How To Gain Weight (Healthily!)
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What Do You Have To Gain?
We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:
- Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
- Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)
- 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:
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.
Lastly…
Be patient, enjoy your food, and stick as best you can to the above considerations. All strength to you.
Take care!
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Why We Sleep – by Dr Matthew Walker
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- We all know sleep is important.
- We all know that without it, we’ll suffer rapid cognitive decline.
- We all know approximately what we’re supposed to do to get good sleep.
So what does this book bring to the table? Mostly, deep understanding (written from the perspective of a career in sleep science) presented in such a way as to be applicable, by you, in your life. Stop sabotaging yourself before you even get out of your bed in the morning!
Hustle culture champions early mornings and late nights, and either or both of those might be difficult to avoid. But to make what you’re doing sustainable, you’re going to have to make some informed decisions about looking after your #1 asset—you!
Dr. Walker writes in a clear and accessible fashion, without skimping on the hard science, and always with practical application in mind. All in all, we can’t recommend this one enough.
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When Bad Joints Stop You From Exercising (5 Things To Change)
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The first trick to exercising with bad joints is to have better joints.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can take a supplement and magically your joint problems will be cured, but there are adjustable lifestyle factors that can and will make things relatively better or worse.
We say “and will”, because you don’t get a choice in that part. Everything we do, every little choice in our day, makes our health a little better or a little worse in some aspect(s). But we do get a choice between “relatively better” and “relatively worse”.
With that in mind, do check out:
- Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis
- Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis
- How To Really Look After Your Joints
Ok, you have bad joints though; what next?
Let’s assume you’re doing your best with the above, and/or have simply decided not to, which is your call. You know your circumstances best. Either way, your joints are still not in sufficiently good condition to be able to exercise the way you’d like.
First, the obvious: enjoy low-impact exercises
For example:
- Swimming
- Yoga (much more appropriate here than the commonly-paired “and tai chi”)*
- Isometric exercises (i.e. exercise without movement, e.g. squeezing things, or stationary stability exercises)
*This is not to say that tai chi is bad. But if your problem is specifically your knees, there are many movements in most forms of tai chi that require putting the majority of one’s weight on one bent leg, which means the knee of that leg is going to suffer. If your knees are fine, then this won’t be an issue and it will simply continue strengthening your knees without discomfort. But they have to be fine first.
See also: Exercising With Osteoporosis
Second: support your joints through a full range of motion
If you have bad joints, you probably know that there’s an unfortunate paradox whereby you get to choose between:
- Exercise, and inflame your joints
- Rest, and your joints seize up
This is the way to get around that damaging dilemma.
Moving your joints through a full range of motion regularly is critical for their maintenance, so do that in a way that isn’t straining them:
If it’s your shoulders, for example, you can do (slow, gentle!) backstroke or front-crawl or butterfly motions while standing in the comfort of your living room.
If it’s your knees, then supported squats can do you a world of good. That means, squat in front of a table or other stable object, with your fingertips (or as much of your hands as you need) on it, to take a portion of your weight (it can be a large portion; that’s fine too!) while you go through the full range of motion of the squat. Repeat.
And so forth for other joints.
See also: The Most Underrated Hip Mobility Exercise (Not Stretching)
Third: work up slowly, and stop early
You can do exercises that involve impact, and if you live a fairly normal life, you’ll probably have to (walking is an impact exercise). You can also enjoy cycling (low-impact, but not so low-impact as we discussed in the last section) and work up to running if you want to.
However…
While building up your joints’ mobility and strength, it is generally a good idea to stop before you think you need to.
This means that it’s important to do those exercises in a way that you can stop early. For example, an exercise bike or a treadmill can be a lot of use here, so that you don’t find you need to stop for the day while miles from your house.
If you get such a device, it doesn’t even have to be fancy and/or expensive. This writer got herself an inexpensive exercise bike like this one, and it’s perfectly adequate.
Fourth: prioritize recovery, even if it doesn’t feel like you need it
Everyone should do this anyway, but if your joints are bad, it goes double:
Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise (According To Actual Science)
Fifth: get professional help
Physiotherapists are great for this. Find one, and take their advice for your specific body and your specific circumstances and goals.
Take care!
