I am desperately trying to gain weight. The problem is that I seem to lose what I eat very quickly.
I have three Huel Black Edition Protein Shakes a day and some Protein Bars as well.
I do eat other things like a lot of bananas, Granola etc along with meals. I appear to have an issue with the fact that some foods disagree with me although I like them e.g.curry’s. So I tend to stay away from these.
Please can you tell me what bland food types I can eat that will stay in the body longer so I can put the weight on?
For your information the below information may assist you helping me:
Age: 47
Male
Height 5 ft 11"
I started weight gain on 14th September 2022.
My weight on 14/09/22 was 60kg
My Target asap is: 80kg
My weight today 07/10/22 is 66.2kg.
So I have gained 6.2 KG in 3 Weeks Two Days.
I don’t exercise that much.
I really need to stop processing my food so quickly.
It’s less about food staying in your body for longer. For you I think it’s really just going to be that energy balance equation. Making sure you’re eating more calories than you’re expending.
Have you spent time tracking your calories? You might be surprised. Tomorrow, have a normal day and measure the weight of all your food and add it into something like MyFitnessPal. Then calculate how many calories you need to consume each day based on your height/weight/age/gender etc using an online calculator. It will help you see if you are actually eating enough. Don’t guess either!
3 of our Complete Protein shakes is only 315kcal, just so you know. Which might not be as much as you thought!
As I say I am using the Black Edition of Huel and on the packet it states " Two Scoops = 400Kcal". Am I missing something here as you say “3 of our Complete Protein shakes is only 315kcal”? I thought 1 shake of two scoops was 400Kcal.
I’m not being awkward, just trying to understand if I have misunderstood something as I was thinking that one 2 scoop shake would provide me with 400Kcal.
I am tracking my weight daily and recording everything I eat.
That’s fine, no problem at all. Not being in to weight gain etc at all until recently I just thought I was missing something!!
Is it possible to gain weight on Protein Shakes alone if you have more calories than your body currently requires according to your own body statistics mentioned earlier?
I realise you should eat as well but wondered if that was possible?
Try a handful or two of mixed nuts. Aldi do bags of them which are reasonable. I also like a big spoonful of almond butter! Or go with whichever you prefer most.
Maybe put extra virgin olive oil on your salads etc.
Both of the above are high in calories, but are healthy fats.
Cheese if that agrees with you? Kefir, cottage cheese, Greek yoghurt…yum.
For sure, so long as you were consuming more calories than you were expending. Although you’d be missing out a bunch of other macronutrients, depending on what protein shake you used, missing out on vitamins and minerals too.
To get the amount of calories required though would be a huge. Protein shakes aren’t designed to be calorie dense. E.g. if you consumed 2000kcal of Huel Complete Protein, you would also consume 381g of protein.
2kg a week gain is too fast to be healthy for more than a short time. Muscle gain is much slower than this even with strength training, so it would unfortunately be mostly fat.
Your BMI of 20.4 is now comfortably in the ideal zone, around where many athletes are. You say you are aiming for 80kg, which would be almost the top of the same zone. Without a good reason, this is not necessary! It would be fine if you intend to build quite a lot of muscle.
The body breaks down excess protein and converts it to use for energy, so just like carbs, excess protein can end up as fat. No problem to some extent, but 20kg is another matter.
Protein is important, but if you have too large a fraction of your calories from protein, it may be bad for you (eg kidney problems)
A balanced diet with a sensible number of calories compared to what you burn is healthy.
Good diet advice for underweight adults (huel can certainly be part of such a diet) Underweight adults - NHS
but my eyes chose to omit the very clear ‘Black Edition’.
Carry on, sorry about that!