My boyfriend is 6’2…150 lbs. He eats like a horse and tries to eat high calorie and high carb foods but cannot gain weight. He has tried weight gain formula with no success. He’s trying to put on 50 lbs and can’t seem to do it. We’ve tried tricks like eating right before bed, and other things with very little sucess. Any suggestions on this?
Weight gain isn’t a “works or doesn’t work” kind of a thing. If he’s human, he can gain weight. I’d recommend keeping a food log (even though it may be a pain) of everything he eats. I mean, like, write down everything. It could be that he’s only eating 1 or 2 big meals each day, or if he eats more often, he may be underestimating his current calories.
The other thing I’ve seen people unwittingly do, is to take a weight gainer shake instead of a meal. That, obviously, cancels it out. If he’s taking a high-calorie gainer, it needs to be in addition to his whole food diet, not instead of.
Does he work out, or have an active job, like construction or something similar? His daily calorie requirements might just be more than he’s taking in.
Other than that, there’s not much new I can tell you. Calorically-dense foods will be your friends: nuts, peanut butter, dried fruit, whole grain bread, full fat milk, a bunch of meat. There’s nothing surprings about what he should be eating. I just want to know how much he actually is eating.
Simple solution: Eat more.
Gaining weight is as simple as input vs. output. If you produce a calorie surplus, you will gain weight. Check out the “Bulking for Newbies” thread (use the search).
How often does he eat (how many meals per day)? What does he eat for each meal? What type of training does he do?
I bet he doesn’t eat as much as he thinks to gain. Or he may be training too much or working in a physical setting where he burns more than he takes in. Most cases like this involve someone who says they eat a lot, but in reality they don’t, and they don’t do it consistently.
Keep eating!
At some point he will begin to gain “weight.” He just needs to find out what that level is.
If he’s not already doing so, he should keep a food diary so that he can take some of the guesswork out of this process.
[quote]Minotaur wrote:
Weight gain isn’t a “works or doesn’t work” kind of a thing. If he’s human, he can gain weight. [/quote]
Every newbie with this problem thinks they are the first person on the planet that this doesn’t work for.