Do you know how to maintain healthy weight?
Healthily gaining weight can be a challenge if you’re underweight and once you manage to get that it’s even more challenging to maintain it. Although it’s a good thing that you aren’t obese, being underweight because of a poor diet can be just as bad for your health if not more.
In that case, achieving your weight goal can be as simple as making changes to your diet, simple, yes, but not quite that easy.
Speaking of your healthy weight goal, you can find out how many pounds you need to put up with a tool called BMI or Body Mass Index.
Body Mass Index is an important measure to let you confirm about healthy weight.
It helps you figure out how much you should weigh ideally, depending on your height and current weight. It’s not limited to height and weight because it also factors in muscle mass and the amount of fat.
Once you have settled on how much weight you need to gain, you can consult a dietitian to plan out your diet.
Here are some helpful and practical tips to help you gain healthy weight.
Breakdown your Meals
Since you’re underweight, your body feels fuller even when you eat less and eating more is fundamentally key to weight gain. Instead of having three meals a day, break them down to five or six smaller meals throughout the day.
Increase your Protein Intake
Switch to calorie-rich foods to maximize your intake. Protein smoothies are a good start since very nutritious and tremendously help with healthy weight gain; besides, they taste great. Go for homemade smoothies instead of variants available in the market because they are sugar laden and not nearly as nutritious.
Another drink you should consider incorporating into your diet is milk. It’s a decades-old secret to healthy weight gain and muscle building. It is a cocktail of proteins, carbs, healthy fats, vitamins and calcium which fortifies your bones.
Studies have shown that the protein milk contains helps increase muscle mass when combined with lifting. Drinking one or two glasses a day should be more than enough to satisfy your body’s protein requirements.
Eat Calorie-Dense Foods
As mentioned earlier, underweight people feel fuller quicker, and that’s why it is essential that your diet primarily consists of calorie-dense foods. It means that it gives you a lot of calories per serving. One such food is rice. It contains a lot of carbs, and when combined with a protein source, rice can prove to be a nutritionally perfect meal that can add healthy weight.
That said; consume rice moderately because its overconsumption can sometimes increase arsenic levels in the blood leading to toxicity.
Do Moderate Weight Lifting
Now that you’re consuming more calories than your body is burning, you want to ensure that those extra calories go to your muscles and subcutaneous fat layer instead of your belly.
To do that you have to lift regularly and then go on increasing the weights with time. And if you have no prior experience with lifting weights or if it is your first time in the gym, seek the counsel of a trainer to help you get the ball rolling.
Monitor your calorie intake, so you don’t burn all the excess calories and retain your healthy weight.
