We’re always talking about how to lose weight, but there are plenty of guys who want to gain weight in order to increase muscle mass.
“If you want to make more muscle cells, you need to eat more food,” Dr. Jessalynn Adam, sports medicine specialist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, tells MensHealth.com.
While eating more food sounds like a dream, it doesn’t mean you can just start gorging on pizza at every meal. Food quality is just as important as quantity, especially if you want to build muscle.
“You need to make sure that you’ll fueling your body so that it can recover,” Adam tells MensHealth.com.
Essentially, resistance training creates micro tears in your muscles, she explains. The muscle repairs itself, and your muscles will become bigger and stronger, but they need the right building blocks, like protein, to do so, she says. And if you decide to bulk up by eating junk, you’ll gain fat along with muscle.
Here are three tips for how to gain weight the right way:
Start slowly
It’s tempting to go overboard, but eating too much too quickly could cause gastrointestinal problems. “Our bodies like certainty and routine,” says Registered Dietitian Christen Cupples Cooper, EdD and Assistant Professor at the College of Health Professions at Pace University. Although side effects vary by person, adding too many calories quickly upsets your normal routine, and may cause an upset stomach, bloating, heartburn, diarrhea or constipation.
She recommends adding 250 calories per day to gain weight.
Increase portion sizes
Cooper says it’s easier to increase calories by having larger meals and a few snacks, instead of simply eating more meals. “For example, if you have two scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, have three scrambled eggs on whole wheat toast with a piece of fruit or container of yogurt with fruit.”
She also recommends snacking on nuts, which have omega-3 fatty acids and protein that help build muscle.
Eat clean
Adam advises against relying on junk food and supplements for extra calories. Instead, chomp on legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and yes, protein.
Need meal ideas? Use this daily meal plan to gain weight, courtesy of Leslie Bonci, R.D., sports dietitian for the Kansas City Chiefs:
Breakfast
Select from one of the following menus
- Orange juice (12-oz glass)
- Bowl of Cheerios (large) with granola added, skim milk
- Bagel or 2 slices of wheat toast with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter on each piece
or
- 2 pieces of fruit
- A glass of juice (12 oz)
- A breakfast sandwich on an English muffin
- Scrambled eggs (2)
- 2 pieces of ham
- 2 slices of cheese
