Complex carbohydrates are extremely important if you want to gain weight and look after your wellbeing. They give you enough steady energy to go through the day without feeling fatigued, which is important for anyone’s wellness, but even more so for weight gainers.
You need complex carbs for weight gain because they’re healthier than loading up on junk food, and they naturally get used up in three or four hours, which is perfect because a weight gain diet involves eating several meals a day rather than two or three big ones. Your body can only absorb so many nutrients at one time, so eating more food in fewer meals will simply be passed out of your system. Each of these medium-sized meals should contain complex carbohydrates, such as wholegrain bagels, bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes. Make sure the portions of, and within, each meal are kept the same throughout the day, and at the same time every day, so that by then your body can prepare for the next dose of fuel that you give it.
Only 20% of exercisers eat a carbohydrate meal after their workout, which is worrying because not doing so causes your body to try to get fuel from other places, including breaking down other muscles, burning your fat deposits, and depriving the muscles that worked out from protein by breaking it into energy to be used. Thus your weight gain efforts are ruined, and your muscle wellness is worse than ever. One way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to drink milk straight after your workout, which is particularly important for women as it provides the calcium and iron that you generally need more of, and after this you should eat a meal of chicken and rice as soon as possible. That way, your muscles will have protein to use for making repairs, and carbohydrates to replace their depleted glycogen storage.
Finally, remember that it’s natural to gain fat in the initial stages of adding on body mass, probably because your diet is too much for your body and so you are storing more food as fat. You should be aiming for a fat level of 10-15% of your body if you’re a man, and 20-30% if you’re a woman so that your immune system is not deprived of the essential vitamins and minerals. If nothing else, a weakened immune system will lead to illness, which is a cause of weight loss and will undermine all the work you’ve done so far.
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