Gaining weight can be relatively easy providing you eat the right foods, stick to your regime and don't throw in the towel if you want it to work!

Although women complain about gaining weight constantly, actually putting on weight is more difficult than it sounds for men.

The reason for this is that a woman's weight fluctuates naturally throughout different periods in the month. Hormones are the cause of this and the variations in hormone levels cause the variation in weight.

Once a male has reached the age where he is not likely to grow any more, his weight will stabilize and the only effects that will alter that weight are prolonged exposure to a particular activity.

Here are a few tips that will help you to get started but you must remember that all changes are as a result of prolonged exposure, whether good or bad. So if you were looking for an overnight solution then unfortunately there isn't one.

Food

So a fairly obvious initial topic, however; you don't just go eating anything and everything to gain weight. It is important to eat foods that are high in protein and carbohydrates, eating sugary foods will not help you to gain weight. They simply give you a temporary energy boost which is not the desired outcome. Here is a list of foods that will not only help you to gain weight; they also release energy slowly to give you enough gumption to get through your training session.

Pasta

Meat

Rice

Potatoes

Plenty of water

Protein shakes (more below)

Bread

Bananas contain potassium which is also a valuable resource for training

Fish

Eggs & Dairy products

Beans, lentils and split peas etc

Nuts and seeds

Oatmeal

Packaged cereals

It is vitally important that you check the content in all of the food you eat. Whilst this list gives a general idea of what food should contain it will depend on where you buy your food and how it is produced.

Eating high energy bars will help but remember that they should never substitute your eating plan because they won't help you to gain weight whatsoever.

You need to eat multiple times daily. The average body builder will eat six to eight times per day, with two of those meals as a light snack. The rest of the meals contain pasta, rice and meat as a general staple diet.

Pasta, chicken and rice will be a great foundation for you to build on as they provide so many nutrients necessary to your activities.

Protein Shakes

Some of these work, some of them don't. My advice would be to check the ingredients on the tub and buy the product with the highest protein amount in. You can also buy tasteless powder protein to sprinkle on your food which helps you to gain weight without doing anything extra!

The milkshakes come in a variety of flavors but the most popular ones are chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. So they are the flavors that are likely to be in stock wherever you buy them from.

You can buy these shakes from health shops such as Holland & Barratt and I've even seen them in Asda, for you American readers that's Walmart.

If the salesman in the shop is commission based he may try to sell you the biggest box of the best known brand. Don't let him push you around! The most publicized product isn't always the best and when you're first starting out you need the best products.

In the UK a huge box costs around sixty pounds and that usually lasts about three weeks if you have three shakes per day.

They are expensive but are definitely worth it if you're in it for the long haul.

Supplements

There are tons of supplements out there for the newbie weight gainer all you have to do is figure out which ones are just Aspirin repackaged and which ones will actually work for you.

The best one for training is Creatine as it increases athletic performance and provides more motivation for you when you are training. It does have a tendency to make you somewhat argumentative though so it's probably best to take it right before training and leave it alone after that.

Exercise

Seen as you're now eating enough to feed a small army you really could do with getting down to some exercise, so as to avoid that weight descending onto your abdomen resulting in a rather festive look.

The important thing to remember here is to not over stretch yourself. No one is expecting you to look like Arnold Swarzenegger in a week so don't push yourself too hard.

Start slowly and only lift an amount that feels comfortable, remember to get your positioning and lift correct so you don't pull a muscle or injure your back.

Your feet should be facing forward, your back should be straight and your head should be looking forward. This is assuming you are lifting whilst stood, if not I will discuss weight benches in a moment. You need to learn early on that the weight should not be lifted with the arms but with the legs.

You inevitably have more power and strength in your legs so it is important to use that strength to your advantage. Lifting with only the arms will cause strains, tears and injuries which could result in an untimely end to your ambition.

You would do well to get yourself a set of supportive gloves so that you don't sprain your wrists and a good set of training shoes with adequate grip so you don't slip.

You will also need to wear relatively tight clothing to prevent getting caught up and tangled because the last thing you want is to fall with a set of fairly heavy dumbbells in your hands!

I don't particularly like the belts that a lot of body builders use but if they prevent hernias then they're probably a useful thing to have hanging around when you start to increase your weight.

Your position whilst lying on a weight bench should be fairly straight. You can bend your legs to balance yourself but your arms should not twist or turn because they may buckle under the pressure.

Starting out on a weight bench is probably the best idea because it's harder to get your position wrong than it is to d it right. Without professional guidance you could easily injure yourself whilst lifting from a standing position.

You also need to keep up with cardio respiratory exercise to maintain your heart's health. It will be under a lot more strain since you've begun to push your body to its limits. It is important to respect the workload that the heart has to contend with and as such I recommend that you keep it healthy or you might annoy it.

Think of your heart as your wife. You wouldn't take the clean washing out of the machine and throw it over the flower beds if you know what's good for you so don't create more work for your heart.

After all, if you annoy it one too many times it may just divorce you and stop doing your washing altogether, never a good result in my book.

references:
weight bench
Makeup Alley Reviews