Help me gain weight

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Hi there. I'm 14 years old and according to my BMI, I'm on the lower side of healthy. Thing is, I'm not gaining any weight or height, and for an adult, my BMI would be underweight!!

I've tried asking my friends but they roll their eyes and say I shouldn't complain about being skinny. They know full well that I keep getting sick because of my weight, but the only advice they give is to eat fatty foods.

I know that's not at all a healthy way to gain weight, and besides, I have sensory issues with eating food. There's not much that I'll happily eat, and I almost never finish a meal because I get so uncomfortable! I've tried shoving food down my throat for about a week, about 1.5 times what I usually eat, but I still didn't gain any weight! In fact, I noticed my weight dropped even lower after that week. I'm beginning to get scared I have something serious that's making me lose weight.

Any ideas?

Hmm. What exactly have you been eating to put on more weight? The answer is crucial, I think. People are very different.

Your friends are wrong about fat. Usually it's fast carbs that will get you fatter, but in combination with fat it really packs on the pounds. Not in your case it seems.

Is it just fat you are lacking, or muscle as well?

Eating healthy fats like fish and olive oil is actually great for your health. They are good for your heart, brain, nerves and mood.

Fats and oils, nuts and seeds, avocado, red meat, whole eggs, full-fat dairy (milk and cheese), and oily fish are great choices for getting a lot of calories without having to fill your stomach to the brim.

For carbs, you can do things like potatoes (sweet potatoes if you want the healthier alternative. They're also naturally tastier, imo), brown rice, oatmeal. If we're also including all around healthy options, you also want foods with high sources of fiber - such as oatmeal, veggies, whole wheat bread, nuts, fruits, etc.

Obviously there is some overlap between certain food categorizations, but you get the idea. The possibilities are endless.

Perhaps learning to cook would help--properly cooking stuff to your needs can go a long way toward making food palatable.

To gain weight you've got to be eating in a calorie surplus, that's more food than your body needs.

You have a maintanence level, the amount of calories you need for your weight to stay stable.

Your maintenance in the amount of energy your body needs and the amount you use in a day.

A surplus is obviously extra energy.

It is best to eat healthy, balanced diet if you're going to eat in a surplus.

It is also a good idea to start exercising and lifting weights.

If you lift weights most of the weight you'll gain will be in muscle and not fat, giving you an attractive 'toned' look.

Working out doesn't have to be some painful process where you lift super high weights - this is dangerous even for teen males your age.

Just whatever weights you struggle with slightly will provide enough resistance for your body to want to build muscle.

You shouldn't force-feed yourself massive amounts of food - healthy or unhealthy.

But a slight calorie surplus of about 200 more calories than you need daily is all that is necessary - it is quite easy to achieve 200 extra-cals.

No need to worry about staying the same weight because eventually you will gain weight if you eat 200 extra cals.

You might have a very fast metabolism, making this process take longer but it by no means is invincible.

Eating in a surplus daily will inevitably lead to weight gain.

Also, weight gain is not a one-time thing but takes a long time. Gaining weight can be just as hard as losing it.

It's actually nearly impossible to gain weight in a day.

The average calorie need for an adult is 2,000 cal, and to gain even a small amount of weight you have to eat 5 times that amount - about 10,000 calories.

A big mac burger from mcdonalds is only about 500. That's 20 big mac burgers in a day to gain just a pound or two.

Also, it's very unlikely even a week of massive eating will result in signficant weight gain.

Most of it will be weight in water and lost at the end of the week. Some of it would be fat gain.

Again, depends on how much calories you actually ate.

If you're serious about gaining that weight, the best way is to find the fods you enjoy eating, pick the healthiest of them all, calculate your maintainance (it can be mathematically calculated!) and eat a tiny bit more than that, and do some form of exercise that tests your muscles so you'll get stronger ('toned' and healthy look).

Your weight gain would be slow so you've got to be patient - maybe 1-2lbs a month, if that.

Lift weights and eat more protein. Contrary to what most people think, gaining 10 lbs of muscle won't make a woman look hulkish or masculine. Only women who bodybuild to the extreme look ripped. Moderate muscle exercises on most women would just give them more size and tone.

This is an important point to hammer on.

It needs to be stressed that lifting weights in of itself won't make a woman look like a man. A lot of those freakish looking women who looked built like men are either on steroids (many professional bodybuilders are, even when they say they aren't), or they have been training for a muscular build for a long time.

Exactly. "Oh, I don't wanna lift because then I'll be steroid-woman" is just an excuse. And I don't make myself an exception. I'm a fatboy myself and I've given loads of excuses. "Oh, catabolic, anabolic, blah blah blah".

Any woman with a remote amount of logic and knowledge on fitness would know that muscle building is gradual and you don't have to keep going until you reach hulk category. But it's a good way to talk oneself out of doing it.