream and transported to the liver where they become LDL "bad" cholesterol and deposit in your blood vessels)

Not true. Eating foods containing sugar and fat will NOT cause you to put on abdominal fat first. Often the fat goes on this way first no matter what you eat, then redistributes after a while as your body becomes more settled at a healthy weight.

Fat is like anything else - perfectly healthy in moderation. That includes saturated fats.

Encouraging an ED sufferer to eat only healthy foods is very destructive. It is much more healthy to have a balanced approach to food than to carefully restrict one's intake according to what foods are deemed 'good' and 'bad'. It is FAR worse for health to remain at a low weight than to gain by including treats in your diet - which is a normal way to eat anyway.

In addition - exercising at a low BMI is really dangerous. It puts stress on your muscles, organs and bones, and you areat a high risk of having a heart attack. It's also setting back your ED recovery by slowing/halting weight gain. I would seriously reconsider this aspect of your life if I were you.

Original Post by merylwhite1:

Original Post by silverrock:

I disagree with the above post, it does matter whether you eat chocolate/sweets vs fruits/vegetables in terms of HEALTHILY gaining weight. I would not put all that excess sugar, saturated/trans-fats into my body, and risk altering my blood pressure/blood cholesterol/blood sugar levels by eating chocolates & sweets in order to gain weight. Like the above post said, eating sweets and chocolates will most likely lead to you gaining abdominal fat first (the worst kind of fat, because it is the fat most readily taken up into your blood stream and transported to the liver where they become LDL "bad" cholesterol and deposit in your blood vessels)

Not true. Eating foods containing sugar and fat will NOT cause you to put on abdominal fat first. Often the fat goes on this way first no matter what you eat, then redistributes after a while as your body becomes more settled at a healthy weight.

Fat is like anything else - perfectly healthy in moderation. That includes saturated fats.

Encouraging an ED sufferer to eat only healthy foods is very destructive. It is much more healthy to have a balanced approach to food than to carefully restrict one's intake according to what foods are deemed 'good' and 'bad'. It is FAR worse for health to remain at a low weight than to gain by including treats in your diet - which is a normal way to eat anyway.

In addition - exercising at a low BMI is really dangerous. It puts stress on your muscles, organs and bones, and you areat a high risk of having a heart attack. It's also setting back your ED recovery by slowing/halting weight gain. I would seriously reconsider this aspect of your life if I were you.

Whoops... sorry if my communication wasn't so great, but what I meant to say was that in regards to the post above mine, I was simply stating that there would be a complete difference in a weigh-gain diet consisting of ONLY sweet and candies vs a diet that was balanced. I'm totally not suggesting that the original poster forgo sweet and chocolates all together, but you are completely correct... moderation is key. Actually, looking back on that post that was above mine, I can see where it was going... I just read it wrong and thought that eskimo82 was talking about a diet consisting of only junk foods. Sorry :(

Thank you all for your advice. :)

It's really hard to try and gain weight when I feel like I'm already at a good weight, and especially hard to cut back on running/exercising, but I will do my best.

Would it be Ok if I only ran 3 times a week for an hour, do you think? I don't particularly want to lose muscle mass.

Running is almost never a good idea when gaining weight.  It won't prevent you from losing muscle mass, it will just burn calories, making it even harder for you to gain weight.  Once you get to a healthy weight and are medically cleared by your doctor you can exercise again, starting with light weights, gentle stretching and moderately paced walking.  

Now, back to the original question.  This is something that many doctors, nutritionists, therapists and friends have told me over and over:  A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.  Your body, once the food is broken down, can't really tell the difference between 100 calories of chocolate or 100 calories of celery.  All food is broken down into glucose, which is what your body runs on.  Restricting your intake to only "healthy" foods won't make a difference of where the weight goes.  And eating tons of low calorie "healthy" foods is extremely painful.  I tried it, it doesn't work.  To reach a calorie level that will help you gain weight at a healthy pace, you'll very likely need around 3000 calories.  Now lets try to think about this logically.  You could eat 47 pounds of celery or slightly over 1 pound of peanut butter to reach 3000 calories.  Ya know, your stomach might start hurting a bit.  Not to mention the fact that your hair would fall out, your nails would become brittle and your skin would dry up like a desert due to lack of fats.  I know I'm probably coming off as a little harsh, but you need to understand that chocolate, butter, ice cream, they all have a place in your diet.  I'm not saying you can't eat fruit but it's all about BALANCE.  Don't tip the scale, it can be deadly

Running tends to burn muscle mass, not build it. In addition, when you are underweight and gaining weight, your body automatically adds muscle as well as fat - even when you are completely sedentary. This is because when you are underweight your muscles atrophy, so to restore a normal weight means repairing those muscles (ie, restoring them to a normal size). So you don't have to worry about maintaining your muscle mass - you will likely be increasing it, even while sedentary.

I know it sounds strange, but it's true. The way underweight people gain weight is different to the way other people gain weight, because when underweight people gain they are essentially healing.

If you have to do something to move, stick to really gentle movement like yoga, tai chi or slow walking. Running at this stage will just set you back, and like I said in my earlier post, is actually really dangerous for you to be doing right now.

Merylwhite, what you have said makes real good sense.

I too am a runner and like madeliene, I find it impossible not to run - it seems to be a part of me if you see what I mean.

However, I have read the posts on this thread with great interest and have realised that I will have to scale back on my running if I am to gain any weight. 

I run 4 times a week at the moment for about 9 miles each time, and then cross-train twice a week, so I guess I'm over-doing the cardio exercise.  I think I should probably cut back the cardio and do more strength, especially if I'm going to gain more muscle than fat when the weight eventually does start to come back on.

I would also like to say, meryl, that I have read your profile page and have to say you are a real inspiration to me!  Well done for getting well again!

I have been struggling with wieght all my life. Like you, I could not put it on for the life of me. While excercising I realized that if I ran at a slower pace I lost weight, If I did wind sprints or ran at a higher pace I did not. The reason being is that at approx. 55-65% of your target heart rate you lose weight. at 65%-75% you tend to work out your cardiovascular system more than lose weight. It is also important to replenish yourself with high carbohydrate and decent protein within 30 minutes after your workout to prevent weight loss. It seems by general concensus that most on this post worry about Eating Disorders and giving the wron advice to someone suffering from ED. I don't see anything in your original post that would suggest an eating disorder. The running may be a little excessive, but it depends on your excercise goals. Yours is obviously not associated with weight as you want to GAIN. I gained weight by adjusting the speed of my running to faster for shorter periods of time 20-30 minutes at 70% Target heart Rate and ate within 30 minutes of running. I also ate (3000) calories per day and a crap load of Peanut butter sandwiches. I gained mostly pure muscle with very little fat. But remember, excercise can be dangerous just as much as it can be good. Running is bad for your knees and too much excercise when you have a low BMI is also bad. I would suggest continuing to seek advice on as many boards and blogs as possible and research as much as you can. Good Luck!!