kf5nd

Very good female friend of mine has a BMI of 18.2, and body fat of 16%. She eats all she can (she is a very busy woman, and she can't eat a great huge meal 3x a day), but she wants to gain more body fat, but based on healthy foods.

Any suggestions concerning specific recipies, products, or strategies?

Crunkologist

She's probably not eating the right foods.

Look, if you've tried force feeding, and nothing works... then as long as she is active, try this: CHOCOLATE MILK. Its not bad for an active person with low bodyfat. A gallon a day is the thing that ectomorphs have to do to put on muscle. But don't worry, if she's not weighlifting, what she'll put on will be fat.

Also, lower fiber intake with carbohydrates. This is why Chocolate milk is perfect. Not so low its really unhealthy, but remember: more fiber with your carbs means you are satieted (less hungry) for less time.

So... tell her to get a gallon of chocolate whole milk every day or two. Drink it instead of her other beverages. She'll gain weight this way, if the others have failed. Also, don't worry about the health risks... if she is active, its not a problem. After she puts on the weight, she'll still have to eat more simple carbs than she does now, but she won't have to guzzle chocolate milk.

I swear this works when all else fails.

lilHinault

Whole milk is good, Brown Cow brand yoghurt is good, just good, healthy foods. I used to swear by whole milk, it was a staple food for me, and I didn't get fat on it. (I got fat on beer and sitting around, later!)

Enthalpic

Tell her to forget about the bigger boobs... A high quality lean protien supplement is my vote. The added calories go to the right place. Cal in = cal out. Eat more and whey to go!

jeff williams

No way I'd drink milk to gain weight. Sick fat....bad idea.
Gain weight by making muscle mass, slow but it is healthy.

Crunkologist

Did you read her post? She needs to gain BODY FAT.

Whats more, milk will go where you target it, by how you exercise. If you aren't doing resistance training, you aren't going to build muscle I don't care how much protein you eat.

Don't you see that your advices are the very reason that she can't gain weight?

andygates

She just needs to ingest more cals than she expends. If her current food intake is as much as she can handle, she either needs to graze (5-6 smaller meals rather than 3 gutbusters) or eat food with higher calorie density. Or she can do what couch potatoes do, and sit around eating Snickers until her buttons burst

Question is, *why* does she want to put on fat? It's not useful. Sounds like she has a healthy, athletic physique: making it less healthy can't be smart.

Crunkologist

Too skinny is unattractive to alot of people. There's noting wrong with wanting a normal level of bodyfat. Its not unhealthy, either. That bodyfat is way low for a woman, is it not?

capsicum

Homogenized milk is one of the worst things to use for putting on weight in a healthy way. The fats fully coat all the proteins due to the homogenization, and they are nasty artery clogging plaque fats.

[edit: out bad information]

That said fat has 4,100 calories per pound. Body fat is determined by calories in verses calories burned. Eat anything you please to gain weight, though saturated fats are rather bad for you and omega 6 fats are not that great either(omega 3 are very good however)

rick1

I'm a little perplexed at 16% bf she want to gain more bf. Gaining fat is considered non-functional weight as opposed to gaining lean weight or muscle which is functional weight.

kf5nd

Being too lean is dangerous. If you get sick, and can't eat, you have no buffer. Mortality starts going UP again as you drop below BMI 18.

Crunkologist

Pasta. Rice. High carb foods.

Snickers, if she "doesn't have time," to stop and eat.

Chocolate milk if all else fails.

Its really not that hard. But you can't get fat on salad and vegetables

rick1

adding lean weight to your frame will keep you BMI within safe regions, at 16 % body fat there's room for improvement.

Crunkologist

That would require resistance training, as well as additional calories. And this girl is "too busy" to even eat enough calories.

alison_in_oh

What do you base THAT judgement on? For women, 22-25% is the normal, healthy range. Anything lower is OK but unnecessary. Below 20% you start getting hormonal disruptions and somewhere around 18% most women will lose their period, have insufficient estrogen, start losing bone density.

I'm at about 15-17% myself, evidently anovulatory, down about a cup size if not more. My ribs show when I'm standing still and protrude when I'm moving. This isn't ideal. However, it's OK for somebody with an athletic level of activity. I'm loathe to intentionally put on fat that might drag me down in the hills, so I'm just working on maintaining. Which isn't easy even with six meals per day; my activity level just wants to suck the fat off my bones!

To the OP: Yes, she needs to eat more than she burns. If she does a lot of aerobic exercise and gaining fat is important to her, she might cut back on the exercise. Otherwise, more meals and more substantial ones. I aim for five to six "meals" during the day, plus a substantial dinner. My body demands food every 2-3 hours. I generally try to get some fat, protein, and carbo at each meal or snack, but occasionally will have just a piece of fruit or veggie.

Crunkologist

CHOCOLATE MILK

alison_in_oh

SATURATED FAT AND COW TEAT PUS

(Less crass?)

Crunkologist

She's unable to eat enough calories. SHe is "busy."

Chocolate milk. Not for the long term. For a month or two, while she gains weight. The fat won't harm her for that time period.

