Amanda Ursell
Many of you no doubt will want to throw an entire cheesecake at Sally Nguyen,
the reader who wrote to us because she is unhappy with her natural
skinniness (see box, below).
It is true that she is in the minority - more than 60 per cent of the
population carries excess blubber - but her cries of help are as compelling
as any from a woman or man wanting to lose a stone or so.
Whether you're a woman in search of some feminine curves, a man wanting to
become beefier or a teenager keen to shake off your impersonation of a
beanpole, sitting on your backside and feasting on takeaway pizza, crisps
and fizzy drinks is not the route to a fuller physique.
The scales may shift upwards, but most of the weight gain will be fat. Your
cholesterol levels and blood pressure could rise, your salt intakes soar and
your liver could end up with fatty deposits, making it harder for it to
complete its routine detoxing.
Instead the goal is to gain mostly lean body mass - muscle, in other words.
This may sound scary if you're a woman who fears resembling the Incredible
Hulk. But, unless you take illegal steroids, you'll struggle to look muscle
bound as you need plenty of the male hormone testosterone to achieve serious
bulk.
Laying down new muscle is easier for men, but both sexes can achieve it. You
need to eat more of the right kind of calories while regularly following a
programme of “strength training” exercises (see Matt Roberts opposite). This
combination allows your muscles to grow at an optimal rate which for women
will lead to a gain of about 1lb to 2lb a month; 3lb to 4lb for men.
It won't happen quickly and will depend to some extent on your genetics, body
type and hormonal balance.
How many extra calories?
Women who want to gain the right kind of muscle weight must follow Matt's plan
and attempt to eat an extra 500 calories a day. Men need to follow the
strength training plan and eat a further 700 calories a day. It takes about
2,500 extra calories to gain 1lb of muscle (many of the extra calories you
eat are used for digestion and are lost through heat due to the extra
physical activity).
A pre-programme dietary shake-up
Before you increase the number of calories you eat, do an inventory on your
current intake and weed out the foods that provide lots of energy but few
nutrients. In other words, dump biscuits, cakes, fatty puddings, sugary
drinks and most fast foods. Instead, have larger servings of healthy main
meals.
How to boost your good calories
You don't need to eat steak every night or invest in expensive protein shakes
to gain muscle mass. The extra protein you need in order to support Matt's
training plan will be met by the extra food you are eating. The extra
calories you need can come mostly from carbohydrate-rich foods, 20 of which
are listed below in 100-calorie servings to help you reach your target of
500 or 700 extra every day.
And when I reach my target?
You need to test the water to find a way to balance your “energy in” with your
“energy out”. The British Nutrition Foundation says that if you've built up
more lean mass - muscles - you'll need to keep exercising.
You'll also need to take in more calories than when you started your weight
gain regimen because your metabolic rate will have increased. But don't
panic if your weight changes a bit. “A little variation is not a problem
while you're working out the best balance for you,” the foundation says.
Remember too that you should eat regularly, as this makes sure that your
muscles are always getting the fuel they need to grow and develop. In
practice this means eating three meals a day and at least two snacks.
Amanda Ursell is the Times nutritionist (amandaursell.com)
Matt Roberts
While plenty of us struggle to lose weight, others perpetually fight to
increase theirs - because of their genes, illness, an eating disorder or
even having had a baby (though anyone struggling to lose post-baby fat may
find this hard to imagine).
Women who are a natural “tube” shape, with few feminine curves, may feel that
their ability to dress, or indeed to undress, is diminished.
For some men, a perceived lack of “manliness” can be to blame for a host of
problems including bullying, a lost job promotion or a failed relationship.
The puny male is viewed as weak in all ways and suffers from society's
attitudes as much today as he might have done in times past when physical
strength really was crucial. Putting on healthy weight is not easy. Gaining
fat is straightforward, but gaining lean weight is a slow process where diet
and exercise must be planned together.
Expect weight to be added slowly. And be patient - once the weight is on it is
relatively easy to keep it there.
The main problem is this: muscles burn calories, exercise creates bigger or
more activated muscles, and the higher the level of activity the greater the
number of calories you burn - so the harder it is to get bigger.
As you try to gain weight it gets harder to maintain, as your metabolism
rises. Breaking this vicious cycle must be done carefully. You need to
ensure that your heart and lungs are exercised for your health, but also
because a healthy system will feed calories to your lean muscle mass more
efficiently.
The answer is not to simply cut out cardio work, but to use resistance
training - even though it will raise your metabolism - because it is the
exercise that will increase your actual mass, if done correctly.
For your cardio work, the answer is small bursts of exercise, perhaps 15 to
20-minute spells, three to four days per week at a moderate to easy
intensity.
