Welcome, Namineta.
namineta13 wrote:
Are there any specific tricks to break plateaus in weight gain? I tend to get "stuck" at certain weights until something external breaks it and I've always wondered what I can do to kickstart it myself.
At least one plateau is to be expected. At a certain point all of your existing fat cells are full, so they use a huge amount of energy to divide en masse. A lot of what you eat will go into this process for about a week, and then your gain will resume.
Otherwise, your metabolism is likely increasing to make use of all the extra nutrition. This can only go so far so you can overcome it by sheer volume of calories, but there are a couple of ways to lower your metabolism deliberately. Very briefly, either decrease your activity, or have periods of fasting (anywhere from hours to a day) to ensure you store more fat from the next meal.
namineta13 wrote:
I eat lots of carbs, nut products, and avocados as mentioned above, and treat myself to sweets as often as I can, so what else is there to do?
Look into adding eggs and oil. Eggs have good fats and protein, but omelettes or scrambled eggs will also soak up tons of milk and butter if you provide it. (Add veggies too.) Vegetables cooked in olive oil will retain plenty of it, you can drizzle more on afterwards, and that stuff is seriously calorie-dense.
