Gaining Weight - the Nutrition (Part I)

In the vast market of products that help you lose weight, the large group of people who have been trying to gain more weight has gone ignored until recently. Gaining weight is a challenge for many people, and weighs heavily (pun intended) on the minds of many, especially the minds of guys you can't seem to gain muscle. There are at lest three important components required in any program to help you gain weight. All the three are essential, and with any of them missing, your quest for gaining more weight could easily fail. The three components are nutrition, exercise, and rest.

We will look at each of these in detail one by one in the three parts of the series. In this part, we will focus on the nutrition.

Before we continue with the weight gain guide, you'll need to understand what needs to be gained. While eating chips while watching TV might sound like the best way to gain weight in the first go, it really isn't. What you want to gain over all is more muscle, and not just fat (although you WILL gain some fat with muscle). This doesn't mean that you will have a bulging body. Most of the muscle in your body is internal and doesn't even show. So don't be worried about being bulky.

So how should you regulate the three for optimum weight?

Nutrition - Yes, you've heard it before - eat right, and you'll be fine. This is the single most important aspect of your body weight. If you don't eat right, nothing else will be able to help. It sounds negative, but it is actually a good thing, because correcting your eating habits will help you in a variety of ways other than just helping you gain weight. For example, often you will find that the healthier food is the cheaper kind. It often tastes the best, and other than just correcting your weight, it will also help with your overall health (including emotional and spiritual). Here's a brief nutrition guide to help you gain more weight through nutrition:

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• Eat more protein - This is one of the most important parts of gaining weight. Most Americans don't get adequate amount of protein in there diet. In fact, seven out of ten don't know how much they need, and two of the three left don't know where to get it from! That is abysmal for a nation that claims to one of the most advanced and leader of the civilized world.

  You need at least 4 grams of protein for every 10 lbs of your body weight (the desired body weight). So if you weigh 130lbs, and your target weight is 170lbs, then you should be eating about 68grams of protein at the least. The upper end of this should never exceed 8 grams of protein per 10lbs of body weight.

  
  

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• Some of the good foods to eat for more protein include (in order of benefits, most beneficial first) - whey, chicken (one of the cheapest meats and also very easy to prepare), lentil (also one of the cheapest and the easiest to prepare), eggs, pasta, rice, and some dairy products. All of these are good for quick weight gain.

  
  

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• If you need to use a protein supplement to get adequate protein to help gain the most amount of weight, always go with Whey protein supplement because of it's high absorption, low costs, and the ability to be mixed with milk for added benefits.

  
  

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• A little fat is good for higher protein absorption and will help you attain your weight gain goals faster. Always try to find something with small amounts of unsaturated fat. If you're taking a good whey protein supplement, it will allow for a little flexibility in this area. If you're getting something with saturated fat though, make sure that the protein content is at least twice that of the saturated fat content.

  
  

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• Reduce the intake of sugar and sodium. Sugar tricks your body into believing that it has more than enough food, and doesn't need anything more, thereby making you miss out on the other nutrients, and sodium creates osmotic pressure in the cells hurting your weight gain chances.

  
  

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• Drink lots and lots of water - this is not only necessary for continuous weight gain, but is also downright essential for proper absorption of different nutrients and getting your best workout. This is probably the biggest shortcoming in most people's diet. Drink at least 6-8 glasses of water everyday to experience good weight gains.

  
  

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If you follow these basic guidelines for your nutrition needs, you WILL experience weight gains. The key is not doing something different, it's putting the basic actions into practice, and doing it consistently. In the next part, we will look at the best exercises that you can use to experience the most weight gains.