While a huge portion of fitness advice is directed toward those trying to reach their goals, there are people out there who find it extremely difficult to gain weight.
Ectomorphic body types, which I will discuss in a later article, are often envied by endomorphic body types for their natural leanness. However, many ectomorphs are known as heard gainers and find themselves discouraged by their inability to gain weight, specifically muscle. While endomorphs may struggle to eat less, some ectomorphs can find it near impossible to eat enough calories to reach a surplus, which is necessary to gain muscle.
In this short article, you'll learn how to use the potential energy of certain types of foods as a beneficial tool for hitting your macronutrient goals so you can pack on muscle and break through plateaus.
Calorie-dense foods
For the hard-gainers out there, these types of foods can help you bulk up.
When trying to cut, these types foods can make it more difficult to stay in a deficit.
As I mentioned earlier, fatty foods pack a punch when it comes to calories whether it’s healthy fats or not. Most foods that are marketed as nutrient dense energy boosters, like granola bars and trail mix, are great for racking up calories in just a few bites. Many people aren’t aware that anything involving nuts will be extremely high in calories. Peanut butter is my personal favorite with almost 100 calories per tbsp. Soups and pastas can be a great source of carbs and protein, but any cream based sauce will contain an impressively heavy load. If you are sometimes intimidated by the amount of food on your plate, adding oils or butters used in food preparation also skyrockets the fat content, adding invisible calories to any meal. Dried fruits are another sneaky jolt of calories due to all the oils used in the drying process. Speaking of fruits, avocados and coconut are often tagged as “healthy” but using these as toppings will add more calories than most would guess. It’s also worth noting that anything eaten at a restaurant will be much more calorie-dense than almost anything you’d prepare at home because of the oils, butters and creams that restaurants add for taste.
The bottom line - If you're not eating enough calories to see optimal gains focus on energy-dense foods to put your body in an anabolic state. Once you've filled your protein and carbs for the day, filling that extra room with fatty foods will have you in a surplus with no problem.
I'm sure you have some experience, opinions, or questions about this. It’s your turn to let me know what you think!
What are your goals?
What’s holding you back?
What questions do you have?
Whatever is on your mind, connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or email informedfit@gmail.com.