What is the best way to put on weight?

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hey guys I think I've found a solution, I've put on 2 kilos recently and it must be the first few kilos I managed to gain since puberty.

the answer is- granola with full fat milk the one I recently got addicted to is 500kcal per 100 grams, it's chocolate or fruit (actually fruit is a bit more caloric) and it's so good I've been eating like 3 bowls of it a day for the last moth.

I still look like a malnourished 12-year old boy, but working on it :p

I would try exercising. I know it sounds silly but muscle weighs more than fat. So try putting on weight the healthy way.

Find your maintenance calories (calories needed to maintain your weight), and increase calorie consumption by 300-500 preferably you should eat mostly clean+healthy food or fat gain could become undesirable. That is what I'm doing to gain 30 lbs with an ecto-meso body type I find it in the medium range of difficulty to try to gain weight. We call it bulking. Eating too much fat is just going to result in looking fat, more than anything. I personally drink a gallon of 1percent fat milk a day to help with getting extra calories, carbs and protein. Basically, do that and do compound lifts on the regular and you should gain weight once you have everything sorted out.

this is really the best advice nutritionally for increasing lean muscle mass, but if you are very very thin i would also suggest adding complex carbohydrates as well. whole grains are best, wild rice, oatmeal, etc.....there are lots of different brands out there of dietary supplements that are high in protein as well as complex carbs and fruit sugars. i personally love cliff bars (which are also organic) and taste amazing. add more fat to your diet as well, but make sure it's non-saturated as much as possible--cook with more oil (olive is great for just about everything), eat more meat but avoid red, go for poultry and fish as much as you can. low fat dairy is another good way to add protein and healthy fats to your diet....you could also ask your GP, he might be able to help you come up with a diet plan tailored to your specific health profile, or can refer to a nutritionist.

i know a few people like you and from what i hear it's usually a chore to put on weight. they have to force themselves to eat and eat and eat in order to make the slightest gains. my suggestion to you is to try to eat as many calories as you can but in a healthy way. try getting a weight gain protein shake, mix it with the fattiest milk you can find, and use that between meals. for your meals, think calorie dense. try to pack as many calories into the smallest package so you don't have to eat as much to get the required amount. white potatoes are good, salads are good for you but don't really have many calories unless you throw some really high calorie foods in there. try not to neglect your fruits and vegetables because you want to stay healthy, but supplement them with really high calorie foods.

the other thing is that a lot of these people lose the weight as soon as they stop eating. my brother in-law was trying to gain weight at one point and eating became a chore for him. i think he gained 10lbs, but as soon as he stopped force-feeding himself, he lost it all.

also, i would suggest working out. try using as many compound exercises as possible, you want to use the most muscles possible in each exercise. squats, deadlifts, bench press, are all really good exercises for building muscle. lots of people avoid working their legs but the best way to build muscle is to work the biggest ones you've got. also, the only cardio you should be doing is short intense pieces at the start of your workout to get warmed up to lift weights. you don't want to be burning any more calories than you need to but you NEED to warm up. I can't stress how important warm-ups are. not only will you be less prone to injury, but you'll have blood flowing to your muscles and they'll be ready to lift. i can lift a lot more and can lift for a lot longer if i warm up properly. don't do stretches before workouts, studies have shown that stretching before an exercise will not make you any less prone to injury and it will decrease that muscle's strength. save the stretching until after the workout, it'll help with the soreness that comes after and it'll increase your flexibility which WILL help prevent injury.

so if you really want to gain weight, remember that it will take a lot of effort. i can gain weight and build muscle really quickly, which is why i'm not doing weights right now, my problem is the losing part.

I've started doing press ups and sit ups, which is good and am slowly building muscle. I've noticed my ferocious appetight has increased, so I'm eating way more which is good.

Didn't eat much in the last couple of days so feeling a bit drained.

Exercise is good because your body will be working better.

