To ask for help gaining weight?

[Wolfie11]

I’ve always been slim naturally but due to poor eating habits and stress I’ve become far too thin. I’m around 5 foot 8 and a half inches and when I weighed myself yesterday I was hovering between 8 stone 10/11. I’m cold and tired all the time and miserable about how I look. Previously I was around 9 and a half stone and looked and felt much happier and healthier. I would have still liked to have put on a little then as well though.

At the moment my eating habits are awful, I don’t eat any fruit and veg and I drink very little water. I never have breakfast, I do usually have lunch but I don’t finish it and I will have dinner but again I don’t always finish it. I don’t really exercise other than walking the dog. For example, today I didn’t have any breakfast, had a few sips of water throughout the morning and then had lentil soup with a buttered roll, can of coke and a cake for lunch.

I’m thinking if I try and make sure I have a decent breakfast with eggs etc, lunch, dinner, two big glasses of milk, 1-2 litres of water plus 2-3 snacks a day like nuts, yoghurts, bananas then I will hopefully start to put some weight on? Does anyone have any advice? Anytime I’ve tried to put weight on before when I’ve already been starting heavier has been so difficult, any help at all would be appreciated 😣. It’s difficult to talk to people in real life about this as most either think it’s not an issue or are trying to lose weight and don’t understand it can be just as difficult to gain.

Have you been to the GP to make sure everything’s ok with bloods etc?

Talk to your GP and see if you can get a referral to a dietician.

Some simple things that you can do that might help.

1. get some avocado into your diet. It's very fatty but 'good' fatty
2. coconut yoghurt is also good for gaining weight in a 'healthy' way
3. full fat everything milk, yoghurt, butter the whole shebang.

I agree that checking with your GP would be a good idea (FBC and thyroid?)

Don't force yourself to eat breakfast if your're not in the habit.

Your typical lunch doesn't sound too bad, aside from the coke (swop to juice or smoothie) and add a small piece of fruit

Drinking milk and snacking on nuts both sound like good ideas too.

What does a typical dinner look like?

If you're tired you're probably deficient in vitamins, start with a decent vitamin like forceval or centrum, add in a womens vitamin.

For breakfast, can you have an omelette? Add in a couple of vegetables you like with some cheese, a little olive oil too, it will get you having some fat, some nutrients and some additional calories.

For snacks, what about fruit, with nuts, and a little bit of honey?
Dark chocolate and berries?

Focus on keeping your diet as nutrient dense as you can, so as you put on weight, you're also putting in foods with a good amount of vitamins because extra calories doesn't always mean you're getting anything of nutritional value

What are your favourite foods? -as a big person I'm sure I can advise how to add calories to most things (unhealthy obsession with food!)

What are your go to meals?

Thank you for the replies.I had thyroid bloods done a few years ago (I can’t even remember why) and everything was fine but I guess it might be worth making an appointment. I’ve been having some other health issues so I might as well run it past a doctor and see what they say.

Typical dinners are meatballs and pasta, spaghetti bolognese, chicken wraps although at least a couple of times a week I’ll just have waffles/chicken dippers/beans 🙈. I haven’t really been enjoying food recently so I’ve probably just been rotating the same five meals really. I do like most meats, fish, pasta dairy etc. I don’t like fruit and veg, I’ve got some kind of weird mental block with them which I think stems from my mum being really forceful with eating them when I was young, they make me physically gag. I can eat bananas and drink fruit juice and certain smoothies plus I can manage veg in sauces and stuff, I just need to make more of a conscious effort to eat them really. If I’m being honest, I’m pretty poor (financially) at the moment and not the best cook which isn’t a great combination!

The NHS have a 12 week challenge app, it’s really good for settling goals for what you want to do.

This is really helpful, thank you so much! Do you mean get a decent vitamin plus a women’s vitamin on top of that?

I do like omelettes but I’ve never actually made one 😳. But I’ll definitely give it a go, I love them with cheese!

I’m not great with fruit, I end up gagging and basically having a minor breakdown 🤦🏼‍♀️. I can manage bananas though and I do really like nuts. I need to make more of an effort to overcome my issue with fruit and veg. Maybe just starting off really small and one at a time and building it up or something. It’s so embarrassing but I actually get distressed trying to make myself eat them 🙃.

I love pasta dishes, things like meatballs or tuna pasta cheese bakes and stuff are my favourite! I also have a really sweet tooth which is possibly part of the problem. I eat quick, easy sugary stuff that has no nutritional value to fill up and then scrimp on proper food.

I’ve never really learned how to cook so I’m pretty rubbish at it and I don’t have a lot of money so I end up just buying whatever’s easiest a lot of the time 🤦🏼‍♀️.

So for weight I would agree about getting bloods checked. Do you feel anxious a lot? How much sleep are you getting? Have you lost weight quite quickly?

Fats and protein will help with weight gain. So butter, cream, fatty cuts of meat, avocado for fats. Eggs, meat, fish (especially oily fish), nuts for protein. Most of these are also nutritious in other ways which is important if you’re not eating much veg.

