Dear XXXXX,

Thanks for posting the query.

The data provided by you indicated that your BMI (Body Mass Index) is 18.7 kg/m2, indicating that your weight for the given height and age is lesser than the normal healthy weight.
Ideally your body weight should be between 63 to 67 Kg. So all that you are required to do is to get ready for building those muscles to gain 12 to 16 Kilos.

For a diet plan to be successful, it is important to find out out the reason for low BMI. The most common causes are inadequate eating habits, prolonged meal timings, poor food selection, and sudden increase in physical activity. (Sometimes, it is also associated with conditions like insomnia, depression and eating disorders like anorexia.) It is therefore, very important for you to be careful, and eliminate all the possible reasons of lower body weight.

You may consider the following changes in your diet for healthy weight gain:

o     Divide your meals into smaller and frequent portions; this would enable the body to consume an adequate amount of calories and use them judiciously.
o     Include nuts and oil seeds in your daily diet. Nuts alone are good muscle building snacks. They are high in mono saturated fats, and even contain a healthy combination of protein and calories. For a better weight gain strategy, you can use peanut butter for a tasty treat. Don’t overlook flax seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, pistachios, and other nuts and seeds.
o     Include protein sources like whole beans, legumes, vegetables like mushroom, soy and milk in daily diet, for building muscles, which is a healthy way for gaining weight. If you are a non vegetarian, try having the fat free meats and prefer the non-fried preparations.
o     Include starchy foods like potato, tapioca, sweet potato etc., as these would provide the additional calories, which are free and easily available. This helps in the protein sparing action, i.e. these foods support the proteins to do their primary work of building body muscles rather than providing the calories.
o     Drink plenty of water and other fluids like tender coconut water, fresh juices, fresh soups, lemon juice etc. but avoid taking the fluids immediately before or in between the meals, as this reduces the calorie intake.
o     Avoid the carbonated drinks like coke, Pepsi etc.
o     Avoid taking snacks immediately before or around the meal timings, as it affects the appetite hence the intake of food, resulting in unbalanced food intake.
o     Be Consistent as it takes time for the body to adjust and show the desired results.
o     Keep away from junk foods, as these often contain bad oils and very less nutrition.

Exercises are also very important for you. With regular and correct exercises you would be able to convert the proteins into muscles and hence gain healthy weight. Brisk walk and light weight training are helpful. Take help from a professional fitness trainer to formulate the exercise pattern best suited to you.

Hope this helps.

Meenakshi

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