Gaining Weight

If you need to gain weight, add 15 percent or 500 Calories, whichever is smaller, to your daily energy needs. As you gain weight, you need to reevaluate your daily energy needs and goals using the tables. Let's use the example of a 135-pound woman who is very active and requires 2,481 Calories per day. She needs to gain 13 pounds to get stronger and be more competitive in a heavier weight class for powerlifting. She could increase her intake by 500 Calories each day and ingest 2,981 Calories, but research indicates that most of these extra calories could wind up as extra body fat.

To increase her strength, the woman must maximize the ratio of muscle that she adds to her body relative to the fat that she adds to her body. A better approach would be to increase calories by only 15 percent. Using this tactic, she would increase her caloric intake by an extra 372 Calories to 2,853 Calories per day. It is essential for her to maintain some regular activity like strength training and interval cardiovascular exercise so that she gains primarily muscle and so that she maintains her fitness and health levels. Thus, a 135-pound active female would eat the following:

135 grams of protein × 4 (Calories per gram) = 540 Calories.

80 grams of fat × 9 (Calories per gram) = 720 Calories.

365 grams of carbohydrate × 4 (Calories per gram) = 1,460 Calories.