my husband needs to gain weight (he's high raw)

bittbitt Raw Newbie

He wants to be almost all raw. He eats what I eat basically but he did not need to lose as much weight as me! He does lots of cardio (biking mostly) and knows he needs to do more strength training but he is super busy right now. He’s 5’8” and 130 and doesn’t want to lose any more weight and preferably gain 5 more pounds.

So these were my suggestions to help him basically not lose any more weight and not resort to popcorn and pasta (pretty much the only non-raw stuff he likes), which honestly I don’t think will help him gain too much anyhow.

More avocados (1 a day), more granola that’s raw, more smoothies. More raw desserts, coconut oil. He’s not a huge fan of plain nuts but will eat them in things.

He’s allergic to flax and bananas so keep that in mind. Suggestions are welcome!

Comments

  • Your body expends a certain amount of calories a day depending on how active you are. Your resting metabolic rate is how many calories you can eat, being completely at rest, and stay the same weight. As you move around the more calories you expend. If you eat the same as your metabolic rate and increase your activities, you will loose weight.

    But as long as you increase the calories, no matter where the calories come from (an unhealthy cal is the same as a healthy cal, just more unhealthy ;) ), while exercising, your weight increases.

    Try to find out how many calories he NEEDS to stay at the same weight as he is now with all the exercising he is doing. nutridiary.com can help. Then just keep the exercising the same, and increase the calorie intake a bit. Even more if he wants more weight.

    Weight lifting also helps of course. You can gain more weight, stronger muscle, but lifting and eating more, than running at eating more. Different muscles used.

    Anyways. If he wants to lift weights and is already skinny, stay away from bicep curls and in general isolation exercises. Dead Lifts, Squats, and the Olympic Lifts are where its at.

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    I’m in the same boat as your boyfriend, bitt. I’m 5’7 and 1/2’’ and I weigh 100 lbs. I’m scared of losing weight eating raw food. I would love to gain weight—115 lbs would be ideal. Right now I am eating tons of fats and complete protiens: lots of avacados, coconut oil in every smoothie, almonds and/or almond milk many times a day, lots of olive oil on salads… and so far, if anything, I’m losing weight (don’t own a scale so I’m not positive about this, but it just seems to be so). Anyway, I’ve only been eating about 80% raw for a month and a half, maybe things will get better.

    Sorry I don’t have any advice, just wanted to say I’m going through the same thing :) I’ll keep my eye on this topic to see if any good advice comes up. Thanks for posting this, bitt!

    jkd_soccer801, I have been weightlifting a little but only for a week now (every other day or so) but I have mostly been concentrating on isolation exercises (bicep curls are my favorite because I swear I can see my muscle growing before my eyes, ha ha) Why would I want to stay away from those?

  • beanybeeganbeanybeegan Raw Newbie

    I havent lost weight being raw, but I eat the items you have suggested for your DH. I also like nut dips and pate or nut meat and nut meat patties. Also what about the higher sugar fruits like mangoes. Stuff dates with a nut or sweet nut pate. Eat lots of dates or dried fruit.What about sweet potato chips, cover them with nutritional yeast before their dried.(if you use it). Use butternut squash for noodles instead of zucc.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    oh yes he loves mangos. i do want to make his sweet potato chips too.

    tonight he had a huge bowl of cacao ice cream. i guess if he can’t gain then the goal would be to not lose anymore. he will eat out, but it’s hard for him because it all has garlic in it most of the time. I am going away for a little while and hope he doesn’t starve!

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    mmmm cacao ice cream. That sounds sooo good right now. Do you make it with coconut milk?

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    We have made it with young coconut meat and water but this time it was with cashew cream.

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    I’ve been fumbling around the fridge trying to see what I have to make myself ice cream with and all I can find is some almond milk, frozen banana and raw carob. I think I’m gonna try it out :)

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    that would be fine. it’s more a matter of the consistency. you may want to add a date or some agave.

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    mmmhmmm, I added agave and some almond butter. It’s pretty banana-y but still pretty good. Enough to satisfy my ice cream craving :)

    I love how with raw foods you can eat ice cream and it’s still really good for you!

  • Jellibi. Sorry for the novel! But here goes! :)

    If you are skinny and want to put on muscles all over, compound exercises are needed. Focusing on isolation exercises with low weight high reps creates tone, isolation exercises with high weight low reps creates strength and builds muscles, however not enough to gain the weight someone skinny wants to gain.

    Its all about goals. Most skinny people want to gain muscle so they no longer look bone thin; so eating a lot and weightlifting with heavy compound exercises work for them. Once they have the underlying muscle and weight, islation exercises can work to help define those muscles.

    If your at a weight where you want to stay at, but want to define your muscles more, or maybe build a bit of weight, light weight compound exercises will help with that, and isolation can help define.

    Their are a couple reasons why, IF you want to GAIN WEIGHT and muscle, to do compounds exercises instead of isolation:

    1. Almost ALL isolation exercises dont tie into real world movements. Sure, bicep curls will help you lift that gallon of water to your mouth, but there are other exercises that do that better and work out more muscles. Most compound exercises (especially dead lifts, pulls ups, rows, etc) tie in directly to movements you use every day, or may need to use in a life threatening situation (like hanging off a cliff, etc).

    2. Isolation exercises work that muscle only, and maybe the contrasting muscle just a little.

    Take me for example. Im 6’8”, and at my skinniest back in high school I was about 170-180. Thats SKINNY. And as much time as I spent in the weight room, I would only gain a little bit of weight. Because all I was doing was curls, triceps, cav raises, etc. Sure I looked toned in the muscles i worked out, but I needed weight.

    Once I grew up and picked up weight lifting again, I started compound exercises, such as dead lifts and squats, the king and queen of lifting. Within a couple of months I put almost 10 pounds on my frame. Now im up to about 200#’s.

    There is almost NO way, unless you have freakish genetics, you can gain heavy amount of weight with doing isolation exercises. And even if you did, your body will be unbalanced and uneven.

    If you look at professional body builders, especially Arnold, you will see that they aLL started strength training with compound exercises with very heavy weights. Sure at the time they didnt look as defined as the did at the Mr. Universe’s, but that only came AFTER they were able to put that weight on, then fine tune their body with isolation exercises as they saw fit.

    Once again, sorry for the novel :)

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    Jkdsoccer, thank you so much. That really makes a lot of sense. I’m going to see if I can come up with an exercise plan that involves all of the muscle groups working together. It’s really embarrassing how weak I am so I am going to have to start slowly- but we all have to start somewhere, right?

    No need to apologize for the length of information, it was so much appreciated :)

  • I’m underweight but slowly gaining. Sprouted quinoa works well for me, it’s relativly high in calories but not in fat. Personally I can’t eat alot of fat like nuts, avocados, ect. But weightlifting is key otherwise you will just put on fat.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    he eats cooked quinoa but we haven’t sprouted it much. i don’t do well digesting sprouted beans or grain (other than buckwheat)

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