If You Want To Gain Weight, Here's What You Should Do: Luke Coutinho

For a healthy weight gain, give time to your body to digest food and absorb its nutrients

Weight loss tips are flooding the internet these days. But there are many people who struggle to gain weight. Many people have extremely lean bodies. They are skinny, and want to work towards gaining weight so as to achieve their desired body shape. Addressing this concern is health coach Luke Coutinho, who recently went live on Facebook to talk about ways to gain weight. For gaining weight, it has to be understood that weight gain is not synonymous to eating food in excess, or eating lots of ice cream or sugar. Just like weight loss, weight gain needs to be addressed in a healthy way as well.

If you want to gain weight, here's what you should do: 

1. Do not go overboard with sugar consumption

Increasing your sugar consumption is not the right way to gain weight. Over consumption of sugar will increase your cravings and make you overeat. It leads to an insulin crash in the body.

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2. The right way to gain weight

The capacity of gaining weight is going to be different for every individual. Some people tend to naturally have lower appetite and that's why they experience difficulty in gaining weight. Stomach issues are also common in people who want to gain weight. These people are unable to break down nutrients in the food and absorb them. Digestive disorders, unhealthy gut or a very low stomach acid are the reasons behind this.

Weight gain should be done in a healthy way
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3. Check your bowel habits

People who want to gain weight need to keep a check on their bowel movement and bits of undigested food in stool. Bits of undigested food in your stool are a sign that your body is not breaking down and absorbing food in the right way - this is what leads to malnutrition.

Also read: Water Weight: 8 Habits Which Are Making You Gain Water Weight

4. Check if you feel heavy after eating little food

Many people begin to feel a heavy stomach after eating very little food. This means that the rate at which food is digested and processed in body is very slow. This happens because of low stomach acid. This problem is common in people who constantly overeat or eat junk food regularly. Lack of stomach acid is what leaves unprocessed and undigested food in the body.

To gain weight healthily, give time to your body to digest food
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5. Give time to your body to digest food

People with a high metabolism tend to digest their food quickly. According to Luke, these people should eat food every 3 to 4 hours. This is because the digestive system uses a lot of energy to break down food. Non-vegetarian meals usually take longer than vegetarian meals to digest completely. Thus, you should give time to your body to digest food.

Also read: Our Expert Kiran Lohia Gives Tips On How To Avoid Bloating And Weight Gain During Holidays

6. Avoid restrictive diets

In order to gain weight, you must always avoid restrictive diets. Eating clean is referred to eating healthy foods and giving your body what it needs. Eating more fat, sugar and butter is not the right way to gain weight. It can in fact contribute to clogging of your arteries. To gain weight, increase nutrient-dense calories in your food. Examples of nutrient-dense calories are eggs, sweet potato, nut butter, avocado or healthy oils like coconut oil and pure ghee. These foods contain medium chain fatty acids which break down in your liver. These are not harmful for heart health as well. You can also make a healthy shake with almond milk, dates, fig, bananas and nut powder. It makes for a high-calorie, healthy and nutrient-dense shake which can help you gain weight.

Weight training exercises can help you build muscles and gain weight
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7. Do weight training exercises

Yes, even for gaining weight, you need to exercise for good health. This is because people who need to gain weight need to put on lean muscle. Gaining muscles can lead to a gain in body weight. Luke explains that people who want to lose weight should focus on cutting down body fat and those who want to gain weight should focus on gaining muscles. Weight training and body weight exercises are going to be helpful for people who want to gain weight. Cardio exercises are not required for people who want to gain weight.

The idea is to not compromise your health while trying to gain weight.