If you think you are too skinny, you may decide that you need to gain weight. Trying to gain weight in a healthy way is just as difficult as trying to lose weight in a healthy way. You have to ensure that you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly if you want to gain weight and stay healthy.
Diet Components
Even though you are trying to gain weight, you must eat a healthy diet instead of just filling up on fattening foods. The difference when you are trying to gain weight, instead of lose weight, is that you need to eat more of these healthy foods so you get more healthy calories. For example, instead of eating only three meals per day, eat four to six full meals each day. Eat foods from all of the major food groups every day, including grains, protein, vegetables, dairy and fruits.
Exercise Program
When you are trying to gain healthy weight, you have to focus on burning fat and building lean muscle mass. This means that you need to work out with both aerobic exercises and weight resistance exercises. Do aerobic exercises, such as swimming or running, on at least five days per week for at least 30 minutes per day. Do weight resistance exercises two to three times per week, advises the University of California, Los Angeles. Examples of weight resistance exercises include the Olympic press, squats and lunges.
Time Frame
To gain healthy weight takes time. Ideally, you should only try to gain 1 lb. per week. Gaining weight at this rate helps to minimize the amount of unhealthy fat weight you gain while increasing the amount of healthy muscle mass you gain. In some cases, you may gain less than 1 lb. per week. When this happens, add more calories to your daily diet. To gain 1 lb. per week, you must eat 500 calories more per day than you use.
Considerations
Trying to gain weight is only appropriate for people who are underweight. Underweight is classified as having a body mass index, which is a ratio of your weight for your height, below 18.5. BMI roughly estimates your body fat. A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered a healthy weight range, so aim to be within this range. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight and 30 or more is considered obese, so make sure you don't gain too much weight, which is equally unhealthy.
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