Suggest Healthy Diet To Gain Weight Inspite Of Being Underweight

Brief Answer:
high calorie and high protein diet with exercises

Detailed Answer:
Hi XXXXX,

Greetings from HealthcareMagic.

The data provided by you indicates that your BMI is 16.2 Kg/m2, which when compared with the normal BMI range (18.5 – 24.9) indicates that you are underweight. According to your height, your body weight should be between 58 – 62 kg. Lower body weight indicates lack of muscle mass and this is the reason why your arms and upper body appears lean. The reasons for low BMI could be many and the most common ones are factors like environment, health and social life. It is therefore, very important for you to be careful, and include a healthy diet and specific physical activities to help you gain weight in a healthy and sustainable manner.

To make it easy for you to remember, the important dietary guidelines are listed as points below:

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 oilseeds in your daily diet. Nuts alone are good muscle building snacks. Rich 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 in different dishes.
o     Experiment with flax seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, pistachios, and other nuts and seeds. These are rich in protein and calcium and are good snacking options.
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. Non vegetarian foods are excellent protein sources of high biological value. If you take non veg make sure that you take as non fried and less spicy preparations to help the body utilize the proteins better.
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 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 are often poor sources of nutrition.

Since your BMI is below the normal range, I would advise you to start taking some protein supplement regularly. The commercial protein supplements are concentrated protein sources and help in quick muscle gain.The dosage should be carefully followed as per the instructions. Consuming sufficient fluids is important while taking the supplements to facilitate the elimination of waste produced as a result of protein digestion. Consuming the supplements is safe as long as you maintain good activity levels.

As you would be adding extra calories and protein to the diet, it is very important that you do the exercises regularly. Regular exercising would ensure that protein is used for muscle development, instead of getting converted to fats. Simple resistant exercises like push-ups, light weight etc. would help. Avoid heavy cardio activities. You may take help from a professional fitness trainer to formulate the exercise pattern best suited to you according to your requirement and schedule.

Hope this helps.

Please feel free to contact me for further discussion and quires if needed.

Meenakshi

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