If you have a body mass index of 18.5 or below, you are considered underweight. Being underweight can make you more vulnerable to illness, affect your hormone production, alter normal growth and development and impair fertility. When devising a meal plan, focus on nutritious, high-calorie foods to help you improve your overall feelings of wellbeing and your appearance.
Calorie Requirements
To gain one pound, you must eat 3,500 calories more than you burn. Create this surplus over a week by adding just 500 calories per day. The exact number of calories you should eat daily depends on your age, size, sex and activity level. For most women, your daily meal plan should contain between 2,500 and 4,000 calories, while most men will need between 3,000 and 5,500 calories daily.
Approach
When you set your daily calorie goal, divide those calories up over three larger meals and two or three smaller snacks. For example, if you plan to eat 3,500 calories per day, you might aim for breakfast, lunch and dinner to each contain 800 calories and two snacks to each contain 550 calories. If you have trouble consuming a lot of food at once, you can divide your meals into even more small meals, such as seven 500-calorie meals for a 3,500-calorie plan. Ultimately, you have to determine which strategy will work best for you.
Food Choices
Select high-calorie options from the major food groups when choosing foods for your weight-gain menu plan. Opt for dried fruit, starchy vegetables, fatty fish, nuts, dense whole grains, low-fat yogurt and milk and plant oils. Avoid foods that get a calorie-boost from added fats, sugars and refined grains -- as these do not provide nutrients that bolster your health.
Menu Plan
A nutritious 3,500-calorie plan for an underweight person could start with 1 ½ cups of oatmeal cooked with 1 ½ cups of skim milk, 4 medjool dates and 1 oz. toasted pecans. Have a 4 oz. whole-grain bagel topped with 2 tbsp. of almond butter and 1 tsp. of honey for a mid-morning snack. At lunch, start with a serving of corn and chicken chowder and have it with a sandwich made on two slices of dense whole-wheat bread filled with 1 1/2 oz. of melted mozzarella, sliced tomatoes and fresh basil leaves. For dessert, have 1 cup of fruit salad with 1 cup of plain, nonfat yogurt. In the mid-afternoon, you could whip up a smoothie made with 1 cup of papaya, 1 scoop protein powder, 1 frozen banana, 1 cup of soy milk and 1 tbsp. of flaxseed oil. For dinner, broil or grill 5 oz. of salmon and enjoy with 1 cup mashed sweet potatoes, 3 cups of kale sautéed in 1 tbsp. of olive oil and a glass of low-fat milk.
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