How to Gain Weight as a Skinny Guy Who Struggles to Eat

How to gain weight as a skinny guy: eat more without feeling stuffed

The trick is to raise the calories without raising the amount of food very much.

1. Choose calorie-dense foods

In a 1998 study by Bell, Rolls and colleagues in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 18 women could eat as much as they liked of main dishes that were low, medium or high in energy density (calories per gram of food). They ate about the same weight of food each time, so when the dishes were high in energy density they took in about 1,800 calories a day on average, against about 1,380 when they were low.

People trying to lose weight use this the other way round. You can use it to eat more. Fat has 9 calories per gram, against 4 for protein and carbohydrate (NHS figures), so the easiest calories to add come from fats:

• Cook with a bit more oil or butter. Every 10 g of oil adds about 90 calories, and you will barely notice it in the meal.
• Add cheese, nuts and seeds. The NHS suggests all three for adding calories.
• Use nut butter on toast, in porridge or in shakes.
• Swap to denser versions of foods you already eat: granola instead of puffed cereal, whole milk instead of skimmed, full-fat yoghurt instead of fat-free, rice or pasta instead of a pile of salad leaves as the main side.

2. Drink some of your calories

Liquid calories fill you up less than solid ones. In a 2000 study by DiMeglio and Mattes in the International Journal of Obesity, 15 people added about 450 calories a day for four weeks, once as jelly beans and once as fizzy drinks. With the jelly beans, they ate less of everything else and their weight did not change. With the drinks, they did not eat less elsewhere, and their weight went up.

That is a problem when dieting and an advantage for you. Rather than fizzy drinks, use:

• Milk with meals instead of water.
• A homemade shake between meals: milk, oats, a banana, a spoonful of nut butter and some whey protein blends into a big, easy drink.
• Milkshakes, which the NHS suggests as a high-calorie drink between meals.

The NHS also advises not filling up on drinks just before a meal, so drink your shakes between meals, not before them.

3. Eat at set times

If you wait until you are hungry, you will eat too little, too late. Set times instead:

• Three meals and two or three snacks, roughly every 3 to 4 hours. The International Society of Sports Nutrition's 2017 position stand recommends spreading protein evenly through the day, every 3 to 4 hours, and the NHS suggests smaller meals more often, with snacks in between, for people who need to gain weight.
• Make snacks easy: yoghurt, rice pudding, a handful of nuts, cheese and crackers, a shake. If it needs cooking, it will not happen.
• Front-load the day if your appetite is better in the morning.

4. Make it easy to repeat

• Cook in batches so a dense meal is always ready.
• Keep snacks where you are: your bag, your desk, your car.
• Eat the same few meals. Variety is nice, but it is easier to hit a target with meals you already know work.
• Do not rely on junk. The NHS advises against relying on chocolate, cakes and sugary drinks to gain weight. A few treats are fine; a diet built on them leaves you short of protein, fibre and everything else.

A sample day

When	What
Breakfast	Porridge made with whole milk, topped with nut butter and a banana, plus a glass of milk
Mid-morning	Greek yoghurt with granola and a handful of nuts
Lunch	Chicken, rice and vegetables cooked in olive oil, with grated cheese
Afternoon	Shake: milk, oats, banana, nut butter and whey
Dinner	Salmon or beef mince with pasta and a creamy or olive oil based sauce
Evening	Toast with peanut butter, or rice pudding

Adjust the portions to your own calorie target. Start by adding one snack or one shake a day, get used to it, then add the next, until you reach your target.

How fast should you gain?

Slowly. Muscle grows much more slowly than fat can be stored, so eating far more than you need mostly adds fat.

A 2019 review by Iraki and colleagues in Sports, on nutrition for natural bodybuilders building muscle, recommends a weight gain of about 0.25 to 0.5% of body weight per week for beginners and intermediates, roughly 1 to 2% a month. As a beginner, aim for the lower half of that: about 1 to 1.5% of your body weight a month, the same target as our lean bulk guide.

For a 65 kg (143 lb) man, that is about 0.65 to 1 kg (1.4 to 2.1 lb) a month, or roughly 0.15 to 0.2 kg (0.3 to 0.5 lb) a week.

• Weigh yourself every morning and compare weekly averages. Daily weight jumps around for reasons that have nothing to do with muscle or fat: see how to read the scale.
• Gaining too slowly after two to three weeks? Add about 100 to 200 calories a day, such as one more small snack.
• Gaining much faster than the target? Pull back a little. A quick jump in the first week or two is normal, as the extra food and carbohydrate add some weight on their own.

For how the rate changes as you get more experienced, see lean bulk: how fast should you gain weight?

Training: making the weight muscle

Food alone makes you heavier. Training decides what that weight is made of.

• Lift 2 or 3 days a week. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2009 position stand suggests 2 to 3 days a week for beginners, with loads you can lift about 8 to 12 times.
• Use big, simple lifts: a squat or leg press, a hinge such as a Romanian deadlift, a press, a row and a pulldown or pull-up.
• Get stronger every week or two. Add a rep or a little weight whenever you can. This is progressive overload, and it is the signal that tells your body to use the extra food for muscle.
• Do not let cardio eat your surplus. Walking is fine. Hours of hard cardio make the eating harder.
• Hit your protein. The Iraki review recommends 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body weight a day. For a 65 kg man that is about 105 to 145 g.

There is a bonus for small appetites: the NHS notes that exercise can also improve your appetite.

How to tell it is working

• Your weekly average weight rises at your target rate.
• Your lifts go up steadily.
• Your waist rises only slowly while your chest, arms and legs fill out.
• Your progress photos, taken in the same light and pose, show the change from month to month.

Where coaching helps

For a skinny guy who struggles to eat, the hardest part is not the plan. It is eating to it every day for months, and knowing whether a slow week means eat more, wait or change something else.

With one-to-one coaching from CoachAk, your calorie and macro targets and your training program are in the app. You log your weight daily and see a smoothed trend, so you know whether you are really gaining. Each week you send a check-in covering your weight, training and nutrition adherence, hunger, energy and more, and your coach replies with written feedback and adjusts the plan as your body responds. When a meal is not working for you, you can message your coach directly.

If you want help finally putting on muscle, apply for coaching.