Walk, slow jog or cycle at a comfortable level so that you break into a sweat
but don't get exhausted. This will keep your body healthy but will avoid
excess calorie depletion.
Use a weight-training programme that encourages muscle-building rather than
working on pure strength. It seems logical that lifting very heavy weights
will pay off handsomely, but if the weights are so big that you can lift
them only five to eight times, they will increase your strength and your
metabolism, but not necessarily your size.
A range of 10 to 15 repetitions, with a long rest between every set, is most
effective. Focusing on the chest, back, thighs, bottom and hamstrings - and
using rests of up to 90 seconds between each set - will break down the
muscle fibres and lead them to redevelop in a larger size.
The size of weights required differs from individual to individual, but they
should be heavy enough to make you struggle to finish the last two
repetitions in each set.
The routine below focuses on the major muscle groups and will avoid any
specific building of the arms so that women can retain a more feminine
appearance. For men, the routine will work very effectively, and you may
want to throw in some arm exercises too, such as bicep curls.
Case Study: 'Help, I'm 5ft 6in and only weigh 7 stone'
Sally Nguyen, 50, weighs 7st which she feels is far too little for someone who
is 5ft 6in tall. Sally had read Amanda Ursell's weight-loss menus in Body&Soul
and wrote to her asking for advice on how to do the opposite. But she wanted
to gain weight healthily rather than by gorging on cakes, crisps and
burgers.
“At the moment I have no body stores to rely on ... Please give [me] some
ideas ... I am sure there are others like me who are fed up of looking like
beanpoles,” she says in her letter.
Sally's daily diet consisted of fruit juice and fruit compote or a bowl of
cereal for breakfast and a piece of carrot cake or biscuits mid-morning.
Lunch was typically a chicken and avocado sandwich or a bowl of soup with
water to drink. She would have fruit or yoghurt as a mid-afternoon snack.
Dinner might be homemade lamb burgers with potatoes and vegetables or a Thai
green chicken curry with rice. Pudding was cake, crumble or ice-cream.
Amanda spotted that while Sally was eating an average of about 1,500 calories
a day, her intake was not consistent. On a day when she had the
lower-calorie choices (fruit compote, biscuits, soup, fruit, lamb burgers
and ice-cream) Sally was eating only 921 calories with 34g of protein and
29g of fat.
But if she had cereal, carrot cake, a chicken and avocado sandwich, yoghurt,
curry and crumble, her total intake could rise to 2,149 with 93g of protein
and 70g of fat.
Amanda advised Sally that to gain 1lb to 2lb a month she needs a steady 2,000
calories a day. Also, all the calories need to “count” nutritionally to
ensure that she gets not just enough calories and protein, but minerals such
as calcium, needed for bone strength, and iron for energy to help fuel her
exercise.
An ideal breakfast for Sally would be a glass of fruit juice, muesli with
grated apple and semi-skimmed milk and a slice of toast with peanut butter.
At mid-morning, she could have two oatcakes with slices of Cheddar cheese
and a pear. Protein-packed sandwich choices for lunch, besides her favourite
chicken and avocado, could be beef and rocket, ham and tomato, or tuna and
sweetcorn, with a fromage frais to follow. Two slices of toast with a banana
would be a good mid-afternoon snack.
Dinner could be Sally's regular choices of lamb burgers with potatoes and
vegetables, chicken curry or lean roast beef, lamb or chicken with baked
potato and vegetables, plus yoghurt and fruit for pudding.
That would add up to 2,044 calories, 101g protein, 55g fat and 17g saturated
fat.
20 easy ways to eat an extra 100 calories
A large banana
Two apples
Two small oranges
Two large peaches
Six dried apricots (fully dried, not partially dehydrated)
A large glass of orange juice(270ml)
A “grande” (300ml) skimmed milk latte or cappuccino
100g low fat fruit yoghurt
80g fruit fromage frais
Slice of wholemeal bread (45g)
Half a large pitta bread
A toasted crumpet with sugar-free jam
Half a toasted teacake with sugar-free jam
Two oatcakes
Two tablespoons of Swiss-style muesli
One slice of malt loaf
30g extra pasta (dried weight) at meal times
Two extra tablespoons of cooked rice at meal times
100ml of lentil soup
A 20g piece of chocolate (just under a third of a small 54g bar)
Six steps to muscle building
Chest press: 12 reps, maximum 3-4 sets
Shoulder press: 12 reps, max 3-4 sets
Dead lift: 15 reps, 4 sets
Seated row: 15 reps, max 4 sets
Step-ups holding weights: 15 reps each side, 3 sets
Lunges holding weights: 15 reps each side, 3 sets
