Gaining

For many of us "hard gainers", the issue isn't "how many calories can I eat?" but "how many of the calories I eat will stick?"

Background:
In the farming industry, Antibiotics are frequently used with great effect, altering the microbiome to more effeciently provide kcal to the host. Obviously, antibiotic abuse, even for gaining, is bad.

Question/Idea:
What about digestive enzymes? Could things like ox-bile etc have enough of an affect on an otherwise healthy person's ability to absorb kcal to justify the expense? To what extent can enzymes bypass an unfavourable gut biome or digestive tract to increase Caloric absorbtion?

Notes:
Clearly finding the specific bacteria responsible for the differences in the guts of severely obese and normal weight patients, and supplementing with pro-biotics or whatever chemicals/hormones/enzymes they produce would be the most effecient method of emulating the effects, but I've been unable to find that information. Additionally, the baseline absorbtion rate is clearly highly individualized, as will be the bottlenecks, so any one person may or may not receive results, even if the theory is sound.


Experiment:
I ordered some digestive enzymes off Amazon to see if they help me get closer to "3500 over is 1lb gained". I'll report back here if this post gets any traction or if the results are significant.

That's a very interesting idea! Unfortunately, I don't know the answers to your questions.

I have been able to successfully gain weight quickly, so I'm not too concerned with absorption. My problem is getting the pounds to stick. I weighed myself this morning, and was frustrated to see that my weight has dropped to 248 pounds, from a high of 265 pounds at the end of my previous gain cycle, which ended on May 14th.

I'm going to start a new cycle this Friday, and will be making a permanent change to my regular diet. I'm going to be adding carbs so that I'm meeting the daily recommended values. I crunched some numbers, and learned that my regular diet is basically very low carb. My diet is so low in carbs that, depending on what I eat for lunch, my carb intake can get so low that it could potentially put me into ketosis.

I have been eating this way since 2009. I'm so used to eating this way that it truly feels odd to have to intentionally add carbs to my diet. I really have to go out of my way to make sure that I'm getting enough carbs per day.

As I said, this will be a permanent change to my diet. Once my gain cycle ends and I resume my normal diet, I will continue to maintain the higher carb intake. With luck, that may be the missing piece to this puzzle.

I wish you the best of luck in learning the answers to your questions. I look forward to reading about your findings.

After about a week trial with digestive enzymes, I've not noticed any improvements to gaining directly, but I found I am hungry faster and feel less bloated.