But really it sounds like the issue is your appetite if you aren’t finishing meals. Why do you think this is? Too tired? Don’t like the taste? Anxious tummy?

For veg - do you like vegetable based soups? That’s a brilliant way of getting more veg and water inside you if you don’t really like them “as is”. You can batch cook and freeze it. Bbcgoodfood has a lot of easy, nice veg soup recipes.

This might sound nuts but could work for you.

We had to help my son gain weight and coconut yoghurt was one of the best ways. He wasn't crazy about it so we mixed in one of the Ella's kitchen baby fruit pouches.

If you want to get used to the taste of a fruit without the texture or 'eating it' you can get one of these (supermarket own brands are cheaper and just as good. Aldi ones are great) and mix it with a plain yoghurt.

I think

So you mention you like veg in sauces, how are you with Mushrooms and spinach? I have a decent recipe for a pasta that my veg averse teen really loves.
I chop up a pack of mushrooms really small, throw em in a pan with some olive oil and pepper, loads of garlic (dried or frozen, or even lazy garlic will do)
Pour in a tub of cream, lower the heat, stir frequently, add in some dried mixed herbs, and grate in cheese.

Obviously throw your favourite pasta on,

A few mins before your pasta is finished, add spinach.

It's my daughters favourite but because of the high calorie content I don't cook it too often!

Bananas are a great start! Things will improve over time, it just takes time!

If you like omelette but haven't ever cooked one, I make my omelettes in a cake tin, with baking paper to stop them sticking! I've never been a lover of eggs so when I tried to introduce omelettes into my diet, I just made it simple for myself!

Pasta bakes can definitely be a cheap meal that puts weight on! If you're looking for cheap, quick and easy, I used to love cacio e Pepe. (Or my bastardised version of it!)
All you need is olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, cheese, and spaghetti.

Pop the spaghetti on,
Heat olive oil, loads of black pepper, small pinch of salt, and about a tbsp of butter about 7 minutes after spaghetti gone in.

Grate yourself quite a bit of cheese,

Keep a mug of the pasta water aside,

Spaghetti in the buttery mixture,
Then throw in the cheese, toss it around a bit, add a splash of the spaghetti water, when it's sort of smooth and silky serve.
Ah. I miss that meal. Nice with proper Italian cheese, but because I couldn't bare spending the money I started using normal mature cheddar, or on occasion parmesan.

My daughter is underweight but has a flea like appetite. We have learnt little and often high calorific food is best.

Things that help
Lots of cubes of cheese that she can graze on
Cooked breakfasts cooked in decent fat
Mini sausages / pork pies / Cornish pasties ( from M and S)
Supper before bed - milk and croissant or milk pudding
Full fat milk in all drinks. Cream if you can stomach it.
She has a nut allergy but peanut butter would be good

I quite often do afternoon tea and jam and clotted cream..
It is a nightmare for everyone else

Breakfast - full fat milk in porridge or granola, have an extra piece of toast. Lunch - double or triple up your sandwich filling so ham and cheese and butter or egg and avocado and mayo, have some crisps and biscuits. Dinner - have a side of garlic bread, top things with cheese, always have a pudding.

DD3 has massive issues trying to keep weight on. I just make sure we have full fat milk, butter, yogurt, cheese etc and she likes having fruit smoothies instead of breakfast so I make them with milk, protein powder, greek yogurt and frozen fruit. I find trying to tempt her with little and often works better than daunting big portions of food in front of her.

And lots of pasta based creamy sauce teas. She'll eat large plates of that without issues.

I’ve never really learned how to cook so I’m pretty rubbish at it and I don’t have a lot of money so I end up just buying whatever’s easiest a lot of the time 🤦🏼‍♀️

We all start somewhere. I made some pretty Inedible dishes at some point, but I think only 1 ever had to be thrown away. There are loads of step by step videos now so start trying. Eventually you will get it. I personally always undercook veg compared to recipes because i like it to be bit harder.

Make sure you take your vitamins with some food. Many vitamins are fat soluble. If I am not eating due to time, I take a cod liver oil with them.

How are you with pureed fruit? We used to puree strawberries etc and mix with yogurt. Delicious!

My DP is putting on weight at the moment. He at one point got seriously thin, I saw him getting ready for bed and couldn’t help myself go “oh god.”

Admittedly the beer calories from the euros have definitely sped things up but before that.

Nut butter on toast was a high cal, low volume but not super unhealthy meal.
Salads with hummus/avo/olive oil
We eat a lot of Chinese food (I lived in Hong Kong) so lots of sesame oil, crispy chilli oil etc.

He drinks a lot of smoothies etc.

When my brother was younger he had trouble maintaining a healthy weight he used to make smoothies with bananas whole milk, honey full fat Greek yoghurt and nut butter and have one a day in between meals , you can add ice cream too occasionally as a treat but that's not the healthiest.