Or would you just see her stay unhealthily skinny? The girl can't eat for ****. Chocolate milk solves that through caloric density.

alison_in_oh

Your advice reminds me of a kid I knew in high school. He was 15 years old and the quintessential "98 lb. weakling". Stalky, ready to bloom but not there yet. At one point he vented his frustration. "I've been eating almost nothing but white bread and milk, it makes everyone else gain weight, why not me?"

His weight gainer diet was useless with insufficient calories, and was taking the place of essential real food. No wonder he was skin and bones!

For him and for the OP's friend, I think that a more sustainable, healthful approach is to get balanced nutrition, but more of it. If the sheer volume necessary to achieve a caloric excess truly gets overwhelming, THEN little high-cal tricks can come into play, but I would still prefer to see those tricks take the form of: an extra handful of nuts (~200 cals), half an avocado diced into your salad (~150 cals), a couple tablespoons of peanut butter on your toast (~200 cals). Jumping straight to possibly THE least healthful food source known to our society just doesn't seem wise!

That's my own opinion of course, and YMMV.

Oh, and for the OP, is she fat-phobic? A lot of people these days are. It might be as small a matter as choosing full-fat or lowfat instead of fatfree foods, putting extra olive oil in her food or on her salad, not taking the skin off of chicken, there are tons of places where people conscientiously carve fat out of their diet when really the right kinds of fat are GREAT for you!

Crunkologist

Dude... you still eat real food. You ADD a half gallon of chocolate milk a day.

It reminds me of... hundreds of 98 pound kids that came to the bodybuilding forums I used to frequent, and asked how they could gain weight. They'd tried EVERYTHING. Know what? Adding choco-milk ALWAYS worked.

I haven't seen anyone else offer concrete advice.

Boogs

Tell your friend to eat more calorie-dense, *healthy* (not gallons of chocolate milk ), foods like:

1) nuts - almonds, cashews, peanuts... very calorie-dense, and very good for you

2) oils - pasta with additional olive oil, or stir-fry with additional peanut oil on it arebarely more filling than without, and you can drizzle good oils like olive and canola on bread, sandwiches etc.

3) beer - *burp*, if your going to drink unhealthy crap, might as well get a buzz out of it

With a base of good-for-you fats, it's not the end of the world to supplement with a bowl of ice cream every once in a while.

capsicum

Sorry I had my numbers confused with something else. 20% is what I've heard. 25% just seems high I mean a person would be 1/4 fat.
Men can be healthy as low as 3-4% though 10-12% is more the ideal range, but thats not the topic.

I think all those disruptions may be related more to crazy starving diets or severe overtraining, those are the most common causes of women with very low fat, and seem more suspect than simply having a slightly lower fat reserve; just a theory, based on cause and effect rather than simple corrolations. But, I taint no research doctor so I'll just go up and edit that bad info out of that other post.

Crunkologist

3-4% for men is not healthy. Bodybuilders compete at that range. See the striations on the muscle? That would be extremely emaciated on a normal person. <10% is not even achievable for many men without the use of drugs, and I mean DEDICATED men.

Your numbers are a bit extreme.

capsicum

I'm 10% as are many guys I know, not all by any means, but quite a few and they do nothing special to acheive it other than some work and not eating like a pig at a slop trough. (yes, I watch people eat.)
I said "can be healthy" meaning the under the right circumstances(like super fit people) and "as low as 3-4%" indicating that 3-4% was the extreme limit, and that the "ideal" is 10-12% (which on me is 15-18 pounds of fat, 3 gallons. I am 160 lbs).
I said nothing of the upper limit of healthy as it is semi blurry but 20%(for a male) would certainly be in the fuzzy boarder zone of good health.

The rest of the world has the same genes we do and they don't seem to have such a problem with maintaining low body fat, even in the first world countries.

Keep on spackling your arteries with fat plaque, drink your milk, DRINK IT!

capsicum

More helful and on topic here, try rubbing a garlic clove on toast(thicker slices are better, even haved french/italian rolls under the broiler/toaster oven), a light sprinkle of salt and a wallup of highend extra virgin olive oil(bertolli's extra virgin is a good cost/flavor buy, as is costco's kirkland-tall square bottle near the balsamic is the real good stuff- the gallon jug is just like Bertolli's), maybe a little balsamic vinegar drizzled around too(counters the richness of the oil). Have enough extra oil on the plate for moping up with the toast.

Olive oil is very healthy and like all fats and oils 120 calories per tablespoon. A thick slice of toast is 150 calories. Have two with extra olive oil, thats like 800 calories if the toast is used to mop up extra oil. twice a day plus regular healthy food and maybe a few extra healthy snacks and she will balloon to mammoth proportions in seemingly no time.(Ok, maybe slowly ease back on the calorie pedal as she starts to get near her goal. When driving, you don't floor it untill your going too fast, then slam on the brakes in your car, to get up to speed, you give it lots of gas to get moving then smoothly let up on the gas untill you gently land on matching the speed of the traffic.)

The oil on the bread will also lower the breads glycemic index quite a bit, in other words- the carbs are absorbed more slowly and evenly.