How to Gain Weight

Finding out how to gain weight healthily isn't the easiest thing to find on the net. Even harder to find is how to gain weight healthily if you're diabetic!

So it's just as well you're here. Here's your diabetic guide to healthy weight gain:

Health-wise
There are health issues regarding people who are underweight but there isn't anywhere near as much research when compared to the opposite extreme (obesity).

In theory, having a normal BMI and being in the middle of your healthy weight range will give you the best weight control.

Partly it means that if you have an off week (eat less/exercise less etc) you should still be somewhere in your healthy weight range, making it easier to return to your previous weight.

After all good weight control will help you maintain good blood sugar and blood pressure levels.

Look and feel better?

When you're thin (barely underweight or in your weight range) you may have weak and/or few muscles a low body fat percentage and may feel uncomfortable in the winter.

These are common flaws with being underweight (or only just normal) and can worsen over years if you maintain an underweight (or barely normal) BMI.

Some people believe that it is a good idea to put on weight under these circumstances to look and feel better; and I agree.

How to Gain Weight Healthily - What you need:

1. Your Weight Range. Enter your weight and height on the BMI Calculator here, for your weight range.
2. Your Current and Target weight (in pounds!). You ideally want a target in the middle of your weight range but this should be discussed fully with your doctor/dietician.
3. Your current height in inches only.
4. A unit converter? Don't like pounds and inches? Click here to convert.
5. The amount of calories you need to put on weight healthily:

How do I find out how many calories I need to gain weight?

Here's a mini-guide to the best calorie calculator that I found for this purpose, on the internet. Just bare in mind to use it as a rough guide as it is not medical advice.

***Please note these external pages are stuffed with links, making it a messy page! Just focus on the section that looks like the following:

Nutrition Guide

Follow the links below and enter your details on their page, as I have explained above. Then click continue to move to each new section.

It's a good idea to print of the page and take it to your doctor/dietician if you intend on taking any action/inaction.

Then come back here to find out how to complete your weight gain program. The pages below open in new windows

Women's Calorie Calculator

Men's Calorie Counter

Creating your "How to Gain Weight" program

Now that you know how many calories you need to put on weight you need to know what to do with that information. All healthy weight gain program should consider the following elements:

• Your required calories based on your weight and height
• A Healthy Balanced Diet
• Muscular Exercise (Not Aerobic exercise)

Since you should now have the first element (as explained above the navy and red dividers) let's focus on managing a healthy diet and exercise program.

Contradiction? Why should I exercise if I want to gain weight?

This is a common misconception. It is still important to exercise whilst on a weight gain program just as it would be normally.

Whilst it is true, you will burn calories when you exercise, without it your fitness level and muscle strength will worsen. Also following the "how to gain weight healtily" program without exercise, may make you fatter (in the worst areas) rather than toned.

The last thing you want when you gain weight is for it to be all added to your belly, hips and thighs! This is a very similar reason why you still need a healthy balanced diet during the program. Remember the percentages from the food groups never changes, only your portion size.

I'm Diabetic, how will my body react to these dietary changes?

If you maintain a healthy balanced diet and continue to exercise as typically required you're unlikely to see any drastic changes to your blood pressure or blood sugar levels.

Slowly easing into the program and putting on no more than a pound a week will prevent your body from fighting itself and causing mischief to your blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

So what do I need to consume and how much do I need to exercise to put on weight healthily?

We'll talk about each of these parts of the weight gain program on seperate pages (to keep everything tidy). So let's start with your healthy balanced diet.

Since you now know how many calories you need to put on a steady amount of weight (you don't? Go back to the red divider on this page) you'll now need to know how many calories are in each food group.

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