Gaining weight healthily
While most people out there are actively trying to lose weight, there are a number of people who struggle to gain or even maintain a stable weight - be it due to illness, an overactive metabolism or stress. Rather than filling up on chips, biscuits and chocolate I've got a few suggestions here for energy dense foods that can be include to help gain weight healthily.
Of course if you were wanting to gain weight you can just increase your fat and sugar intake and eat more foods like chips, chocolate and biscuits. But sometimes it's nice to have some real food to use as well, nutritious food that is more than just empty calories.
Here are a number of foods that you could consider including if you are trying to boost your energy intake and gain weight in a healthy manner.
If your appetite isn't quite where it should be, think little and often rather than forcing yourself to eat large meals which might put you off even more.
Nut butters
Nut butters are all the rage at the moment. I've seen sesame, sunflower, cashew, macadamia, and walnut butter not to mention the standard (but just as delicious) peanut butter.
Try it on toast, spread on celery sticks (don't dig it till you try it), add it into smoothies and milkshakes, porridge at breakfast or just eat it straight from the jar. Peanut butter is rich in heart healthy fats and contain plenty of protein to help with muscle development.
Nuts & seeds
Sticking to the nut theme, a handful or two nuts or seeds is a quick, easy and affordable snack. Cashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, macadamia's.. there's got to be one out there for you.
Seeds are also little powerhouses of nutrition and energy and useful to snack on. Making your own trail mix with nuts, seeds and a bit of dried fruit to keep in your bag to snack on between meals
Dried fruit
Dried fruit is more energy dense than fresh fruit as the removal of water makes them more concentrated. It's easy to eat 10 dried apricots, while if I gave you 10 fresh apricots to eat you might get a bit full early on in the process!
They are easy to transport so can fit into a backpack or the smallest of handbags for nutrition on the go. Mix with your favourite nuts and seeds for a tasty trail mix.
Dried fruit are also great for adding into puddings, cakes or energy bars like Nakd bars.
It's quick and easy to make your own, so check out the recipes I've got for cocoa-mint and cocoa-orange energy bars to start with.
Whole milk and dairy products
Drinking whole or 'full-fat' milk over skim or semi-skim adds extra energy into your diet as the fat content goes up to around 4%.
It's possible to fortifiy it further by adding a few teaspoons of skim-milk powder which will add extra protein for an extra boost. Drink it plain, add your favourite flavourings, whiz up a smoothie, bake rice pudding, use instead of water to cook porridge.... the options are endless.
Same goes for other whole milk dairy products
Cheese
Great for increasing your calcium intake, cheese is also high in protein, energy dense and delicious to boot! Cheese on toast, in your salad, mixed into pasta, on crackers, on celery... Life is always better with a bit of cheese in my opinion!
Avocado
Rich in heart-healthy fats, avocados are great for spreading on toast, adding to salads, blending into smoothies or using as a base for a prawn cocktail salad.
You'll get a healthy dose of potassium, folic acid and Vitamin E by eating avocado by eating them too.
Extra virgin olive oil
Every tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive oil (aka EVOO) is rich in heart healthy monounsaturated fats.
A staple for the Mediterranean diet, four tablespoons a day is well associated with preventing cardiovascular disease. Use it generously in your cooking, drizzle it over salads, or eat it on hot toast Mediterranean style.
Coconut
Coconut everything is popular these days, so it's not difficult to find.
There's coconut oil (which is ironically solid unless hot), coconut cream in a fragrant Thai curry, or fresh coconut flesh which is a rich source of energy with every 100g of fresh coconut providing 30g of fat.
Desiccated or dried coconut is also useful for muesli, adding it to your cereal, a smoothie or in puddings.
Alternatively, you could swap to using coconut yoghurt with muesli for breakfast to bump up your fat content easily.
Gemma
Gemma Sampson RD APD
Do you want to know how best to fuel your training sessions? Are you keen to lose weight and optimise your performance?
The Cycling Nutrition Framework will fuel your cycling goals.