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The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
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There’s a lot more to breast cancer care than “check your breasts regularly”. Because… And then what? “Go see a doctor” obviously, but it’s a scary prospect with a lot of unknowns.
Dr. Simmons demystifies these unknowns, from both her position as an oncologist (and breast surgeon) and also her position as a breast cancer survivor herself.
What she found, upon getting to experience the patient side of things, was that the system is broken in ways she’d never considered before as a doctor.
This book is the product of the things she’s learned both within her field, and elsewhere because of realizing the former’s areas of shortcoming.
She gives a step-by-step guide, from diagnosis onwards, advising taking as much as possible into one’s own hands—especially in the categories of information and action. She also explains the things that make the biggest difference to cancer outcomes when it comes to eating, sleeping, and so forth, the best attitude to have to be neither despairing and giving up, nor overconfident and complacent.
She does also talk complementary therapies, be they supplements or more out-of-the-box approaches and the evidence for them where applicable, as well as doing some high-quality mythbusting about more prescription-based considerations such as HRT.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one have a breast cancer diagnosis, or you just prefer knowing this sort of thing than not, then this book is a top-tier “insider’s guide”.
Click here to check out the Smart Woman’s Guide To Breast Cancer, and take control!
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Tips for Avoiding PFAs
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Hi, do you have anything helpful on avoiding PFAs?❞
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are “forever chemicals” made specifically to avoid degradation of industrial and chemical products. Which is great for providing stain and water resistance, but not so great for our bodies or the environment.
To go into all the harms they cause would take a main feature (maybe we will, one of these days), but suffice it to say, they’re not good, and range from cancer and insulin resistance to hypertension and reduced immune response.
To answer your question in a nutshell, avoiding them completely would be almost impossible, but we can reduce our exposure a lot by avoiding single-use food/drink products that have been waterproofed, e.g. paper/bamboo straws, utensils, cups, dishes, take-out containers, etc.
Also, anything advertised as “stain-resistant” that you suspect should be quite stainable by nature, is probably good to avoid too.
For more detailed information than we have room for here today, here’s a helpful overview:
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Fiber Fueled – by Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
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We generally know that for gut health we should eat fiber, but what of the balances of different sorts of fiber?
That’s one of the main things that make this book stand out—fostering diversity in our microbiome by fostering diversity in our diet. Specifically, diversity of fiber-containing foods.
The book is part “science made easy for the lay reader”, and part recipe book. The recipes come with shopping lists and a meal planner, though we would recommend to use those as a guide rather than to try to adhere perfectly to them.
In particular, this reviewer would encourage much more generous use of healthful seasonings… and less reliance on there being leftovers several days later (tasty food gets gone quickly in this house!)
As for the science, the feel of this is more like reading a science-based observational documentary with explanations, than of reading a science textbook. Studies are mentioned in passing, but not dissected in any detail, and the focus is more on getting the key learnings across.
Bottom line: if you’d like to boost not just the amount, but also the diversity, of fiber in your diet, and reap the gut-health rewards, this book is a great guide for that!
Click here to get your copy of “Fiber Fueled” from Amazon today!
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Bell Pepper vs Sweetcorn – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing bell pepper to sweetcorn, we picked the corn.
Why?
If you’re thinking “but wait, which color bell pepper, don’t they have different nutritional properties?” then firstly, well-remembered, and secondly, it doesn’t matter in this case. The main things that it affects are vitamins A and C and various polyphenols, and even the weakest bell pepper for them wins on both of those vitamins (while the strongest bell peppers for them still lose on vitamins in total) and even the strongest bell pepper for them loses on polyphenols, so the results go the same with any color.
In terms of macros, the corn has more carbs, protein, and fiber; however, both are low in glycemic index, so we’ll go with the “more food per food” option, the corn.
In the category of vitamins, even green bell peppers (the least well-endowed) have more of vitamins A, B6, C, E, and K, while sweetcorn has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, and choline, compared to even yellow or red bell peppers (which are the best peppers for vitamins). So, a moderate win for the corn.
When it comes to minerals, bell peppers have more calcium and copper, while sweetcorn has more iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. An easy win for sweetcorn.
In short, enjoy both, but the corn is the overall winner today!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It! ← green bell peppers are a good source of lutein, as is sweetcorn
- A Spectrum Of Specialties: Which Bell Peppers To Pick?
Take care!
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