A Great Diet For Gaining Weight The starting point in your diet for gaining weight is to determine how many calories you need each day to pack on quality weight. To gain extra muscle weight, you need to consume more calories than the quantity that's required to maintain your current body weight. In other words, you have to eat above and beyond what you're eating now, since you don't want to stay the same weight you're at now. The best thing to start with in your diet for gaining weight is to get a book on nutrition that lists the total amount of calories contained in each food. You could even find one of these calorie charts online. Over a 7-day period, log the foods you eat and the total amount of calories in each. Compute the total amount of calories you consume in this 7 day period. Divide that number by 7, since you did this for 7 days, and you have your daily calorie totals to stay the weight you're currently at. The first step you need to do to gain weight is to increase that number by 300 calories. Make it a healthy, nutritious 300 calories, not just extra junk food. This will soon start you on the process of gaining weight. If, after 2 weeks you don't notice an increase in weight gain, then you'll want to increase this number again by 300 calories. Always increase your calories in small increments so that it's easier to monitor the effect these increases have on your weight. For example, if you started training a little differently and also changed your calorie totals, you wouldn't know which one was helping you gain weight. Now, for gaining quality weight and not just fat weight, I suggest getting 40% of your daily calories from protein, 40% from carbs, and 20% from fats. This is just a guideline, you don't have to follow it to the number. Just come close to these numbers if you want to gain muscle weight. Protein is the main nutrient responsible for muscle growth. To gain muscle weight, you must supply your body with adequate amounts of protein on a regular basis. 5 or 6 servings a day, spaced 3 to 4 hours apart, will help keep the body in a positive nitrogen balance and will keep you gaining weight. Carbs will supply you with the energy you need. In fact, if you don't get enough carbs throughout the day, your body will attack its lean muscle tissue in order to get fuel needed for energy. And fats are needed for energy, cellular function, hormone production, and organ protection. It's unfortunate that fats get such a bad rap, because you really do need healthy fats in your diet to operate optimally. It's very tough to gain weight if your diet is lacking in healthy fats. You need to get each of these nutrients in your diet for gaining weight. If you skip on either of them, your weight gain results will be diminished. So, today, start to keep track of the food you eat for the next week. Write everything down that you consume and then, at the end of the 7 days, total up your calories and divide by 7. Take this number and start to add 300 calories to it, since we want to gain weight, not stay where we are. Get your calories from quality protein, carbs, and fats. After a couple weeks, if you don't see the weight gain you want, increase your calories again by 300. This slow and steady approach will help you find the number of calories you need to gain weight. Make these changes in your diet and you'll soon be gaining more weight in less time. Fitness trainer and natural bodybuilder Shawn Lebrun shows you, step-by-step, how to gain weight and size faster than you ever thought possible.