Thanks for your comments guys.

do you have any weights or access to a gym? if so, weights will build muscle much faster and more evenly than push-ups and sit-ups. right now you're really just working your abs, pecks, and triceps, so if you build muscle it'll only be there. if you do weights you can build your whole body, which is what is healthiest and looks the best. muscular imbalances can cause problems with posture, so you don't want to get too strong with one muscle without working opposing muscle groups. you probably wouldn't create any problems by just doing push-ups, but it's still better to work your whole body as opposed to just a few muscle groups. lots of athletes spend the first month in the off-season making their body more even because of the risk of injury. a friend of a friend of mine who's a lightweight rower and is really tall (so he doesn't have much muscle) rowed sweep (meaning one oar as opposed to two) and never did anything to even out. he had to sit out this entire season because he somehow dislocated a rib because of his lateral muscular imbalance (you work your outside arm/back and your inside leg most). just some food for thought.

^I'm looking to build upper body strength. I don't want a routine to complex because it will be hard for me to stick to it.
I don't have access to a gym or weights at the moment.

if you're just looking to build upper body strength then i'd suggest throwing in some chinups. if you don't have a bar, they're easy to make and cheap to buy. chinups will strengthen your lats and biceps, so it'll balance out your push-ups. bigger lats also give you that "V" shape, and they're, in my opinion, the best looking muscle on a guy's body. the best aesthetic improvement that rowing has given me (other than weight loss of course) is my bigger back, it's what i look at most in the mirror.

^yeah opposite problem as you, I need some fat to build muscle.

What would probably do the best is working with rings like some gym people do.

Cool you may get a curvy butt then.

I wonder if drinking cream might work.

This sux I'm going see if I can do some research on the net.

have you had your thyroid checked? you could have hyperthyroidism which makes it really difficult to gain weight.

no I havn't. Some of my family are just the same as me so I think it is genetics. My BMI is 19.7 so I'm a healthy weight.

I think I'm an Ectomorphs body type. I was reading that their are not many of us the human population because whenever there have been famines we are the first to die off.

Here is a link I've found.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Build-Mu ... kinny-Guys

Best advice so far! Do not forget cleans/rows as well, and dips are also nice. If you are really serious about getting some muscle you should invest in some form or resistance exercise equipment or join a gym. Most of the equipment you'd need for a simple yet effective weightlifting program can be picked up for pretty cheap.

If you do decide to join a gym/buy some weights/resistance equipment a simple way routine to start with would be something like this

Squats
Bench press
Deadlift

and

Squats
Military press or some other overhead exercise
Rows or cleans

If you're starting out you'll probably want to do 3 sets of 5 reps or 5 sets of 5 reps for every exercise except for the deadlift which should be 1 set of 5 reps. You should switch off between each workout after taking a rest day in between (do the top workout, take a rest day, then do the bottom workout, take a rest day, then do the top workout again and repeat). Its a fairly easy program, as its only 3 exercises per day, 3 days of the week. After a few weeks of that you may want to start working in dips and pullups/chinups, as those exercises really build up your upper body.

why would you only do one set of deadlifts? you shouldn't be doing any less than three sets per exercise. also i'd suggest something closer to 8-10 reps if you're trying to build muscle. when you do fewer reps at a high weight you're going to build strength but you won't really build much muscle. lots of athletes (i'll use rowing as an example again, i'm most familiar with rowing training as far as sport-specific training goes) will start the off season by balancing out their bodies to avoid injuries (not applicable to you), then they go into a bulking phase, which involves doing 4-5 sets of 8-10 reps per exercise, then they go into a strength building phase toward the end of the off-season (unless you're a lightweight, in which case your bulking phase doesn't last as long as the heavies) where they will do fewer reps (1-5) at 85-100% of their one rep max, same amount of sets.

if you're trying to build muscle it's useful to do the same as above, start with a bulking phase and then build strength. this way you build muscle, then you make it strong, with that extra strength you can lift more weight and build more muscle, then you strengthen it again. bodybuilders will often cycle like this, although they usually also have a cutting phase thrown in where they try to cut fat without losing muscle, not sure what they do for weights during this time.

also, make sure you let your muscles rest for at least 48hrs between workouts, maybe more depending on how long it takes you to recover. larger muscles also generally require more recovery time than small ones (i.e. your quads will take much longer to heal than your biceps). it's ok to do weights two days in a row, but don't work the same muscles, so don't do squats two days in a row.

donuts, ice cream, soft drinks, beer, chips, nuts, cakes & pastries.