Weight loss tips are secretly the best weight gain tips - No, seriously.
Stick with us here, we’re on to something.
Losing weight is easier said than done. We assume so anyway, since so much has been said about it. You can read your weight in weight loss tips plastered all over the internet, in magazines, on advertisements and pretty much anywhere you go. For those of us trying to gain weight however, it’s a different story when it comes to finding information. Sure, it’s out there. But it is significantly more niche of a health goal than weight loss is. You already know that, that’s why you’re here.
Well we’re gonna let you in on a little trade secret. Some weight loss tips are secretly the best weight gain tips.
What?
See, there are so many little tips and pieces of advice out there on how to cut out calories, dampen appetite and change eating habits. They’re meant to be easy and adaptable to most people’s lifestyles.
But how can these weight loss tips help you gain weight?
It’s easy. Just do the opposite. Flip it on its head. Turn that frown upside down.
Need a little more convincing? Here’s a list of some of the best weight loss tips that you can turn into weight gain tips.
Use smaller plates
Use BIGGER plates
This one’s pretty obvious; More plate, more room for food. It can also have a psychological effect, tricking your brain into thinking there’s less food than there is in front of you.
Even if you’re eating the same amount of food, it’s better to eat it all off one big plate rather than a small plate you polish off and then go back for seconds, as this will slow down your eating and lead to you getting full faster.
Which leads us to our next tip.
Slow down when eating
Eat FASTER
When you eat quicker, you can get more food in before your brain starts receiving and sending the signals that you’re full and satiated.
Big, big thing to keep in mind here though. Make sure you’re still fully chewing your food. Not doing so can cause digestive problems and make it harder for your body to get to the nutrients in the food you eat. And we also aren’t saying wolf down your meals so fast that you end up choking to death.
Just don’t let yourself get distracted or be overly leisurely when eating.
There is one caveat to that last part though, as you’ll see in the tip coming up next.
Don't eat in front of a screen
Multitask While you Eat
This is advice most people these days already take. A common sentiment lately is something along the lines of, “I can’t eat without YouTube”. Media consumption habits aside, this is actually a good trend for those of us trying to gain weight. Although, calling it a ‘trend’ might be an oversimplification when you consider Medieval royalty would hire jesters to entertain them while they eat.
Regardless. By distracting your mind while you eat, your body doesn’t register as readily how much you’ve eaten. Now, keep in mind you should be continuously eating and not taking breaks while doing so.
Distract your mind not your mouth.
Do something like watching a show or reading a book, not something that’s going to keep your hands busy.
Actually, you should be eating right now while you read this.
Don't eat right before bed
DO eat right before bed
By eating right before bed you’re taking in calories that won’t get burned right away like they might during daily activity, as our bodies use very little energy while sleeping.
That being said, we still burn calories in our sleep. The amount depends on your body, but roughly 500 calories in 9hours of sleep is a fair average estimate. So aim to eat something that’s around 500 calories.
Avoid eating too much right before bed though, as this can cause digestive issues such as acid reflux. The human digestive system works better vertically, as gravity gives it a bit of an assist. For some, it can also cause sleep issues. If you wake up in the middle of the night, haunted by the vision of your dead business partner. It’s probably just something you ate before bed. Also you’re Ebenezer Scrooge.
Cut out liquid calories
Drink MORE liquid calories
Liquid calories, our beloved. We have more to say about them than is just going to be included here. But it comes pretty intuitively that drinking 1000 calories is a lot easier than eating it. Juice, Milk, protein shakes, smoothies, and nutritional drinks can all get calories into you quickly and without making you feel too full as they don’t trigger the same response in your body saying that you’re full the way solid food does.
Soda, of course, is another option. As well as sports drinks. But they’re not as lean as a glass of apple juice obviously. We don’t want to say they’re more “unhealthy” as everyone’s health goals are different. But objectively whatever goes into a Mountain Dew Baja Blast is a lot more nutritionally suspect than any given fruit juice.
You can also get more liquid calories from foods that aren’t supposed to be liquid. By that we mean ice cream. Ice cream is very calorie dense and tastes good. You can leave it out just long enough for it to melt without going bad (less than 2 hours) and then drink it down like it’s nothing. It’s also sold in bulk amounts at affordable costs. This is famously how actor Rob McElhenney gained 60 pounds between seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Just…don’t go that extreme with it.
