Tips to Gain Weight + Female Case Study

27th január 2022

Gaining weight can be as hard, especially in a world where people around you are struggling to keep the weight off.

Here are tried and tested tips for you that will help you to gain weight alongside a case study of my 26 y.o. female client who finally made it.

Three Tips that will help you gain weight:

Don’t compare yourself with others.

Mind yourself. Your peers or even your twin can eat differently, have different lifestyle, activity levels, microbiome, and therefore energy needs. Even if you eat the same amount of food, two twins can respond differently, if not physiologically, mentality also plays a role.

This is especially applicable for young female athletes who compare themselves to their peers. Unfortunately, the media constantly present lean bodies, and although the trend has changed in the past years, we can still observe the impact the lean bodies presented on social media have on us.

You might think that you are eating much more than your friend or a family member but realize you are comparing one meal in isolation during lunch. Or maybe your family members make comments about how much you eat and so you limit the food even when you are hungry. Listen to your hunger cues, you need that energy for growth and to excel in sports!

Educate yourself about nutrition

You can be eating a high volume of food but at the same time your energy intake might be very low. I had a young girl struggling with weight gain ask me for help. We found out that she ate soups containing mostly water and some vegetables for lunch. This broth might have been nutritious, but it filled her stomach with water, and then she did not eat much of the main meal. Over time, her low caloric intake resulted in missing periods and general struggle.

I suggested to her to omit the soup and eat the main meal instead. After she did, her mood and energy quickly improved and her period came back.

Switching some lower calorie dense foods with energy dense foods can make wonders for athletes.

Low Energy Density Food High Energy Density Food
fresh fruit dried fruit
water based smoothie milk based smoothie
low-fat milk full fat milk
greek yogurt nut butter
broth thick soup such as chili
solid food smoothies

Be prepared & Find time to eat

One of the biggest mistakes those struggling with weight gain make is that they 
a) don’t have food around
b) don’t make it a priority to eat
Take an example from people who gain weight easily. They have snacks all around that they cannot resist. While this strategy works against them and their weight-loss goals, the same strategy can help you to gain weight.
 
I am not saying you should be snacking on sweets, but having granola, puddings, chocolate milk and other snacks around make it much easier to eat enough and support your weight gain efforts.
 
But sometimes, even when we have snacks around, we can get stuck working on our projects. If you notice that you have a tendency to procrastinate on eating and constantly put it off while working, you are not taking good care of yourself. Not only will you probably get ravenously hungry later, but if you skip meals due to work, your following training and practice sessions might be less effective.
 
Not only that, but you might be also irritated, make more mistakes during practice, and even risk injury. Your work will wait, and if you feed yourself properly, you will show up better for it!

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