I need to gain some weight! Part 1 of 3
Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: I have a slight dilemma: we have been working toward a whole foods lifestyle and I have 12 Steps to Whole Foods. I have a supportive husband who is losing weight like me. I’m ecstatic, him not so much. He is 6 ft and 165 lbs and would love to be 175. He has been open to trying new things and scaling back on meat. He works as a County Attorney and is in court most days, which makes eating enough calories during lunch essential. Do you have any suggestions? How can I get more calories in him, in something that is portable? –Britni
Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: “I’m 34 and have always been super-skinny, but not because I want to be. I want to start lifting weights to put on some muscle, and I was wondering: how can I eat healthy and put on weight? – Rachel
Answer: So you know everyone ELSE who reads this blog hates you now, right? (Over 70% of America wants to be thinner.)
Believe it or not, I get this question often. (Most of the inquiries are about weight loss, of course, but it’s still an issue for some.) Rachel and Britni, when your body absorbs minerals appropriately, AND you are eating good nutrition, you tend to find your healthy weight, whether that’s up or down. Getting enough minerals isn’t always the problem—usually gut imbalances and degenerative problems are in the way of utilizing the minerals you DO eat.
I can’t prove it, but my observation from talking to thousands of people–and hundreds of underweight people—is that they are flip sides of the same coin. (I believe Dr. Robert O. Young also writes about this.) The same thing that makes some people too fat, makes other people too skinny.
You know what I’m talking about, because all of us know some thin people who eat tons of junk. “It’s not fair,” their friends say.
Of the 5-10% of Americans who are underweight, some of them aren’t actually underweight. Our weight charts have trended up, up, up in recent decades based on averages. Check out my report about that and Dr. McDougall’s weight charts HERE.
That page is the one that infuriates people on my site. Oh, and also this page—once I got a profanity-laced email from a lady who just flunked my nutrition quiz you can find HERE.
They find the low weights shocking. So I say, when people write in, hey, it’s not my weight chart. I’m not even promoting it. (My own weight is 7 lbs. over the “ideal” for my weight, in his chart, BTW.) It’s based on averages of indigenous peoples who eat only whole foods. There’s ONE purpose the U.S. weight chart serves, and that is to help us feel better about being overweight.
I put it that alternate weight chart up to show another perspective. To show that the weight charts currently being promoted are just based on averages of people who eat a processed diet, so don’t treat it like the Bible and bet the farm on it. They aren’t the averages themselves–they are set by bureaucrats, and INFLUENCED by averages. The original section of Fenway Park I visited last year? Most Americans wouldn’t even fit in the chairs. Back in the 40’s, virtually everyone did.
I wish we could mentally inoculate naturally thin people against this idea that there is something wrong with them. Men especially–they think they have to be bulked up, when some men are naturally lean. (I personally think super-lean men are ATTRACTIVE. Big, muscular guys are, too, but I think skinny is awesome. Do any of the women here want to agree with me?) Extreme thinness is the #1 factor associated with longevity. Skinny people live to be very old.
See what I’m doing here? I wish Britni’s husband would get stoked about being 165 lbs. I’m a huge fan of spending our energy learning to love our body, instead of spending that energy trying to change it. If we have a healthy body and we have healthy habits, that is. (It’s always good to change bad habits, adopt new ones.
Posted in: 12 Steps To Whole Food, Green Smoothies, Healthy Weight, Whole Food
