Gaining

So I’m really skinny with a fast metabolism and desperately want to put on weight I still don’t fully understand how weight gain works but from what research I’ve done it takes about 3,500 calories to gain a pound let’s say I wanted to gain 1 to 2 pounds a month would I have to eat 3,500 a day every day for that month to gain the full pound or will it add onto my weight in a shorter period of time

Maybe not every day, but most days. Just be patient with yourself.

Your bio says you are 23. Do not be shocked if it takes you a few years to start thickening up and your metabolism can take a bit to slow down. Not saying you'll have to wait, but it is a possibility.

It depends on how active you are, but If you ate 3500 calories a day at your size you’d gain 1-2 a week

If sucks because that base ammount of calories you need just to maintain goes up as you get bigger I need something on the order of 4100 calories a day just to maintain my weight

Just to be clear, that’s 3500 *excess* calories to gain one pound. If you eat 3500 *excess every day*, that’s 1 lb/day (assuming your body stores it as fat, instead of shunting it to something else, like heat or fidgeting).

Assuming a “typical” 2000 cal/day requirement (which is a dubious number, but the math is easy), if you eat 3500 calories a day (not excess, just 3500 total), that’s 1500 excess per day. So that’s 1lb every 2.333 days, or just over 12lbs per month (again, assuming perfect absorption)

However, you should probably use a calorie calculator to figure out your daily requirement. Be sure to use one that accounts for body fat percent, because maintaining fat mass consumes waaaaaay fewer calories than maintaining muscle mass.

You should also consider *what* you eat. There is tonnes of research on how the body processes food. (Mostly to help people diet ironically.) Eat some fats fairly obviously. But excess carbs also get stored using different mechanisms, so have excess carbs too. And if you don't worry about your health you can consume products containing Fructose as this gets processed in a different pathway (IIRC.) I believe that in the US at least 'High Fructose Corn Syrup' is added to loads of stuff so is hard to avoid. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

Limit your sugar intake if you feel attached to your teeth, beloved. Dental pain is common in reckless feedees and gainers.

Protein is also important, so don't forget that either.

I'm sorry, but this is very bad, even terrible advice.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is extremely vile stuff that messes with your blood sugar levels much worse than regular sugar.

HFCS is primarily found in:
- The vast majority of "regular" soda.
- Most (not all) barbeque sauce and ketchup.
- Some chocolate sauces, most notably Hershey's.
- Certain adulterated/non-traditional beverages.

That last one can include things like "Sunny D" (vile stuff, probably popular just because it's very low in price), and certain types of fake lemonade, in particular Minute-Maid brand.

However, the vast majority of fruit juices will NOT contain HFCS.

Regarding barbeque sauce and ketchup, there should nearly always be an option at any supermarket that does NOT contain HFCS. Certain proprietary sauces, such as McD's "Sweet & Sour," will contain HFCS but others, such as Wendy's Barbeque sauce, will not.

A lot of "ultra-processed" snacks used to contain HFCS years ago, but they no longer do. Though, some might still have it.

Actually, if you simply don't drink soda and make other alternative choices, it's extremely easy to avoid 99%+ of HFCS these days.

Before I gave up soda for good, my experience with HFCS was NOT good.

I remember that if I drank about a liter of soda, Fanta I think it was, the result is that within the hour, maybe even sooner, I feel an overwhelming urge to nap and I just feel groggy and NOT good. And in general, HFCS beyond trace amounts just makes me feel very bad.

Not saying sugar is the best thing either, but I never had that kind of reaction to regular sugar.

In addition, the soda just seemed to have a bloating effect and a water retaining effect, which actually caused me to eat LESS, not more. For someone who'd like to gain weight, this is not good.

I feel like that kind of quantity of HFCS consumption is pretty much guaranteed diabetes, and you absolutely do NOT want that.

If that isn't enough, HFCS is about 3 calories a gram v. sugar's 4 calories a gram.

But yeah, don't get me started on the Big Corn Lobby.

I'm not saying one has to eliminate HFCS consumption entirely. You probably don't eat out all the time, so there's not a lot of point in fussing over whether the ketchup at some diner, or if the ketchup used at some burger joint has HFCS in it. You could probably even have the occasional can of soda from time to time.

But a 2L every day? That's just asking for trouble. Another member here ended up pre-diabetic and well on the way to becoming full-blown diabetic because she was doing that, and she was also under the age of 21 too. So, this process didn't even take a very long time.

The only way she found out is that as a trans-female on HRT, checking the blood work fairly regularly is part of the process. Most folks probably don't get that checked regularly.

Am I on a crusade against HFCS? I guess I am. There's a reason a number of countries have moved to ban the ingredient, or at least highly restrict it, particularly when a far less vile alternative, sugar, exists.

Sure, some may say they don't care about health, but some things really are no joke, and the reality is often very different from fantasy.