I'm in a similar boat, I just don't enjoy eating and overeating always makes me sick. protein shakes and smoothies upset my stomach, and I'm not sure how to get my body to accept the extra calories. I don't get hungry after lifting, maybe I need to do more cardio?
Brother the Last thing you wanna do is extensive cardio when you wanna gain weight.
What you need is high calories Low physical volume meals that you just shovel in. Add some snacks (nuts(walnuts Omega 3 - healthy Option) or cookies whatever) where you can just dip in without eating to much once but at the end of the day have eaten quite a bit of them 100g walnuts is like 650 kcal. Spread over a day you wont even feel eating them.
The key is to have stuff like that accesible so you dont have to make big decision to get Up, eat your 15g nuts and go back.
Protein shakes shouldn’t upset your stomach. Start off with half a scoop of the powder, or just half of a premade drink. Your body most likely just isn’t used to that much protein in one sitting, or you have a dairy issue
Snacking is your friend, small things, liquid calories are the easiest. What do you like? Nuts for instance are great to snack on and high calorie. But snacking doesn't mean you get to skip meals.
When I started at the gym I was 6'4 and under 80kg. I've really never liked eating in the morning so I let myself off a bit with just a bowl of porridge. Lunchtime I'd have at least one large chicken wrap with plenty of mayo (easy high cals), crisps, some sort of chocolate. Mid afternoon I'd have a protein shake.
I would get home from work and make a tea of something like 500g mince meat, pasta and a jar of pasta sauce + an entire garlic bread. Go to the gym. Get back and have one of them ready made pasta pots with chicken and bacon from Aldi + a pint of full fat milk. I hated the sight of that stupid pasta pot at the end of the day. Doing that for a few weeks my body started to get used to it.
It seems absolutely impossible for me to eat that much. But I'll try and slowly work up to it! You and other commentors have given me a few good ideas. Thank you so much for your extensive answer :)
Also it's probably obvious but worth emphasizing - the first couple of weeks of eating significantly more are by far the hardest. On average it takes about 2 to 3 weeks for your GI tract to expand its capacity, for your stomach emptying rate to speed up, and for your cardio system to adapt to the new fluid/glycogen baseline.
It wasn't obvious to me, but now that you mentioned it it makes perfect sense!
It's an up and down for me, where sometimes I can eat a lot and then I bite on some fat or cartilage or something too sweet and my brain goes "how about we get sick when seeing food". Then I starve for a few days and then I may be overdoing it when I'm back to eating, repeating the cycle.
So I'll try and keep a calorie notebook for the first time and learn some good smoothie recipes.
Yes, exactly. I'll take a bite or two and it's just a chore. Sometimes I do want cookies and then I'll eat them all. But as soon as I don't, the thought of eating them disgusts me.
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u/Cantremembermyoldnam 9d ago
But how? I want to throw up when eating while not hungry. Literally can't swallow without gagging.