I need to gain weight. I need to gain 3-5 pounds. That's a problem lots of people would love to have.
Here's what happened
I felt a little underweight so I weighed myself. I was right. I was 3-4 pounds under my usual normal and happily chosen weight. Hmm. So I ate some junk food for a couple of days. I didn't eat enough of it because I didn't really gain the 3-4 pounds I wanted to gain. I resumed my normal "healthy" food regimen. Two weeks later I weighed myself again. I had lost another 2 pounds! What was happening? Was I sick? Was I dying? I had been eating healthy food almost every day. Why was I losing weight? I did not want to lose weight. I was starting to look too thin. Too thin? There's no such thing! As they say, "You can't be too rich or too thin." Yes, you can be too thin. You might be sick. Or dying.
Because I was eating a bit lightly and very healthily, I thought maybe I wasn't eating enough calories. I wrote down everything I usually eat on any given day. Then, I looked up the caloric content of each food. It turned out that I was eating 1,515 calories per day. I looked that up to see what it meant. What it said was that, at 1,515 calories a day, and light exercise, I would lose one pound a week. That's exactly what happened! I then looked how many calories a person of my gender, height, weight and age should be eating. I looked it up using the same SuperTracker calculator that the U.S. federal government's Department of Agriculture used. It said I should be eating 2,324 calories a day. 800 more calories! I should be eating 50% MORE calories per day! I was shocked! I thought my nutrition was proper. I thought I was eating "healthy". Turns out that eating healthy and lightly made me lose weight I didn't want to lose.
What to do? I now had a problem that everyone would like to have: I wanted to GAIN weight.
How to gain some pounds? Hmm. I did not want to eat a lot of junk food everyday. Or high fat foods. Or high sugar foods. I would gain weight but I might also shortly get clogged arteries and diabetes. Should I eat some junk food? Hell, yes. Tomorrow, I am going to have a double cheeseburger for dinner. And fries. The day after that I am going to have a ton of Chinese food. And, a day or two after that, I am going to have a foot long meatball sandwich, with Swiss cheese. But then I will stop eating like that consistently, to avoid clogged arteries, diabetes, obesity, and death. So far, I have gained 2 pounds. That's good but what to add to my diet on an ongoing basis that is reasonably healthy yet contains many calories? Here's what I found. I can't chew nuts et al (I have dentures). Peanut butter has saturated fat and not enough calories. Upon doing some research I decided to eat a higher calorie dinner. And, despite raising my cholesterol and sugar levels, maybe I'll add "bad" food 1-2 times a week. "Bad" food like yummy cheeseburgers. And fries.
And, hopefully, I will gain a few more pounds. And, hopefully, that will solve the problem, the problem of having to gain some weight, the problem that billions of people would like to have.
UPDATE:
I increased my dinner calories. 5 days later I had gained the 3 pounds I wanted to gain. Now I will moderate and switch back and forth re low calorie and higher calorie dinners.
btw, for my entire lifetime I could gain or lose weight easily. I have always chosen to maintain a good weight, and not be overweight or obese. For me it was easy. This is due to my simple, easy and effective eating habits. And vanity. I want to look good and feel good. I even wrote a book about it, to help overweight and obese people and motivate them to control their weight. The book, available on amazon, is entitled Lose Weight 4 Free
