If you're underweight, gaining needed pounds can seem as formidable a task as losing weight seems to people who are overweight. As with losing weight, the challenge is best tackled with small steps that gradually change your daily dietary habits. Trying to greatly increase your caloric intake suddenly only causes discomfort and discouragement. Instead, start by working one or two dietary changes into your diet. After a week, add another source or two of extra calories. As you start out, look for opportunities to replace foods you eat with nutritious but higher-calorie alternatives rather than trying to increase the quantity of food you eat.
Step 1
Eat five or six small meals over the course of the day if a limited appetite prevents you from having large meals.
Step 2
Limit your beverages throughout the day, and especially those such as water, tea and coffee, which fill you up without providing calories.
Step 3
Drink 100-percent fruit juice when you do drink, and use it to meet some of your daily fruit servings. Juice is significantly higher in calories than whole fruit, but it provides mostly the same nutritional value. The notable exception is that juice has far less fiber than whole fruit.
Step 4
Meet other fruit servings with relatively high-calorie fruits. Slice a banana to add to cereal or other breakfast foods, add avocado to sandwiches and salads or put chunks of mango into your yogurt or cottage cheese. Make guacamole with avocado too, and dip some whole corn tortilla chips into it for a snack.
Step 5
Add foods made from whole grains to your diet. Cereal, pastas, breads, muffins and other baked goods high in calories and nutritious. Make pancake and waffle batter with whole-grain flours.
Step 6
Choose baked goods that contain nuts, seeds or dried fruit for extra calories with more fiber, vitamins and minerals. Snack on these foods as well. Combine your favorites to make your own trail mix, and even add pieces of dark chocolate.
Step 7
Use unsaturated fat cooking oils liberally when you're cooking. They're high-calorie and heart-healthy. Pour them over salads, dip whole-grain bread in them, and use them over pasta.
Step 8
Incorporate granola, which is a flavorful and high-calorie food made from oats, into your diet. Have it as a breakfast cereal, add it to pudding and ice cream, or mix it into yogurt.
Step 9
Use mayonnaise made with canola oil or other unsaturated fats. Slather it on sandwiches instead of mustard, which doesn't provide calories. Make mayonnaise-based salads, including tuna, chicken, potato and shrimp salads.
Step 10
Eat salmon, which is one of the higher-calorie fish. It's rich in protein, omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients.
Step 11
Top appropriate foods, such as eggs, pasta, sandwiches and salads, with cheese. Cheese adds flavor, calcium, protein and calories to dishes. Melt it over potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and other vegetables to add calories to a low-calorie but essential part of a healthy diet.
Step 12
Switch to full-fat dairy products, but eat and drink them in moderation. While they are nutritious and higher in calories than their reduced-fat counterparts, whole milk and other full-fat dairy products are high in saturated fat and cholesterol.
References
- American Dietetic Association: Healthy Weight Gain
- MayoClinic.com: What's a Good Way to Gain Weight if You're Underweight?; Katherine Zeratsky; August 2009
- Pediatric Crohn's and Colitis Association: Making Every Bite Count: Increasing Caloric Intake; Nixie Raymond
- National Cancer Institute: Ways to Add Calories
- All Women's Talk: 50 High Calorie Foods – Get Fat Fast; Mabelle Sese
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