Weight gain

Before assuming things when it comes to your weight, first learn how to gage the correct and healthy weight for your age and height. To ascertain this, you need to know about your BMI or body mass index. What does BMI mean and how does it determine your healthy weight requirements? Let us decipher this below.

As mentioned earlier, it is important to make sure if you really are underweight or not. Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is much more important than losing weight unmindfully. So, before jumping from one fad diet to another or taking on a CrossFit or running a marathon, get your BMI reading. Maybe you don’t really need to put on weight at all.

BMI is a measure of body fat based on your height and weight measurements. Your BMI calculations will tell you the weight class you fall in and if you need to gain weight. The classes are as follows:

• Underweight = <18.5
• Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
• Overweight = 25–29.9
• Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Now, if you belong to the category of underweight, you certainly need intervention to bring your weight to normal.

(Read more: What is metabolism and how to boost metabolism)

Once you have figured out that you need to put on weight, you must acknowledge the various causes that may be responsible for your condition. Some of the most common causes are as follows:

• Eating disorders: If you constantly obsess over your weight and tend to ditch food often, anorexia nervosa may be the cause of your excessively lean body. It is an eating disorder, in which the person has a distorted idea of a lean body leading to difficulties in maintaining healthy body weight.
• Malnutrition: Adequate nutrition is the key to maintaining normal weight and good health. Dietary absence or deficiency of certain nutrients and an unhealthy eating pattern may become the cause of the underweight condition.
• Family history: Some people have a naturally low BMI due to genes running in their family. In such condition, almost all the family member suffers from underweight. Not much can be done when it comes to genes but you can certainly eat healthy and nutritious food to improve the condition.
• High metabolism: A person with a fast metabolism may not be able to gain weight even after consumption of high-calorie food. This is because their body tends to digest and burn all the nutrients quickly preventing fat deposition in tissues. However, a fast metabolism may also be associated with certain health conditions like thyroid disorders. You can learn about your metabolism through your BMR or basal metabolic rate reading and check in with a doctor if needed.
• Crohn’s disease and Celiac disease: These diseases affect the digestion and absorption of food in the body, especially the intestines that result in nutrition deprivation.
• Age: Older individuals have slower digestion and relatively faulty nutrient absorption. Loss of appetite may also be experienced. Loss of teeth makes feeding difficult and cumbersome and on top of that, they also experience loss of appetite. Together, all of these lead to a reduction in weight.

Stress, substance abuse and illnesses like Parkinson’s disease, cancer, viral hepatitis and COPD are some other causes of the underweight problem.

(Read more: How to improve digestion)

In today's world, people often want to get thinner and lean to garner praise from society. In a social media savvy world, looking attractive and fit has become a currency to be popular and famous. But getting leaner should never come at the cost of your health. Nobody cares about the risks associated with an extremely lean or dangerously underweight condition. However, one should always be careful about the consequences especially when it comes to your health such as:

• People who are underweight are at high risk of developing osteoporosis, increasing their vulnerability to bone fractures.
• Anaemia and nutritional deficiencies are very common. These conditions often exhibit prolonged spells of lethargy and tiredness.
• Underweight individuals are at higher risk of developing infections and diseases due to their compromised immunity levels.
• Women who are underweight may have a problem with getting regular mensuration. Often menstruation even stops completely. The condition of the sustained absence of menstrual flow is called amenorrhoea. If you have missed three consecutive menstrual periods then you might have this condition. Since amenorrhoea is a symptom of hormonal imbalance on account of underweight, it can lead to infertility, osteoporosis and other health complications.
• Some people may also face delayed healing of wounds.

Just like any regime for maintaining a healthy weight, weight gain is a journey and not a destination. Only with an improvement in your lifestyle and dietary habits can a healthy weight be maintained. So, get ready to reform and improve your habits if you want to put on some extra kilos. And most importantly keep up the spirits because laziness is just going to make you fat not fit.  Here is an easy step by step guide to healthy weight gain. 

1. Increase your calorie intake
2. Go nutrition dense not just energy dense
3. Eat several meals a day
4. Other tips for increasing weight

Now you know about calorie density and nutritional value of foods and have an idea about how much you can eat. The question remains, what all you can eat? This section will tell you all your food options in every macronutrient category. Got a notepad yet?

• Carbohydrate: Carbohydrates give you that instant source of energy needed to keep you going throughout the day and they are known for promoting weight gain. However, all that weight gain is in the form of stored fats, which is not healthy. Instead of gorging on sweets and refined flour, take in complex carbs such as whole grains, green veggies, oats and legumes. Complex carbs don’t spike your blood sugar levels and provide you with a steady source of energy. So you can be up and going throughout the day.
  Try to cook your cereal in milk rather than water, add lots of nuts and seeds into it to make it more tasty and healthy for you. Making these small changes in your eating habit can take you a long way.
• Fats: When it comes to weight gain, most people just go generous with their fat intake. However, not all fats are good for health and it is important to keep a balance between your intake of saturated and unsaturated fats. Try incorporating more healthy (unsaturated) fats in your diet with foods like avocado, nuts, olives and fish. Garnish your salads with healthy fat oils like olive oil and seeds like sunflower, pumpkin and chia seeds. You can also add nut butter like almond butter and peanut butter to your diet.
• Proteins: Proteins handle all the building and repairing processes in your body. They aid in increasing your total muscle mass. But as always, there is a catch to it. You need to practice strength training exercises along with extra intake of protein to make sure that it is properly metabolised in the body and not adding up to your blood uric acid. Don’t want joint pains now do we? Again it is best to talk to a dietician or your trainer to know the right amount of proteins you should take in daily as per the amount of physical activity you do in a day. Some of the easily available sources of proteins include pulses, eggs, lean meat, chicken and soy. Cottage cheese, milk and yoghurt are some sources of dairy proteins.

First of all, let's know, what is exactly is resistance training? This is a kind of exercise in which your body works against a resistance force. Some example of resistance training includes the use of weight machines, free weight and resistance bands. You can also use your own body weight for this type of exercise. Strength training promotes muscle growth by promoting the formation of entirely new muscle fibres and by increasing the size of your muscle cells. The latter is called muscle hypertrophy.

• Do a strength training exercise of your choice at least 2- 3 times per week. This will give time to your muscle to recover. Interestingly, muscle growth occurs only during the recovery period.
• Choose an exercise that involves multiple muscles of your body rather than focussing on only hand or leg muscles.
• Keep your workout short and intense if you want good results.
• To avoid injuries, it is best that you do your daily workout under the observation and guidance of gym trainer or physiotherapist.

Protein supplements are usually one of the first things that come to mind when one talks of weight gain and building muscle mass. Unsurprisingly, supermarket aisles are loaded with various protein supplements suited to different age groups. But before you decide to buy a pack, its important to know a little about it.

Protein supplements are dietary proteins comprising of various types of proteins such as whey protein, soy protein and casein. These are usually advisable for individuals whose dietary protein intake does not suffice their body's requirement. One drawback of taking protein supplements is that it doesn't provide you with other beneficial nutrients that a whole protein source can. On the other hand, the advantage of taking protein supplements is that it increases muscle mass and enhances performance. But this will happen only when you incorporate strength training exercise in your daily routine while taking protein supplements.