How To Gain Weight (Healthily!)

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Sometimes, we may want/need to put on a little more fat, and wish to do so healthily. Fortunately, knowing a few key things can make this process a lot less frustrating!

  • Today’s main feature examines what can go wrong with fat gain to make it unhealthy (hint: it’s not about quantity), and how to avoid those pitfalls to gain weight healthily, enjoying satisfying and yes, even high-calorie meals along the way.

  • As a bonus, these same tips help avoid type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease!

• Being unable to easily participate in spoken conversations is not just an inconvenience; it’s also a [causal, fixable] risk factor for age-related cognitive decline.

  • Today’s sponsor, Hear.com, are offering the most cutting-edge dual-processing technology in hearing aids that isolate and separate speech from background noise, now with their latest most advanced device yet!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

🤫 A WORD TO THE WISE

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

How And Why To Sleep With Your Mouth Closed

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Prefer text? You might like our previous main feature:

The Exercises That Can Fix Sinus Problems (And More)

Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

• Osteoporosis Exercises

• Holding Back The Clock on Aging

❓ MYSTERY ITEM

A Brush With Death Life

Hint: today’s mystery item is a great way to take care of your lymphatic system

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

• Eat to Your Heart’s Content (book)

• The Many Health Benefits of Garlic

📈 MAIN FEATURE

What Do You Have To Gain?

We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:

1. Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)

2. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)

3. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)

There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.

Here’s our first article: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)

While some people will want to lose fat, please do be aware that the association between weight loss and good health is not nearly so strong as the weight loss industry would have you believe:

Shedding Some Obesity Myths

And, while BMI is not a useful measure of health in general, it’s worth noting that over the age of 65, a BMI of 27 (which is in the high end of “overweight”, without being obese) is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality:

BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis

Here was our second article: How To Build Muscle (Healthily!)

And now, it’s time for the last part, which yes, is also something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.

How to gain fat, healthily

Fat gets a bad press, but when it comes to health, we would die without it.

Even in the case of having excess fat, the fat itself is not generally the problem, so much as comorbid metabolic issues that are often caused by the same things as the excess fat.

So, how to gain fat healthily?

• Obvious but potentially dangerously misleading answer: “in moderation”

• More useful answer: “carefully”

Because, you can “in moderation” put on less than one pound per week for a few years and be in very bad health by the end of it. So how does this “carefully” work any differently to “in moderation”?

The key is in how we store the fat

Not merely where we store it (though that’ll follow from the “how”), but specifically: how we store it.

• When we consume energy from food in excess of our immediate survival needs, our body stores what it can. This is good!

• When our body is receiving energy from food faster than it can physically process it to store it healthily, it will start shoving it wherever it can instead. This is bad!

This is the physiological equivalent of the difference between tidying a room carefully, and cramming everything into one cupboard in 30 seconds just to get it out of sight.

So, you do need to consume calories yes, but you need to consume them in a way your body can take its time about storing them.

We’ve written before about the science of this, so we’ll share some links to that in a moment, but first, here are the practical tips:

• Do not drink your calories. Drinking calories tends to be the equivalent of injecting sugars directly into your veins, in terms of how quickly it gets received.

  • See also: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver ← this is highly relevant, because the same process that results in unhealthy weight gain, results in liver disease, by the same mechanism (the liver gets overwhelmed).

• Eat your greens. No, they won’t provide many calories, but they are critical to your body not being overwhelmed by the arrival of sugars.

  • See also: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars ← the other 9 things are also helpful for not putting on fat unhealthily, so using these alongside a calorie-dense diet can result in healthy fat gain as needed

• Get more of your calories from fats than carbs. Fats will not overwhelm your body’s glycemic response in the same way that carbs will.

  • Again this is about getting calories while not getting metabolic disease. See also: How To Prevent And Reverse Type Two Diabetes as the advice is the same for that, for the same reason!

• Consider going low-carb, but even if you choose not to, go for carbs with a low glycemic index instead of a high glycemic index.

  • For reference, see: Glycemic Index Chart: Glycemic index and glycemic load ratings for 500+ foods

• Need healthy fats in a snack? Enjoy nuts (unless you have an allergy); they will be your best friend in this regard. As an example, a mere 1oz portion of cashew nuts has 157 calories.

  • See also: Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

• Need health fats for cooking? Enjoy olive oil, as it has one of the healthiest lipids profiles available, and is a great way to increase the calorific content of many meals.

  • Learn more: All About Olive Oil, And: Is Extra-Virgin Worth It?

Lastly…

Be patient, enjoy your food, and stick as best you can to the above considerations. All strength to you.

Take care!

You May Have Missed…

• The Bare-bones Truth About Osteoporosis

• Vit D + Calcium: Can We Have Too Much Of A Good Thing?

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

The Smallest, Mightiest Hearing Aid on the Market

Say hello to Horizon by hear.com. This tiny German hearing aid is now taking the U.S. by storm.

Why? Partly because it’s tiny. Like James Bond-device tiny. Partly because it boasts the world’s first-ever dual processing system. And with double the power comes double the clarity.

In non-science-y talk, it just means you get maximum speech clarity with minimal background noise and, as a result, effortless conversation wherever you go.

If you like, you can also stream music, adjust settings via app, and enjoy ultra HD sound all day, every day.

Ready to join the 385k+ who can hear with crystal clarity thanks to hear.com?

Sign up for a 45-day no-risk trial to test drive the best-selling Horizon hearing aids.

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

Browse By Category

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Somatic Exercises For Nervous System Regulation: 35 Beginner to Intermediate Techniques To Reduce Anxiety & Tone Your Vagus Nerve In Under 10 Minutes A Day – by Rose Kilian

We've written before about the vagus nerve, its importance, and how to make use of it, but it's easy to let it slip from one's mind when it comes to exercises. This book fixes that!

The promised 35 exercises are quite a range, and are organized into sections:

• Revitalizing through breath

• Stress and tension release

• Spinal and postural health

• Mindfulness and grounding

• Movements for flexibility

• Graceful balance and focus

While it's not necessary to do all 35 exercises, it's recommended to do at least some from each section, to "cover one's bases", and enjoy the best of all worlds.

The exercises are drawn from many sources, but tai chi and yoga are certainly the most well-represented. Others, meanwhile, are straight from physiotherapy or are things one might expect to be advised at a neurology consultation.

Bottom line: if you'd like to take better care of your vagus nerve, the better for it to take care of you, this book can certainly help with that.

Click here to check out Somatic Exercises For Nervous System Regulation, and take care of yourself!

Wishing you a wonderfully restorative weekend,

The 10almonds Team