In the same way, you can’t pick and choose where on your body to lose fat; you can’t pick and choose where on your body you gain fat either. Those wanting to put on weight face the risk of gaining hazardous belly fat if they do not follow a healthy diet and exercise regimen.
Achieving a healthy weight and body composition needs a well-planned approach to calorie intake, correct nutrition, and exercise. Weight increase without gaining belly fat is possible here.
How To Gain Weight Without Getting Fat?
1. Take in More Calories
To acquire weight, one must first generate an excess of calories. As a result, you must ingest more than you expel.
We recommend that you seek to consume an additional 300 to 500 calories each day to gain an average of one pound per week healthily.
If you want to keep your current weight, you’ll first have a better idea of how many calories you’ll need to consume each day.
To maintain a healthy weight, the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans indicate that women (AFAB) and males (AMAB) allocated at birth consume 1,600 to 2,000 calories per day, respectively.
Maintenance calories + 500 = Daily calorie goal
2. Limit Processed and Fast Foods
No one is saying you shouldn’t indulge now and again, but constantly stuffing your face with fried foods is a way to gain belly fat.
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, consuming processed and fast meals to gain weight deprives your body of essential nutrients. Even if you gain weight this way, you’re doing your body a disservice.
Read More: How To Gain Weight Fast For Women? 7 Quick & Easy Foods
You may gain weight if you eat these kinds of meals. Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer have all been related to excess visceral fat, a firm, triglyceride-rich fat found in the abdominal cavity.
If you want to lose weight and keep your waistline at a healthy size, you need to avoid refined carbohydrates like white bread, white rice, or pasta; sugar; and trans fats (chips, fried food, packaged snacks).
3. Eat More Frequently
Underweight people may be unable to eat three meals a day because of their weak appetite or because they become full more quickly.
However, you must do what is most comfortable for you. RD Isabel Smith, CEO of Isabel Nutrition and Lifestyle, argues that a more conventional eating plan, such as three meals and a few snacks a day, is OK, provided those extra calories come from nutrient-rich foods.
4. Up Your Protein
Protein is an essential nutrient to consume in moderation. Study participants self-reported their three-day protein consumption and moderate exercises to Nutrition and Metabolism in January 2012.
According to the study’s findings, dietary protein quality and distribution throughout the day impact managing belly fat.
According to Harvard Health Publishing, higher protein consumption may help maintain muscle mass and strength (muscle weighs more than fat, so this is excellent news for healthy weight gain).
Chicken, turkey, fish, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, beans, whole milk, and eggs are excellent sources of lean protein.
5. Choose the Right Carbs
Muscles are a vital element of your diet if you’re aiming to gain weight. According to Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, they provide glucose, which feeds your body and gives you the energy to engage in physical exercise.
When it comes to a healthy diet for weight growth, most individuals don’t know that quality always wins out over quantity.
Eat plenty of root vegetables, whole grains, and legumes like beans and peas. Increasing the number of grains you eat can boost your overall calorie intake.
The following are examples of whole grains that are good for you: oatmeal, brown rice, bulgur, whole wheat bread, and pasta.
Reduce your intake of nutrient-poor carbohydrates, as previously mentioned. Sugary meals, refined carbohydrates, sugary beverages, sweets, and prepackaged baked goods contribute to weight gain. Still, abdominal fat is more likely to accumulate due to these choices.
6. Make Friends With Fats
Are you curious about fats now that you’ve learned that protein helps create lean muscle and carbohydrates provide you energy? Here’s some good news for you: Fats are on your side!
International Sports Sciences Association says they help build lean muscle mass (if you work out), improve healthy cholesterol levels, store vitamins, and are calorie-dense (ISSN).
However, to receive the advantages, you must consume most of your calories from monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.
Natural nut butter and avocado are fantastic fat sources and are also terrific snacks. Use canola or olive oil instead of butter for cooking or preparing salad dressings.
7. Change Up Your Veggies
Yes, all veggies are good for you, and you should include them in your diet regularly. It’s not just about weight gain, though.
More than 130,000 persons were studied in a September 2015 PLOS Medicine study that examined the association between the number of particular fruits and vegetables consumed and changes in weight from 1986 to 2010.
Read More: What Are The Best Natural Ways To Gain Weight?
Increased consumption of starchy vegetables such as maize, peas, and potatoes was shown to be associated with weight gain by the researchers. Weight loss was negatively related to the consumption of high-fiber, low-glycemic vegetables (such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts).
