With the obesity epidemic spreading through the country, it’s become hard to encounter someone who actually wants to gain weight. But there are lots of these people, who were born with a highly active metabolism and a slim body, who find it extremely hard to put even the slightest amount of weight.
Eating more food is the obvious fix, but we shouldn’t eat all foods. For sure, we don’t want to be eating junk food and sweet stuff; they are full of processed fat and refined sugars and will make us fatter, but not healthier. The alternative is choosing foods that are healthy. However, a lot of people think that healthy food is by default expensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are lots of foods that are both cheap and healthy at the same time.
Luckily for you, we’ve already done the research, and in this article, we present to you the 10 alternatives that will keep your money in your pocket and make you healthier. Just adding a few of these in your diet and eating them consistently, will make you see some impressive gains.
The generally recommended number of calories per day is 2000-3000 for men and 1500-2500 for women. In order to gain an appreciable amount of weight, you should strive to exceed that number, but you should do it slowly, starting with an excess of 500 calories a day. Before we start, we need to ensure that your meal is complete with all the important macro and micronutrients. This will make sure you’re eating a balanced diet. Each meal should consist of at least one carb-rich food, a lean protein source and some type of vegetable.
1. Rice: a cheap food for gaining weight fast
Rice is perhaps the most widely consumed grain throughout the world, and it is filled with an incredibly high amount of energy. A hundred grams of rice have around 130 calories, and it is quite cheap and available in any market. Simply by adding a big portion of rice in your meal, you increase the number of calories by the hundreds. Plus, it is a very easily digestible grain and causes none of the gluten issues which people usually face with other wheat.
It also contains lots of essential minerals, as well as vitamins, like niacin and thiamine. It’s very easy and quick to prepare, especially if you have a rice maker. A meal suggestion: a bean and rice burrito, which is packed with energy, rich in protein and incredibly healthy and delicious at the same time.
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2. Granola: tasty and healthy, another great weight-gaining food
Granola is second on our list and not without a cause. It’s not only an excellent choice for a delicious breakfast cereal, it is also packed with energy, fiber, and protein, not to mention lots of calories. Just a single cup of granola has over 450 calories, without adding milk. A granola bar has the similar amount. The other essential thing about granola is that it’s very healthy. Provided it’s not filled with too much sugar, because some types have lots of it, you can eat as much as you want all day long. Add in a bowl of granola or a bar 2-3 times a day, and you will some rapid and healthy changes with your weight happening really soon.
3. Peanut butter: rich in calories and protein
There’s a chance you have already found peanut butter on a list similar to this one, and it’s not without a good reason. One tablespoon of peanut butter has around 90 calories, 3 grams of carbs and 4 grams of protein, not to mention its incredible taste. However, it contains quite a bit of saturated fat, which means you shouldn’t indulge yourself too much, but it still makes for a healthy weight gain tool in your quest for weight gain. And it just so happens that it goes incredibly well with the next food on the list.
4. Bananas: a high energy snack
Bananas offer lots of benefits, some of them being that they’re really tasty, affordable and convenient to carry around with you. An average-sized banana is a great snack for gaining weight since it has around 100 calories. They are also rich in fiber and have a moderate dose of potassium, which is an essential mineral in your diet. They have high content of sugar, though. So, because of this, it’s usually recommended that you eat them as a post-workout snack when the muscles are craving for energy. Don’t go overboard and eat 5 of them in one sitting, even if you find their taste hard to resist.
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