Need To Gain Weight

[whyme]

I have always had a high metabolism and weight gain has always been a problem. I was up to 117lbs (5'4") and very excited. I coach fall high school softball and am on the road alot. I was diagnosed in july and began losing weight immediately and got down to 105lb by Sept. I need ideas for quick meals on the run or even lunches for work. I teach and so I eat alot of frozen dinners. I don't take my lunch anymore b/c I am not sure what to even pack. Any ideas on how to put weight back on? Any ideas on simple "to go " lunches I can take anywhere? I would appreciate any ideas/help!

Thanks

Lisa

[sandsurfgirl]

I need to lose weight, but I have the same issue that I'm on the go alot and have to bring food with me.

I always make extra at dinner for leftovers. I also cook a turkey breast and chicken breasts and then cut portions and freeze it in baggies. For lunches I often don't take a meal, I take a bunch of food. You can hard boil eggs ahead of time and keep them in the fridge to grab too. Mash up a hard boiled egg with some mayo and mustard really quick in the morning and you have egg salad for a sandwich.

I will grab nuts, some sort of meat like my precooked turkey, bananas, oranges, apples, baby carrots. If you can eat dairy, then you can take cheese with you. Since you need to gain weight, you might eat more nuts, or get more healthy oil into your diet by bringing a salad and adding extra olive oil on it. Hummus is great to keep for lunches too. I eat it with baked potato chips, but you would do regular potato chips to gain weight. There are healthier options without chemicals and junk in them.

I'm pretty limited right now because complex foods are bothering me while I'm healing. If you can eat gluten free bread, then you don't have to make a fancy sandwich. Put some bread in foil. Grab some meat and cheese and then throw it together when you are ready to eat it.

I would say you probably need to be eating all day long too, like grazing to keep calories coming in. Smoothies might not be a bad idea with frozen berries and yogurt if you can do dairy. You can drink a lot of calories pretty easily if you load up your smoothie and it's healthy for you. Sneak a small carrot in there and you add nutrtion. If you can do protein powder that would help too. Bananas, peanut butter and milk, or soy or almond milk makes a yummy smoothie. Add some real maple syrup for extra calories and nutrition.

So I'm off to lose and you are off to gain. Good luck to us!

[detritus]

I have always had a high metabolism and weight gain has always been a problem. I was up to 117lbs (5'4") and very excited. I coach fall high school softball and am on the road alot. I was diagnosed in july and began losing weight immediately and got down to 105lb by Sept. I need ideas for quick meals on the run or even lunches for work. I teach and so I eat alot of frozen dinners. I don't take my lunch anymore b/c I am not sure what to even pack. Any ideas on how to put weight back on? Any ideas on simple "to go " lunches I can take anywhere? I would appreciate any ideas/help!

Thanks

Lisa

I'm also worried about losing weight-I'm 5'11 and weigh 120; lost 5 lbs since I went gluten-free. I've been trying to add to my calorie intake by loading peanut butter on apple slices in-between meals.

[Lilly-MOP]

Whyme!

I was going to ask if most of us Gluten freebies are underweight. I feel your pain. The only thing I know to put on weight is EAT. Eat a well balanced gluten free diet, limit your sugar (that's in all forms). Drive yourself nuts by looking for a tasty cracker or a palatable bread. Eat several small meals a day. Stay away from as much packaged food as possible. There are a lot of packaged foods that contain something called modified food starch. If it reads modified corn (potato rice) starch it will probably be OK, straight modified food starch is unidentifiable. Even the manufactures of the products can not tell you WHAT food starch they are using and wheat is cheap. You may have a sensitivity to soy beans, soy bean oil, fairly common. If you can do soy, go ahead and spurge on Mayo. Use real butter, if you can do milk, do it (2%). I thought after a year of going gluten-free I would start to gain some weight. Not happening yet, but then I'm not doing as well at open mouth insert food as I could be. Good luck! Hope to see back asking 'how do I knock off 5 pounds!'

