Underweight

[Thebekindtoall]

Hi can anyone advise on foods to eat to gain weight please?. I’ve been through a significant traumatic coyote of months & hardly ate for couple of months. I’ve come through the other side thankfully now but am struggling to put any weight back on at all & am very underweight. Any help mail advise would be appreciated. Thanks.

Double up on foods so for example instead of having toast or porridge for breakfast have toast and porridge and a banana, instead of having a cheese or ham sandwich for lunch have a cheese and ham sandwich and add mayo and crisps. Try and have a pudding both at lunchtime and after dinner. Add in an evening snack before bed and make it part of your routine.

Hi! I am glad you are coming out the other side, I hope you continue to recover quickly! If you are seriously underweight I would suggest speaking to your GP or a nutritionist.

In general I would suggest full fat dairy (better for female hormones than low fat anyway apparently if you are female of course and not vegan/no allergies or intolerances) and healthy fats (nut butters, avocado). It depends a bit on your appetite as well as you don't want to fill up on big milky coffees or low calorie high volume food (big side of broccoli or salads) and then have no space for more calorie dense foods but you do of course want to make sure you get your fruit, veggies and fibre. You could try home baking as well, flapjacks, brownies etc with good but high calorie ingredients, random spoons of nut butter or nut butter with dates/bananas/apples/chocolate or toast throughout the day, a hot chocolate after dinner with a dash of double cream etc.

For sheer caloric value without adding too much volume to your diet, fats are the best. They have approx 800 cals per 100g. Protein and carbs are roughly 400 cals per 100g.

Which fats you choose depends what you normally eat. Can you post an average day's eating, and posters can suggest easy add ins? Also say if you have any limitations like allergies, vegetarian etc.

Thank you for taking the time to write out your msg & I appreciate your advice & sounds good. I’ve been given ensure drinks as an extra form of nutrition at 3 drinks per day for a month to start which have 300 calories in each so I’m hoping these will help. I feel so low in terms of how I look at the moment as I’m currently just under 7 stone. To add a little to that as it may sound really low in weight but I’ve never ever been more than 9 stone in my life. I’m a 5 ft 3 in petit female aged 57 but as I’ve lost a lot of weight for my size it looks a very significant loss & it has put 10 years on me in how I look in terms of age aswell which is why I feel abit down & asked for advice. I live alone so only cook & prepare food for myself. I’ve never had a big appetite anyway but want to make a conscious effort to get back to my normal regular weight which is generally 8 stone 6lb, give or take a few pounds but around that I’d be very happy. I am going to take all the feedback & do my best to get where I need & want to be. I feel so much better in comparison to where I was a short while back & feel if I can just gain abit of weight my confidence will also grow back. So thank you so much & I very much appreciate your advice 💐

Sympathies - following illness earlier this year I lost about a stone which I couldn’t afford to lose, it made me so so paranoid that I looked awful and I was really worried that there was something wrong (although I knew my intake had drastically fallen so of course I would lose weight).

I added a whole extra meal each day, a brunch basically, something like a cheese omelette or dippy eggs and toast. As well as a proper breakfast and lunch. Plus sweet potatoes with most dinners with lots of olive oil poured over.

Mine was exacerbated by reflux limiting what I could eat, so it was tricky to add some stuff. This has lessened a bit so have been able to add some more options, try to eat quite a few digestives a day as they’re 70ish calories each but go down really easily.

good luck!

Milky puddings, with extra cream, is another high calorific meal, if you can tolerate it. Rice pudding, etc. Avocados on toast with scrambled eggs, made with butter, and some cream.

Thank you for your comment on my journey to gaining weight. I appreciate any advice & take what you said & will try doing the having both for breakfast ie: cereal & toast etc & although I’ve not & never have had a very big appetite I feel that by doing the small changes like this will help me achieve my goal to getting where I’d like to be so just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to write your msg. It was good advice that I will do my best to follow. As I live alone so don’t really have anybody around a lot to talk to is the reason I decided to share my journey & ask for the advise of the community & people in similar situations or just knowledgeable & happy to advise so thanks again for your help today 💐

Thank you for your msg it’s very much appreciated. I actually do love a pudding & particularly rice pudding so I will definitely try adding puddings to my daily food intake as I don’t often have a pudding but as I do like them so much this may be something that can really help me in hope of gaining weight. Good advice that I will 100% follow 💐

Ooh and also I was lucky enough to have an appointment with a a dietician and she basically advised that I HAVE to eat every two hours (during the day) and to set a timer for two hours if I had to so I didn’t forget or avoid eating.

Okay well in that case I would try to add in any fatty foods you enjoy/tolerate.

Nut butters (you absorb more calories from these than whole nuts)
Full fat milk, cheese, cream, custard, ice cream, full fat yoghurt
Oil for cooking/dressing salad
Mayo, butter
Avocado
Fatty meats
Chocolate!