If you are looking for solutions for how to gain weight quickly, you’ve come to the right place. You will find some tried and true suggestions in this post.
Most of us don’t struggle with maintaining weight, but for some people, it is as hard to maintain weight as it is for the majority of us who struggle with losing weight.
I personally have never struggled with this problem but I have witnessed this struggle first hand with my own daughter. I have helped her over the years at times when maintaining weight has been a critical situation.
My overall conclusion is that it is much harder to gain weight than to lose weight. Why? Because if you are in a situation where it is hard to even maintain weight, trying to gain weight is so much harder. It takes relentless determination and commitment beyond anything I have ever experienced or seen in any weight loss journey.
I have been through two different terrible trials with my daughter where maintaining and gaining weight became a life and death situation. It became our most important pursuit to learn how to gain weight quickly.
The first crisis came when she was in 10th grade. After dealing with the grief of losing her brother a year prior, she became anorexic. By the time I started getting concerned about her weight and the direction she was going it rapidly became a life-threatening situation which required almost a year of eating disorder treatment. She started treatment in a local partial hospitalization program but we finally had to fly her out of state to a fulltime treatment facility.
The second crisis came when she was in college and she suffered severe withdrawal symptoms from weaning off the psychiatric drugs she had been on since she was 12 years old. We did this under a doctors care because there were so many health consequences and side effects from these drugs which resulted in a very low quality of life. One of the withdrawal symptoms she experienced was vomiting and struggling to keep food down over a 6 month period. During this time she lost over 60 pounds and went from a size 14 to a size 2. Sadly, even a size 2 was baggy on her.
It is hard for me to even write about this because it stirs up my emotions as I remember the horrible battle we were in for her life. Every bite of food was such a struggle to keep down. It was an all-encompassing commitment from both of us to work diligently to fight against this for almost a year. My daughter is the real hero in this story because she never gave up and never gave in to her body rebelling against her. I watched her fight with fierce determination to overcome this terrible trial. Believe me, many tears were shed. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever witnessed first hand in my life.
Now for the good news… she survived and is now thriving in life. She is happy and healthy and living her life to the fullest. I think this girl is going to change the world. She has become a remarkable person full of passion and compassion with a heart of gold and a desire to touch other peoples lives.
Well, I have let all the lessons learned during this time about how to gain weight quickly get filed away into the recesses of my mind until a recent health crisis has left another family member with critically low weight. As I put all this information together for this family member, I thought I better write a post about it to share with others in the same situation.
My Tried and True Tips for How to Gain Weight Quickly
1. When all else fails, resort to my “Tried and True Life Saving Smoothy”
When my daughter was in eating disorder treatment she had to drink a lot of meal replacement drinks like Ensure, Ensure Plus and Boost ranging from 240-350 calories and 9-13 grams of protein. This helped during her first health crisis but she eventually hated them with a passion because she was forced to drink them as a punishment for not finishing her meals in treatment.
So the second time she was in a health crisis there was no way we could resort to meal replacement drinks. I started trying to make different smoothies instead and I spent hundreds of dollars trying different supplements to come up with a combination that my daughter would actually drink.
The amazing thing is that I came up with a combination that packed in 800 calories and 100 grams of protein that my daughter could easily consume. She drank this smoothy 2 times per day at first and then settled into a regular routine of once per day until she returned to a healthy weight.
The simple instructions include using a blender of some sort (I use a Vitamix Blender) and start with 1 cup of whole milk, then add 2 scoops of strawberry whey protein, 1 scoop of bone broth powder, 1/4 cup of egg white powder, 1 Tablespoon of Flaxseed Oil, 1 Tablespoon of Almond Butter and a handful of ice cubes. Then blend until smooth and enjoy! (Note: keep reading and I will provide links to the brands I used).
2. Don’t rely on protein drinks alone to maintain and gain weight.
If you drink two of these smoothies per day that would only give you 1600 calories and 200 grams of protein. That isn’t enough. You can figure out what you need per day to maintain and gain weight on this calculator application here. You put in your sex, height and current weight and it will tell you the number of calories you need to maintain your weight, lose weight and gain weight. You can also use this calculator to figure out what your ideal weight should be. Then I would download the My Fitness Pal App on your phone and keep track of your calories to make sure you are on track to gain at least 2 pounds per week.
3. Make sure you eat 3 meals per day and 2 snacks as well as the smoothy to gain weight quickly.
It doesn’t have to be big meals but you should have at least some sort of meal 3 times per day. A piece of toast with peanut butter, a bagel and cream cheese, a hard-boiled egg or oatmeal for breakfast. For lunch and dinner make sure you get protein, grains, fruit, and vegetables for well-balanced nutrition. Choose 2 high-calorie snacks to include throughout the day. Olives, nuts, protein bars, and protein cookies are good choices. Extra tip: look for ways to add extra calories with butter, sour cream, half and half, olive oil etc.
4. Make sure you are stocked up with everything you need to take care of yourself.
Keep all the ingredients on hand for the smoothy (good news- everything is available on Amazon). Keep stocked up on healthy food and snacks. You can order fresh groceries online for free pickup at your neighborhood Walmart to make things super easy. You can use this link to save $10 on your first order.
5. Make a commitment to take care of yourself.
If you are sick and underweight right now it is going to be hard to have the strength and determination to take care of yourself but YOU MUST DO IT. Your life depends on it! Nothing is more important!
If you have a family member who is struggling with this, help them as much as you can to prepare smoothies and healthy meals when they aren’t doing well.
My family member who is struggling right now lives across the country and since he is very sick and weak right now I wanted to make sure he had everything he needed to get started in taking care of himself after he got out of the hospital. Fortunately, I was able to find everything on Amazon and I had it shipped to him with free 2-day shipping.
Here is a list of what I sent him which includes everything but the fresh milk for the smoothy and some high-calorie healthy snacks:
- GNC AMP Pure Isolate-Strawberry (Whey Protein)
- Ancient Nutrition Bone Broth Protein Powder, Pure Flavor
- Egg White Protein Powder
- Almond Butter
- Flaxseed Oil
- Power Up Trail Mix Variety Pack
- Kind Bars, Nuts and Spices Variety Pack
- Mega Omega Trail Mix
- Lenny & Larry’s All-Natural Protein Cookies (Chocolate Chip)
- Pearls Olives To Go! Large Ripe Pitted Black Olives
I also sent him an email with instructions and essentially everything I have written in this post to share with you.
I hope this helps you if you are the one struggling with how to gain weight quickly, or I hope it helps you to care for someone you love. If they live far away, a practical way you can help is by sending a care package with these items and a copy of this post to help them get started. Even just gaining 5 pounds can make such a difference to someone who is severely underweight. It can give them the strength they need to fight the rest of the battle on their own.
What about you? Do you have any tips on how to gain weight quickly? Please share in the comments.
Wishing you Joy in your journey,
Medical Disclaimer: Nothing on this blog is meant to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, medical or psychological condition. Information acquired on this site should not be a substitute for your research and consultation with a qualified healthcare professional. The suggestions offered are without guarantee, warranty or prediction regarding the outcome of use.
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