Lilly

P.S. I found a really good post on Soy here, can't find it now to link you over. Sorry!

[Welda Johnson]

Dear Whyme,

Before reading your post and the others below it, I hadn't realized that so many people with Celiac needed to gain weight. Since I am under five feet, I have always striven to eat less, because any added pounds are hard to carry around. So, in thinking of how to gain weight, I would think that all the hints I've learned about how to lose weight should be valuable for you if you just try the opposite.

Let's see, I eat lots of small meals every two hours or so and I think that speeds up my metabolism, so perhaps you could eat a couple of really large, concentrated meals and see what happens. I never mix fruits, vegetables or proteins (which is all I'm able to eat by the way), so maybe mixing all kinds of foods would do just the opposite for you, by slowing down the digestion of your foods. The theory is that fruits take one kind of digestive enzyme, while other foods take other kinds.

I stay away from really high starch foods if I am eating protein, so why don't you try lots of high starch foods mixed with a variety of other foods, including proteins? I stop eating at 5:30 p.m. so why not try eating late into the night?

I'm glad you posted, because those of us who have spent a lifetime limiting our food intake need to be reminded that you and others are working so hard to gain weight. We are all in this together, after all, so I hope that these suggestions will help. Please let us know how you do in your quest for good health, and know that we are here for you, wishing you well. Welda

[jackay]

Dear Whyme,

Before reading your post and the others below it, I hadn't realized that so many people with Celiac needed to gain weight. Since I am under five feet, I have always striven to eat less, because any added pounds are hard to carry around. So, in thinking of how to gain weight, I would think that all the hints I've learned about how to lose weight should be valuable for you if you just try the opposite.

Let's see, I eat lots of small meals every two hours or so and I think that speeds up my metabolism, so perhaps you could eat a couple of really large, concentrated meals and see what happens. I never mix fruits, vegetables or proteins (which is all I'm able to eat by the way), so maybe mixing all kinds of foods would do just the opposite for you, by slowing down the digestion of your foods. The theory is that fruits take one kind of digestive enzyme, while other foods take other kinds.

I stay away from really high starch foods if I am eating protein, so why don't you try lots of high starch foods mixed with a variety of other foods, including proteins? I stop eating at 5:30 p.m. so why not try eating late into the night?

I'm glad you posted, because those of us who have spent a lifetime limiting our food intake need to be reminded that you and others are working so hard to gain weight. We are all in this together, after all, so I hope that these suggestions will help. Please let us know how you do in your quest for good health, and know that we are here for you, wishing you well. Welda

I need to gain wait and am pretty much doing what you suggested by eating large meals and eating all the food groups together. Right now I am eating quite a bit of high starch foods such as millet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots and quinoa. I gain a few pounds only to lose them within a few days. I am striving so hard to not lose more weight and really would like to gain some weight that stays on me.

[acaligal]

I've always had trouble keeping weight on too. Its nice to know people who understand instead of just saying "stop wining for being skinny." To keep my weight up, I eat a lot of nuts, avocado, and other good fatty foods. Lots of starches too. I'm on the go a lot of find a lot of time I burn more calories than I eat, so just be sure to step up your diet if you feel you're on the go too much.

For on the go snacks, I always spend sunday afternoon bagging up snacks and lunches. Grab some grilled chicken chunks, whatever raw veggies you like, and a small portion of cheese or apple sauce. None of that has to be in the fridge all day so its easy to take on the go.

[afreeclimber74]

Just before I decided to go gluten-free, I was down to 120lbs at 5'9" tall. I was starving all the time and my body was telling me to eat.

I wound up packing on about 55lbs in just over a month by eating an entire pot of homemade rice pudding every day (made with 50%whole milk and 50% half n half). I was also pretty lethargic at the time and was barely leaving the couch.

By being gluten-free, I was able to retain the macro nutrients of what I ate. I was so used to eating tons of food and still being skinny that I plumped up without even realizing it.