If you are a naturally skinny person who wants to gain lean muscle mass it becomes essential for you to undertake a healthy weight gain diet plan. It is even more important than getting the right weight training program. In this post I’m going to be talking about the different fundamentals that compose a successful weight gain diet plan and more importantly when and what you should be eating in your weight gain diet daily plan.
Firstly I’m going to talk about something that unless your totally new to this which I doubt if you’ve been skinny all your life….
CONSUME MORE CALORIES!
I’ve decided to capitalize the letters to highlight the importance of this. The only way that it’s even possible to gain weight is to consume more energy than burn off. There is no getting shut of the basic laws of the bodies anatomy, it’s just a fact, a define fact!! People have different anatomy’s in terms of there metabolism (the speed in which food is transferred into energy). Those of us that have fast metabolisms (Me included) need to eat even more to successfully gain weight when compared to a person with a slow metabolism.
Now, eating more calories doesn’t immediately mean go out and stuff yourself with processed and saturated fats from your local fast food restaurant. The solid basis on which you must build your weight gain diet plan is good nutritious, calorie rich foods. If your appetite isn’t much to go off and you find hard to put weight on then the challenge you face is trying to eat enough calories without beginning to feel full at the time. Don’t worry, this can be done….pretty easily too.
Well…How many calories should I consume?
There isn’t a set amount for people to gain weight. This has to be formulated for every single person based on the speed of their metabolism. It can be based soley on your age and your weight, other people can take lean mass into account and the more thorough people would be recounting every single bit of activity they did during an average day.
When you’re calorie counting to figure out your daily needs it’s not much fun, but don’t worry, it’s not something you have to do long term. Once you establish a good understanding of the amount of food maintains your ideal weight, you will then begin to instinctively know how much you need to eat every day.
Protein….
Is the subject of many opinions with bodybuilders, nutritionists, and sports scientists alike. The main differentiation between the above is how much protein should be taken. It has been the subject of fierce debate for years and I don’t think it’s going to change. I’ll leave the debate on protein for now, I’ll leave it for another article so we can cover it more detail.
If you talk to any bodybuilder they will all agree that you need a much higher amount of protein in your body than the FDA recommends. They have been doing it for years and they have some really convincing arguments to prove it too. In fact some researchers are going as far as agreeing with the bodybuilders in some arguments. According to many bodybuilders a general rule of thumb is that an average weight gain diet plan should contain up to 2g per kg of bodyweight. Yes, this may seem like a lot but don’t forget you have to consume more calories than the average person and the calories have to come from somewhere don’t they. If you take the same amount you are now your just going to stay the same way you are, that’s a fact. The amount of calories you eat should be from a carbs, fats, and protein. But mostly protein depending on what your goal is.
What’s so important about protein?
Well….from a weight gain point of view protein is full of amino acids, in fact there are 20 all together and 8 essential amino acids must come from the food we eat. When you undertake your weight training program it is important that you take in more amino acids than you would have done previously as the bodies demand for amino acids increases. If the bodies need for amino acids isn’t met by your weight gain diet plan then this will cause the muscle tissue to break down. Without a sufficient amount of amino acids and protein in your diet muscle gain is impossible.
Great sources of protein are fresh and canned fish, chicken, low fat milk, turkey, lean red meat, low fat yoghurt, low fat cottage cheese, egg whites, soy products, and protein powder (In particular Whey).
Carbohydrates
A successful weight gain diet plan should contain a lot of unrefined carbs. Because your protein intake has increased, your carb intake has to increase too.
Carbs are converted into glucose and glycogen in the body and they are only macronutrient that can supply your body with and immediate boost of energy, which is essential for any type of training.
Sources of carbohydrates in a successful weight gain diet plan should be whole meal bread, pasta etc. Potatoes, brown rice, couscous, high fibre cereals are good too.
Fats
There are several dietary fats that the body needs in a weight gain diet plan. One gram of fat contains more calories than one gram of both carbs and protein. In fact, a tablespoon of flaxseed oil contains more calories than a whole banana. So taking this into consideration it makes sense to add a good source of fat into your weight gain diet plan.
So what is good fat then?
Without going to scientific on your ass, fats can be sub divided. They can be divided into saturated fats, mono-unsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. The fats that you want to consume are monounsaturated fats, which can be found in olive oil and avocado’s; and polyunsaturated fats which can be found in oily cold water fish, flax, sunflower, safflower, cod liver oil, and also some raw nuts.
EFA’s or essential fatty acids are something that has been the subject of many a happy discussion between health professionals. EFA’s which are also know as Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids are found in polyunsaturated fats. They are the ultimate in a proper weight gain diet plan and essential in any weight training program. They have a substantial amount of health benefits and they play a huge part in building muscle.
A healthy weight gain diet plan should contain foods that are high in these healthy fats as they will not only help you build muscle, they will improve your overall health and help you live longer too.
Meal frequency
Right.. now this is important. You should forget about eating just 3 sqaure meals a day and couple of snacks in between. You have to be serious here. The method that many a successful bodybuilder uses when planning out there weight gain diet plan is they tend to eat 6 small meals a day at a regular interval of every 2 to 3 hours. This supplies your body with a constant supply of nutrients and allows your body to fully digest your food.
Another point I want to touch on before you go is that you should be eating a variety of fresh fruits and veggies in your weight gain diet plan too. They are a particularly great source of vitamins and minerals (and particularly antioxidants). They both also have substantial health and weight gain benefits.
All the things we have covered above have a big influence on your weight gain and muscle building goals. There are many other factors that should be taken into consideration but I didn’t have time to talk about them here. Things like vitamins and minerals, fibre, water, alcohol and cholesterol, they are all important to your overall health and weight gain aims.
Now that you have a basic understanding of what a good weight gain diet should contain, you should incorporate the things you have learned as soon as you can to your weight training program. To stay on top of all the latest info from this blog make sure you sign up for its RSS feed on the right.