Don’t keep snacks in the house
Keep A LOT of snacks around
For gaining weight, snacks are great. Trying to get all your calories in meals alone is a lot harder than getting a portion of them from small snacks throughout the day.
Eating snacks is also not a particularly mentally engaging activity, meaning its easy to get extra calories snacking away while also getting other activities done at work or at home. This goes back to our tip about distracting your mind.
Snacks aren’t always the most cost effective solutions, but there are many that are cheaply sold in large quantities.
Snacks like nuts, seeds, fruit, popcorn and granola are all great healthy options. Cheese and crackers, muffins, and protein bars are great too. If you’re already getting all the nutrients you need and just want extra calories – even if they’re not the most nutritious – having chips, cookies or candy around is perfectly fine.
The bottom line here is that having snacks you enjoy eating around will make them more tempting and available to you, allowing you to get extra calories in between meals.
So you can keep snacks in the house. And you can do even better than that. Keep them nearby in the places you spend time. Your desk at work, your car, in your bag, on the coffee table, even in your bedroom. Try not to get crumbs in the bed though.
If you struggle with having an appetite, make the snack as accessible and visible to you as you can. That way you’re more likely to reach for it. And by having different kinds of snacks you avoid flavor fatigue.
And …pssst… get in close here. They don’t want you to know about this. You ever heard of shower beer? Y’know, cracking a cold one in the shower? How about a shower apple? Yeah. Or a shower banana? A couple shower grapes? Trust us. Trust us. Having a little snack in the shower is an amazing use of your free will. Just choose something that’s not gonna melt or dissolve in the water. Now get in closer here. You can draw a bath and decompress in the water and maybe just maybe, you have a bag of chips with you, you can shake your hand off dry and reach in that bag. Maybe it’s not a bag of chips, it’s a charcuterie board. Or pizza rolls. Maybe nobody can stop you from doing this. In fact, they absolutely can’t.
Pour snacks out into a bowl
Snack straight out of the bag
More about snacks. This one’s great because you just have to do less work for yourself. As someone who’s used to counting calories and measuring servings it can feel a bit uncertain to eat snacks straight from the bag without measuring how many calories you’re eating. But by putting a set amount of the snack into a container you’re putting a finite cap on how much of the snack you can eat, and also make yourself more aware of how much you’ve even.
Snacking out of the container makes you less aware of how much you’ve eaten. That time spent snacking does not even feel real, your brain just doesn’t register it. And you can eat as much as you like in the time you’re snacking, the limit of course being the size of the bag. You’re not even very likely to feel full, since snacks are typically “empty calories”, meaning they don’t satiate hunger like heavier foods do. For a lot of people “empty calories” is a negative connotation. For those of us trying to gain weight, empty calories are practically essential.
Afterwards, you can estimate how much you ate by how much was in the bag when you started subtracted from how much is left, and use the serving size to figure out how many calories to add to your count.
Go on more walks
Walk LESS
For our final tip, let’s move away from focusing on eating habits.
Walks are surprisingly good calorie burners, more so than you’d expect. If you’re walking to work, class or just around every day, you’re going to burn a lot of calories that you could either be storing as weight or using at the gym.
Now, we all know a sedentary lifestyle and sitting on that gluteus you’re trying to make bigger isn’t the healthiest. Nobody’s saying you have to live your life like the humans from WALL-E. But if you’re struggling to gain weight, cutting out longer walks wherever you reasonably and conveniently can will help you achieve your goal.
As with anything, gaining weight is a matter of balancing the ultimate path of your journey, with what you reasonably need to do to live a full and balanced lifestyle.
Conclusion
There’s a few reversed weight loss tips to get you thinking. Now, not all weight loss tips make good weight gain tips, even if you do the opposite of what they say. Eating whole grains, getting good sleep, and daily exercise are all commonly touted weight loss tips that are important and healthy habits that shouldn’t be dropped just for the hope of gaining a bit more weight.
Always take good care of your body, this will have you feeling better and therefore better able to accomplish your goals.
That’s all from us for now. Thanks for reading, and good luck eating. Grow big.