While women often seek to lose weight, some women need to gain weight to benefit from better health and energy. Gaining weight requires you to eat more calories than you burn. Undertaking a weight gain diet takes as much discipline and focus as a weight loss diet.
Significance
Women who are underweight may suffer from fatigue, weakness due to nutritional deficiencies, iron-deficient anemia, poor immunity, irregular menses and infertility. Extremely thin women are more likely to develop complications due to osteoporosis. Gaining weight may improve performance in underweight athletes. Women who have suffered from eating disorders may need to gain weight as part of their treatment.
Features
A weight gain diet should emphasize healthy, calorie-dense foods. Eat vegetables with an emphasis on starchy varieties like potatoes and corn. Stick to lean proteins like chicken, soy, beans and lean cuts of beef. Load up on whole grains like brown rice or dark, dense breads. Choose heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, like nuts and olive oil, to add calories to your meals. In addition to fresh fruit, snack on dried versions to maximize calorie intake. Drink calories in the form of milk---which offers important calcium---or 100 percent juice.
Strategy
Your goal is to take in more calories daily---about 500 per day to gain a pound a week. Serve yourself 15 to 20 percent more at meals. If your appetite is light, eat seven or more small meals throughout the day to insure you take in enough calories without feeling uncomfortable. Never leave home without non-perishable snacks like granola, nuts or energy bars stashed in your bag.
Tips
You can creatively sneak calories into your diet without adding significant bulk. Try tossing your pasta with olive oil or sprinkling nuts over your morning cereal. Nut butters add calories to crackers, bananas or whole grain toast. Slice avocado over your salad or add to sandwiches.
Misconceptions
When you are eating to gain weight you must still pay attention to nutrition. Along with extra calories, junk foods contain excessive sodium, saturated and trans fats and sugars. You may gain weight with such a diet, but it is more likely to be in the form of unhealthy fat rather than desirable lean muscle tissue that makes a woman look toned and healthy. While you are certainly entitled to a cookie or piece of chocolate once in a while, get the majority of your calories from healthy sources.
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