Gaining

Do you think this is possible? It's about 3-4lbs a week. Based on the numbers, I would have to eat 5,000 calories a day.

Has anyone had a similar gain? I want to get to 200 before the end of summer . I have a desk job so that helps.

Any advice is greatly appreciated ;D

I suspect you could get on the scale in six weeks and have it show you 23 pounds heavier.....but gaining 23 pounds of fat would be a lot harder. That is, if you are really stuffing yourself, you'll have several more pounds of food in your system, you can easily drink a few extra pounds of water, so you'd maybe need to gain a dozen pounds, which sounds posible if you are really planning on pigging out.

On the other hand, to gain 23 pounds of permanent weight, eh, I don't know. Have people gained that much in that amount of time? Yes, and more. Will your body cooperate? (Tolerate that much food, give you enough appetite to even attempt that much food without someone forcing it down you, leave you feeling well enough not to turn you off the whole thing, and then actually turn enough of the food into fat....) Who knows. Our bodies are a LOT more complicated than eating X additional calories always turns into Y extra pounds.

Thank you all so much for the response so far. Just thought I would provide a little more detail about me.

I am definitely not a pro at this but I have managed to put on 40lbs with 20 of those pounds being within the last few months. Most would say I'm not a skinny guy right now.

I chose that number since I am only 5'6, 200 pounds that would definitely put me in fat guy territory finally!

I am also on depression medications and they have increased my appetite substantially. I hope I can pull this off and update my photos on here accordingly

One additional thought....if you are really serious about it, probably your best bet is to take all the usual diet advice and adapt it to what you are doing. As in: the key is planning, making sure that you'll have lots of food for all of your meals, that you have snacks handy and that you remember to eat them, that your plan and discipline makes sure you eat even when you aren't hungry. Also you can turn some of the usual diet advice on its head: do eat heavily shortly before going to bed, do eat a lot of carbs, etc.

OK, two additional thoughts: trying to change your body in a hurry is almost always going to be rough on it. If you can be patient, probably much less damaging to gain that weight over a number of months by simply eating larger amounts of generally healthy foods. Will avoid insulin highs and lows, stress on your liver, and will give your skin and muscles more time to adapt to the changes in your size and weight.

-Ed

Thank you for all the thoughtful and kind advice. I am going to try my best and see where this journey takes me. It Looks like I gained about 3lbs this week, so who knows.

I will definitely try and take progression photos and post them on here. That is if anyone is interested?

Like most people mentioned above, the answer is yes, sort of. If you are regaining weight or doing something insane like binging on fast food for every meal, it's probably going to work.

But you'll have to figure out the variables of your body's metabolic rate and how it reacts to changes in the environment (increased or decreased calories / different food combinations, etc.) before you can get an exact answer.

That being said, I have seen it done in this time frame, more than 23lb actually, though I have never been able to do something like this because my body can't handle it.

Oh and a quick note in case you do go trying something crazy, 23 pounds of visceral fat is incredibly uncomfortable. You're looking for subcutaneous, so if you go about getting your Super Size Me on, expect to be in some amount of pain (visceral fat pushing organs around, liver pain, etc.) until your body adjusts.

Just plan it out, try it out, and if you have to revise your deadline, so be it. Better to be fat and healthy than a statistic on the news.

Genetics plays a factor, but speed of gain, what you're eating, and whether you're a man or woman also affects it. Men tend to put on visceral faster than women, but can move it just as easily.

Subcutaneous placement however is almost entirely governed by genetics.

Sort of. I don't have any hard data, it's just an observation that in many people a sudden increase of calories can inflate visceral fat cells more readily. Not always the case, but with guys, it seems more probable.

Either way, since we know visceral fat is easy to create and easy to move, it makes sense that a sudden shift in caloric load would at least temporarily increase visceral levels. Though that correlates to a theory that visceral fat is a waystation in the body, which could prove completely wrong. I would need to do more research on the subject or see if anyone else has done research.

Seems that scientists like to do more tests on how to lose weight than to gain it.

What we eat though may have more effect on visceral fat levels than the rate of gain.

Hello again everyone. Well it has been just about 6 weeks since my original post and again I want to thank everyone for the kind support. I can report that I have successfully added 12lbs to my body this summer. this puts me just under 190, not quite my goal but pretty good for just six weeks I think. Hopefully, I can get pictures up soon and with any luck ill be 200 by the holidays